People at the heart of relationships
SHERBET: a positive and generous attitude
To be part of the ÏDKIDS community you need to start with the right attitude. We like to call it SHERBET. This positive, generous outlook embodies social skills and good manners, focusing on the personal aspect of any new relationship. Because the sincerity and quality of any relationship – between employees and with customers, suppliers and partners – depends on displaying this attitude. This is so important to the ÏDKIDS community that SHERBET has become its watchword.
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Smile
It all begins with a smile.
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Hello
Sharing a friendly word of welcome.
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Eye contact
Working to build trust.
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Respect
An outstretched hand and a sign of goodwill
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Bye
A sincere desire to meet again.
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Enfant
The French word for "child" and our reason for being.
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Thank you
A simple gesture and a sign of gratitude.
CARE - TRUST - LIBERATE: the basic principles of our management culture
These three words sum up the management culture of the ÏDKIDS community.It’s a culture that focuses on people, favouring a progressive management style and human resources practices.
Taking care of others and forming bonds by putting people at the heart of society
This means being kind to everyone and caring deeply about integration and the quality of interpersonal relationships.
KINDNESS
Caring is ultimately about paying attention and being available and open so that people find their work fulfilling every day. It also means promoting a better work/life balance so that people are free to take part in projects that mean something to them, whether at work, home or both.
ORIENTATION
The aim is to create the right conditions for employees to find their place within the organization and work towards a common goal. On joining the ÏDKIDS community, new employees are mentored by a more experienced person who is purposefully from a different field. As well as passing on knowledge and advice, mentors outline the codes and practices that underpin the group’s corporate culture. The process ends with an orientation day during which:
- Managers explain the group’s activities and objectives.
- The founders talk about the group’s meaning and history.
- Operational managers outline the platform for each brand.
The orientation day immerses new employees in the organization’s culture. Training courses then complete the process.
Relationships
Once the foundations for building relationships and encouraging collaboration have been laid, each employee’s responsibilities are set out in a daisy model, with:
- The employee’s role in the centre.
- All the employees they should connect with on the petals. It shows what the employee should bring to each relationship and what they can expect in return.
Regular and repeated contacts or “habits and patterns” foster good relations and set the tempo for each one to move forward towards a shared goal.
Group meetings are held to share information, discuss the community’s progress and build relationships.
Ultimately, it is about taking care of the community. This means acting responsibly to encourage respect for the common good and a harmonious society.
Contributing to progress and self-fulfilment as a group
In concrete terms, trust is about managers committing to a caring approach and high standards every day. It means allowing employees to chart their own course and contribute to a shared goal. This trust requires some important tools: 
Effective feedback
The AAI and MAI represent best practice in terms of employee interaction and feedback, i.e.:
- The AAI (Annual Appraisal Interview) is a clear and realistic look at employees’ achievements, professionalism and results in relation to their role and objectives within the ÏDKIDS community.
- The MAI (Monthly Appraisal Interview) is a regular support tool to aid employees with their professional development and responsibilities and so help improve their performance within the organization and the wider community.
Skills building
Another way to gain trust is to care about employees’ professional development and employability, both in terms of their current and future activities within the ÏDKIDS community. With this in mind, the ÏDKIDS community has set up a series of talent reviews. These help employees to align their individual goals with the company’s need to meet objectives and the tools available to turn trust into action. Once a year, a talent committee meets to assess how aptitudes can be matched with goals, whether these are personal or shared.
Talent development
To help employees dig deep and give the best of themselves, the company relies on:
Local human resources teams
The HR partners we introduced in 2014 demonstrate our desire to offer maximum support to our managers and employees working in the field. These mobile HR teams also design bespoke training courses and monitor transfer opportunities.
ÏDSCHOOL, in-house continuing professional education
The aim of the school is to help individuals develop their talents in their field, whether they need training on how to relate to children in-store, project management, assertive communication techniques or management skills. ÏDSHOOL is constantly reinventing itself to be more agile, responsive and innovative from a tools and education perspective.
Management programme
Immediately after their orientation training, managers take part in a six-module programme on assimilating the corporate culture and discovering, strengthening and harnessing interpersonal and situational skills to promote fulfilling and value-creating relationships. These modules are mainly based on role-play teaching methods. They use an innovative approach that relies on experimenting and experiencing to raise awareness. This approach means trainee managers can benefit from a learning environment that permits failure, teaching them to grow both through success and dealing with problems. The six modules are based on three key areas. For each, there is a career basics module and a development module.
- First key area: understand the values of We Act For Kids to successfully embody and communicate them.
- Second key area: understand the factors involved in employee responsibility and autonomy to create the perfect working conditions for collaboration/inclusiveness.
- Third key area: be an outstanding HR manager who knows how to develop their employees’ talents and complementary skills.
Custom-designed with our partners, these training programmes facilitate a genuine and influential management style that respects the HESSERBraC charter.
ÏDSCHOOL training 2016 in figures:
LIBERATE ENERGY
TO PROMOTE CREATIVITY AND INDEPENDENCE
TO PROMOTE CREATIVITY AND INDEPENDENCE
In light of the enormous changes sweeping the world, we must be bold enough to turn constraints into opportunities and obstacles into creativity. To foster the optimistic vision held by the ÏDKIDS community, the company promotes new, more inclusive management methods, advocates intrapreneurship and a startup mentality, and encourages its managers to adopt a coaching attitude.
Promoting agile and inclusive management
In order to make our entities more agile and open, we are developing and promoting a flatter organizational structure, less hierarchical and more spontaneous, that facilitates greater and more frequent networking. Bonding and sharing know-how and experiences is vital, as are interpersonal skills and passing on knowledge.
Encouraging intrapreneurship
Intrapreneurs are employees who do their job as if they were running their own business. Our vocation is to make all employees feel responsible for their role, encourage them to take the initiative and risks, and allow them to make mistakes.
Helping startups grow
Liberating energy also means helping startups grow in conjunction with existing organizations. These small, agile companies can shake up organizations that have become dull and complacent.
The ÏDKIDS community and ConsoBaby have joined forces to develop a body of involved and responsible parents.
The ÏDKIDS community and ConsoBaby are both keen to make progress on CSR initiatives around early childhood and parenting, and their offering and business practices complement each other. ConsoBaby is a service brand that provides:
- A digital guide for buying products and services.
- A price comparison and product testing platform.
- The largest consumer benchmarking system for babycare.
ConsoBaby brings digital experience and expertise in managing a community of over 450,000 consumers and parents to the ÏDKIDS community.
Manager-coach
By matching individual traits to tasks and responsibilities and by asking the right questions we encourage adapting to change, taking initiative and focusing on solutions rather than problems. Manager-coaches support employees by being available and being active listeners. They form teams with complementary skills to increase the effectiveness of teamwork. They give feedback on strengths and weaknesses to help employees grow and develop within a group environment. To further develop this management style and attitude, we make emotional and situational intelligence a key component of our training courses and pre-and post-recruitment phases.
