The image of a veiled Concentrix teleconsultant has set Chalon-sur-Saône abuzz

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In Chalon-sur-Saône, the world's No. 2 call centre and customer experience company, Concentrix, used an image of a teleconsultant wearing a headscarf for a recruitment campaign and had to backtrack after numerous protests.

After Vitré and Compiègne, Concentrix's management team in France is going through a sensitive period in terms of communications and employee experience: salaries, NAO, the probable existence of psycho-social risks, a strike by a few employees widely reported, it's a festival of employment law and image rights in which the centre managers are obliged to take part. 

Out of process, even illegal.  
In Chalon-sur-Saône, Concentrix, which runs a call-centre* there, used an image of a veiled teleconsultant in a recruitment campaign, without the agreement of the CMA (Chambre de Métiers et de l'artisanat) and apparently in contravention of the rules governing billposting in the town.  Gilles Platret, the town's mayor (LR), was approached by residents and had the billboard removed by JC Decaux, the company contracted by the town. The Bourgogne Franche-Comté Chamber of Trades and Crafts, which works with Concentrix (formerly Webhelp) on work-linked training schemes, reacted, as did the Concentrix site manager, Anaïs Jucquois. She explained that the photo used was part of their image bank and reflects the diversity of profiles employed in the contact centres of the group, formerly known as Webhelp. 

‘It's a disgrace'
On Thursday 3 April, Gilles Platret denounced the presence of a veiled woman on an advertising poster in the streets of Chalon-sur-Saône. The mayor (LR) accused the poster of ‘glorifying the veil’ and had it removed. The Bourgogne Franche-Comté Chamber of Trades and Crafts and Concentrix, whose logos appear on the poster, have reacted. The visual in question is an advertisement promoting training courses in the banking and insurance sector. It shows a smiling woman with a veil over her head and upper body.

The mayor was ‘alerted by the people of Chalonnais to the presence’ of a poster in the Citadelle district. He described it as follows: ‘A poster promoting vocational training, but also the veil, the symbol par excellence of Islamist confinement of women’.

The elected representative added that he had instructed JC Decaux, the company providing the billboards, to ‘immediately remove this advertisement wherever it is found’. The Republican representative cited the contract between the town and the company concerned, which stipulates that ‘no advertising of a political or religious nature may appear on these panels’.

Gilles Platret took direct aim at the Burgundy Franche-Comté Chamber of Trades and Crafts (CMA), whose logo appears in the top left-hand corner of the poster: ‘I very much regret that the Burgundy Franche-Comté Chamber of Trades and Crafts, in a bid to attract students, is soliciting business on Islamist territory. It's a disgrace, and I sincerely hope that the craftspeople of our region will let their consular authorities know what they think.’

The Bourgogne Franche-Comté Chamber of Trades and Crafts (CMA) reacted swiftly, stating that its logo had been used by Concentrix without its authorisation. Caroline Llinares, the CMA's regional communications manager, explains: ‘The only link we have with Concentrix is that it is the employer of some of the apprentices in our centres. That's as far as it goes. We are in the process of discussing the matter with the company's management before considering any further action.

The variety of messages and comments on Facebook, and sometimes their spelling, indicate that the subject is a passionate one and deserves a good, dispassionate debate. Excerpt from the article:

Florian Jouvenceau
Calm down! It's still Paul who's recruiting! It's a drama that I think resonates a bit strongly. Communication in this day and age has no room for error. There's a Frenchman missing next to this lady and we wouldn't have said a word. Don't worry, there's no religious motivation behind this advert. It's just a veiled woman. Unfortunately, wearing a veil is frowned upon for many reasons.

However, let's not get everything mixed up, this is a society that allows many people to have a career or even just a living wage. In this case, it's a question of work experience for our young people, of all ethnicities.

Here we are, back in the heyday when Oliviero Toscani's visuals for Benetton campaigns sparked off ... heated exchanges.

As a reminder, the use of a visual of a veiled woman also caused uproar in Nantes in February 2022, in a poster campaign. At the time, the town hall withdrew the visuals criticised, pleading internal error. In 2018, Gap was also heavily criticised for the same reasons. In the Meuse recently, the same debates took place. 

Anaïs Jucquois, Director of the Chalonnais site, points out that the poster is part of a communication campaign.
The aim is to promote the school's BTS and Bachelor's in Insurance programme, ‘a course that enables young people in the region to gain professional qualifications up to baccalaureate + 3 while remaining in the region, without having to move’. ‘Under no circumstances was our intention to offend local residents. We therefore respect the Mayor's decision and take note of the decision to remove the posters from the town’, she added.

NB: The visual in question is one of the images in the image bank owned by Concentrix, which employs more than 5,000 people in France and more than 350,000 worldwide. 

A hot fortnight for Concentrix, in Etrelles (Vitré) and Lacroix-Saint-Ouen (Compiègne)
It's been a busy fortnight for Concentrix's general management in France and some of its call centre managers: in Vitré and Compiègne, contact centre managers - often major employers in the town - have already made the headlines, either through strikes or rulings against them. Read more here. 

For those looking for work.
Teleperformance is reducing its workforce in France, but Concentrix is not, and the company is recruiting. The jobs are here and there's something for everyone.

*Concentrix operates two contact centres in the Saône et Loire region: in Montceau-les-Mines and in Fragnes-la-Loyère on the outskirts of Chalon-sur-Saône.

En-Contact editorial team.

Sources: FR3 and various.