Why Nicolas Sarkozy and Unilever’s Guy-Joel de Lhoneux suddenly have Britons and Americans brushing up on their Français. Here comes France to join the ranks of supporters in the HRO movement.

by Jay Whitehead

When I opened the online program for the HRO World Europe 2007 conference—being held November 28 and 29 in Brussels—I got a big smile on my face for two reasons. The first was that I didn’t have to speak at the event for the first time since its founding four years ago. Finally, I can go and simply drink in the marvelous content put together by our friends at SharedXpertise and HROA Europe.

And the second was that I saw the name of Guy-Joel de Lhoneux, VP HR Global Relationship Manager at Unilever, on the program as a co-chairman.
For those of you who have met Guy-Joel, you know him to be a rigorously analytical yet enthusiastic believer in the benefits of HRO. After all, he was the person who steered Unilever through the arduous year-long sourcing process with its advisors at EquaTerra. But ironically, the most important feature Guy-Joel may be bringing to the HRO universe is not his gigantic contract; it’s his Francophone surname.

To date, our French-speaking friends from France, Walloon Belgium, and Switzerland have been notably under-represented at the HRO World Europe conclave. For sure, Paris-based Philippe Gluntz of ADP Europe served ably as the inaugural chair of the HROA Europe as a major provider of services. But Guy-Joel is a horse of a different color. He is a customer, a buyer, a practitioner. This is big stuff. It takes real guts to be a pioneer. And as a vrai Francais (I’m a French citizen), I really appreciate this, since at least in France, there is a cultural aversion to being the “tallest nail that must be pounded down.”

(Example: There was a famous behavioral study done comparing French mothers to American mothers with kids at the playground. The American mother would tell her kids to “go play.” When her child would inevitably fall down and come back crying, the American mom would brush the kid off and say “get back out there,” slap her warmly on the rear, and send her back to the playground.

The French mother, before play begins, would issue to her offspring a stern safety warning. Then when her child came back bawling, the French mom would ground her kid, refusing to let her return to the scene of the accident. Conclusion: From a young age, Americans are taught to embrace the risks that the French shun.)

At one time, Guy-Joel and the whole crowd at Unilever and its provider Accenture HR Services were to be admired for their pioneering effort, although the contract came considerably after Unilever’s rival P&G had announced a similar initiative with IBM. At the same time, I’m sure de Lhoneux and Unilever understand that as pioneers among global giants, they are being watched like a hawk. Americans are looking for success lessons. And my French countrymen are looking for signs of failure.

Of course, I’m making these sweeping cultural generalizations knowing full well that it’s likely that Guy-Joel’s family is Walloon Belgian rather than French, since the village of Lhoneux is close to Liege, just east of Brussels. But I’m making the generalization to make a point that with pioneers such as Guy-Joel and new French President Nicolas Sarkozy (“Sarko l’Americain” in the Parisian press), who is pushing American-style market innovations, we are bound to see more Francophone companies transforming their back-office operations with HRO-style contracts.

And just as French eyes are now on America once again, so are American eyes on France. Sarkozy’s American summer vacation captured attention in the Yankee press. And the youthful-looking Sarkozy’s recent high-profile divorce made him seem nearly Californian (where almost 60 percent of marriages eventually end up kaput).

That HRO now has a Francophone champion is a sign that miracles do happen. Maybe that means that the HRO world can finally think about expanding this list of miracles to include innovations like guaranteed promotion for HR leaders who go HRO.