AMRAE steps up focus on increased HR risks

The latest effort of the Association pour le Management des Risques et des Assurances de l’Entreprise (AMRAE) in this direction has been the publication of a technical paper in which the subject is analysed by risk managers who already work with human resource risks.

The theme has gained importance in France in recent years, as cases of work-related suicides by employees of large companies have received wide attention from the media.

But it was also lifted to the top of the agenda of many risk managers due to current changes that French companies are going through.

“French risk managers were not as focused on issues related to human resources because the French state, via Securité Sociale, has always taken responsibility for lots of things related to workers’ compensation, health and life, long and short-term disability insurance,” said Frédéric Lucas, a member of AMRAE’s management board. “But now there is a growing sensitivity to those risks and to the fact that people are an important capital, maybe the most important, for companies.”

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The growing internationalisation of large companies has also increased the importance of managing human resources in countries where labour law, social security networks and health systems vary widely. As convenient as it would be for risk managers and human resources directors to be able to devise a single formula to apply to their firms’ worldwide operations, it is always necessary to adapt policies to local conditions, the experts say.

Sometimes this is the case even in countries within the European Union, as in some of them workers benefit from a considerably lower protection network than their French peers. “Belgium and Germany are two important examples,” said Marie-Noelle Arrigault, one of the authors of the paper and the Risk Manager for Financial Risks and Personal Insurance at Alcatel-Lucent. “We tend to think that there is social security everywhere in Europe, but that is not true.”

The situation often becomes more complicated as economic opportunities are found in the emerging world, where French companies are getting more involved by the day. In those markets, not only health and other benefits need often to be provided entirely by the employers, but challenges typical of fast-growing economies are popping up too. “The risk of losing talent is much bigger in the BRIC countries than in France today due to higher employee turnover in such countries,” said Mr Lucas, who is also Global Real Estate, Risk & Insurance Manager at multinational media giant Publicis.

AMRAE has strived to promote cooperation among risk managers and heads of human resources in order to face such challenges. The association argues that risk managers can provide much help to their HR colleagues by employing tools like risk cartographies to highlight the areas where action is needed, and also to use their insurance expertise to better transfer the relevant risks. “HR directors don’t always have the ears of the CEO,” said Philippe Hellich, the Vice-President of Risks, Controls and Audit at Danone. “We can work together to increase awareness on HR risks.”

In mid-December, the technical paper was presented to the French media in a meeting at AMRAE’s new headquarters in central Paris. The document, which is titled Risk Management et Ressources Humaines: Pourquoi et comment mieux travailler ensemble?, can be ordered on the association’s website at http://www.amrae.fr/amrae/publications.html.