The last time Interface Magazine spoke to Carrefour – one of France’s leading retail and wholesale corporations – Zoe Bordelon was handling communication for the tech teams. This means, she was the person shedding light on everything the business does on the tech side. But soon after this, she decided she wanted a change. This led her to evolve into the HR family, her first role in that area being in HR transformation. This was a move that would shape her career in a new direction, and led to her having her first experience in the learning side of what Carrefour does.
“At that time – in 2022-2023 – we didn’t have any group or global team in L&D,” Bordelon explains. “So within our team and HR transformation, we had this huge opportunity and challenge to train our employees, worldwide, to digital. By the end of 2026, we should be training 100% of our workforce to digital.
“In 2022, we launched a huge training program called ‘Tous Digital’, which translates to ‘All Digital’, in France, Italy, and Spain. We really had this huge momentum for it. And basically, within two weeks, we had 60,000 employees that were trained to digital. This involved very immersive training in short 15 and 30-minute sessions. It was my first experience on the learning side, and I loved it.”
Aligning the roadmaps
Bordelon enjoyed being able to do something for the employees that not only allows them to learn, but is fun for them too. By the end of 2023, she fully switched over to the newly-formed L&D group team. This team develops training at the group level, and they trickle down to the local L&D teams within each country.
“Local countries have their own roadmaps, but we’re all ultimately working towards a common roadmap at a group level,” Bordelon explains. “That common roadmap includes more strategic learning, strategic subjects, and better communication. We work closely with the different countries to make sure we’re all aligned for the group roadmap, while also supporting them in delivering our initiatives to employees.”
The challenges of cross-communication
Introducing a method that would bridge the linguistic divide required forethought and planning. Carrefour recognised for years that it operated in countries with limited cross-communication. A shared language enables smoother collaboration and stronger connections across borders.
“This wasn’t just important for Carrefour HQ, but for our stores,” says Bordelon. “In tourist areas, like Paris or the south of France, speaking multiple languages would improve communication, allowing our employees to better assist and connect with customers from around the world. We needed to give our team a way to learn languages and improve their communication.”
It became clear that the way to improve communication was through a partnership with a language-learning app. The first step was to make sure this was something all of the countries Carrefour operates in actually needed. The second step was finding a solution that would suit everyone’s needs. This was the first major project for the group L&D team at Carrefour, which made tackling it very exciting, if somewhat complicated.
