L’Oréal Canada is the first company in Canada to be certified with the EDGE (Economic Dividends for Gender Equality) global standard for workplace gender equality. The EDGE assessment is the leading business certification for gender equality in the workplace that is universally applicable across industries and countries.

Furthermore, L’Oréal Canada is the first subsidiary of the L’Oréal Group to have attained the EDGE “MOVE” level of certification.

As the global leader in beauty, L’Oréal has a strong commitment to gender equality.  It is part of company’s Diversity strategy and another step in ensuring that L’Oréal is a great place to work for everyone.

Over the past several months, L’Oréal Canada has been participating in EDGE’s certification process, which includes a comprehensive review of the company’s gender policies and practices and a deep analysis of gender data across the entire Canadian workforce of 1,200 employees. As part of the evaluation, L’Oréal surveyed more than 700 employees on gender equality, as it pertains to recruitment and promotion, leadership training and mentorship, flexible work, company culture and equal pay for equivalent work.

“Diversity and equality has always been at the heart of L’Oréal Canada’s values. We strongly believe that diversity is a source of innovation and creativity,” – says Marjolaine Rompré, Director of Learning & Diversity. “We are extremely proud of having attained the “MOVE” level of certification and are committed to implementing innovative solutions to further develop gender equality”.

Since its launch at the World Economic Forum in January 2011, more than 100 companies in 30 countries and 17 industries use the EDGE assessment methodology and certification process to create an optimal balanced workplace for men and women. The methodology and standard enables a company to accurately assess how it performs both at a country and a global level.  The EDGE Certification was granted to L’Oréal Canada after an independent verification of the findings by a third-party auditor.

“EDGE is a robust, tested and implemented tool which calibrates progress, confirms success and proposes a customised action plan for companies to explore. By receiving the EDGE Move Certification, L’Oréal Canada shows a gender-balanced structure across the different levels of responsibility. L’Oréal Canada’s framework of policies and practices in the areas of equal pay for equivalent work, recruitment and promotion, leadership development and training and mentoring has been favourably put into effect.  In fact, both men and women employees positively rate L’Oréal Canada as an inclusive and progressive workplace”, says Aniela Unguresan, co-founder of EDGE Certified Foundation.

As a result of the certification, L’Oréal Canada created a customized roadmap towards continued progress in gender equality, which includes a broader adoption of flexible work arrangements and taking the gender dimension into consideration in its succession planning for some key leadership positions.