1. Context
The Tech Factory of the L’Oréal group – in constant search of innovative digital solutions as part of their deployment strategy in the beauty tech industry – is facing a strong workload with many new digital projects to develop throughout the year.
2. Problematics
Overcoming the global shortage of tech talent by relying on the expertise of freelancers, while also setting the groundwork for sustainable success with blended teams of employees and freelancers.
3. Objective
Support the L’Oréal group, and in particular the Tech Factory, in their recruitment of tech talent – the best experts who are skilled, operational and suited to the needs and challenges of each project.
Laurent Carrie is head of the Tech Factory at L’Oréal – a unit that is being developed within the organization’s global IT department. Its main mission is to deploy technological platforms and solutions for all of L’Oréal’s digital projects, with the goal of advancing the group’s beauty tech strategy. In short: the Tech Factory is the intersection of creativity and innovation at L’Oréal.
Create, revolutionize, solve, invent and reinvent…the driving forces behind the company’s efforts to reach their big digital ambitions, with the help of expert freelancers.
We sat down with Laurent to hear his thoughts on what great collaboration with freelancers looks like in the world of tech.
Hello Laurent! Could you present the key challenges you face today as Head of Tech Factory at L’Oréal?
Firstly: a shortage of skilled experts! We are indeed facing major difficulties in finding the right talent at the right time. This is a key issue for us, notably when trying to address our second challenge – delivering successful projects in a world that’s accelerating every day.
Third, there’s a clear challenge in adapting to the new hybrid work model. Today, our teams must be trained in how to work with new Agile and Devops work methods.
When it comes to recruiting talent, what are the challenges you need to overcome?
As I mentioned, there is a real shortage of talent on the market today – and that’s a reality not only in France but also across Europe and globally. Being an international group, L’Oréal is well aware of this challenge. We face the same difficulties in France as we do abroad.
Simply put: We have a really hard time finding the right talent – whether they are a permanent contract or freelancer.
There’s pressure on all types of recruitment in the tech market, and especially on certain areas of expertise around Cloud, Devops or the field of data science for example.
What strategy have you put in place to meet your recruitment needs?
Within L’Oréal, we have established a range of recruitment strategies to attract permanent employees, as well as freelancers. We feel there’s an important place for freelancers, and a need to structure ourselves to offer interesting projects to external experts.
We have set up a long-term strategy that helps us plan ahead and maintain relationships with our main partners and providers. This has included creating a pool of expert partners who are able to meet our needs and support us in our vision.
How long have you been relying on freelancers? And in what contexts?
We’ve been working with freelancers for a few years now, but reasons behind why we call on them have shifted a lot. With the emergence of marketplaces like Malt, where we can connect with the right freelancers, the recruitment process has sped up significantly. It has enabled us to be much more responsive.
Most of the time, we look to freelancers when we need to quickly build a team for a specific strategic project. However, we may also work with freelancers when we require specialized expertise on short-term projects!
In your view, what do freelancers bring to the table?
First of all, freelancers bring skills that we’re lacking internally on a given project or technology. They also bring an external and fresh perspective on our internal issues and client needs.
We regularly see freelancers leverage their previous experiences to offer insightful and innovative solutions to our teams.
Could you share how things generally unfold for you between the search for a freelancer and the start of a given project?
There’s usually a few weeks between the identification of a specific need and the arrival of a freelancer. Most of the time, the hardest part of this process is to clearly formulate our needs in order to make the recruitment go smoothly. When the need is clear, we can generally find a freelancer very quickly through marketplaces like Malt.
The project starts a few days after we find the freelancer, to leave time for internal processes and handover requirements to be completed.
Overall, we’re now able to find the right profiles very quickly, and the time between the search for a freelancer and the start of a project is 4 or 5 times shorter than it used to be.
What are your strategies to attract and retain top freelancers?
To attract and retain top freelancers we call on marketplaces like Malt to provide us with access to a ‘pool’ of expert tech profiles who can regularly respond to our needs and challenges.
We are also very careful with the projects we advertise – as we want to maximize the added value for both the freelancer and for L’Oréal. Both parties must win in this collaboration.
Today we hear a lot about “mixed” or “blended” teams combining external talent with employees… What do you think of this new work order?
It’s true that integrating freelancers within a team (that can be composed of multiple groups of people) requires developing new ways of working. Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of remote work have also pushed us to adapt the way we organize ourselves.
I think that there is a real cultural shift to undergo… But above all, the most important task is to clearly define everyone’s role.
By applying Agile methods (well-defined backlogs, sprints, etc…), I believe that integrating freelancers into teams can be done very naturally.
Do you have an example to share with us of a successful project at L’Oréal that was conducted by a “blended” team?
Recently, we’ve had a perfect example of the collaborative work that can be accomplished with a freelancer, and the added value of their work: we called on a mobile expert, through Malt, for a mobile development project.
This specific assignment, which was done in a really collaborative way with the internal teams, enabled us to deliver the project in just a few weeks. Previously, we would never have been able to deliver this work in such a short time since we lacked the necessary skills in-house!
What do you think are the key components of a successful collaboration between freelancers and employees?
For a project to go well, and for the collaboration between the employees and the freelancers to be effective, I think the most important component is to speak the same “language.”
The principles behind the Agile and Devops methods are extremely valuable as they allow teams and freelancers to have the same work rituals and processes – like sprints, backlogs, standup meetings…These methods enable us to quickly integrate external experts who are not part of the L’Oréal group.
It means freelancers quickly feel part of the team since they are aware of the cues and rituals that are used internally.
How does working with a partner like Malt help facilitate your work with freelancers?
A marketplace like Malt, which offers a wide pool of skillful freelancers, enables us to be much more effective and agile.
A large group like L’Oréal always has many projects going on…we have many different needs all the time. Those needs vary depending on what is happening at the global level or at the level of individual departments and sub-teams.
It is thus essential for us to be able to react quickly. It allows us to quickly find the right experts, but also to integrate them more easily to our purchasing and procurement processes.
What are the three main advantages of using the Malt marketplace?
The first advantage is quite clearly to have access, through Malt’s marketplace, to a wide range of skilled freelancers!
The second advantage is being able to benefit from personalized support during the search and selection stages, to find the very best expert for a specific project.
Finally, we also sense that freelancers are themselves supported by Malt to successfully complete their projects – which makes them operational much more rapidly.
What is your vision for the future when it comes to the way freelancers and companies collaborate?
I think that more and more companies will rely on the rapidly expanding freelance talent pool…precisely because it offers increased agility and speed!
It’s clear that it also comes with challenges, as we have seen…However it’s a a clear strategy to respond to the shortage of talent that top firms are now facing.
In the future, how can we improve the collaboration between freelancers and companies?
Within my teams, we predominantly focus on the onboarding period, which needs to be further developed to better collaborate with freelancers. It’s a key period (notably with remote working) to enable the freelancer to become operational quicker and to get up and running on the project.
I also think, as I told you earlier, that it’s essential to work on communicating the culture of the organization, with all of the fundamental rituals and cues that come along with the way we work. That’s to say, working with Agile and Devops methods that are widely adopted around the world of tech. It’s clear that by sharing the same “language” freelancers are able to better integrate into a team.
It is a challenge that we are very committed to within the L’Oréal community, and I hope that things are going to change for the better on this in the future.
What is your next challenge?
Regarding the collaboration with freelancers, the next challenge I am thinking of is without a doubt: diversity!
We would like to be able to recruit from a much more diverse range of experts; to be able to draw from a much more inclusive pool of talent. To put it differently: women and non-white people are unfortunately less represented in tech…!
