France Fermetures on the way to a new proximity management

Sylvain Roncari

Improving France Fermetures' performance through a better circulation of information

France Fermetures makes section garage doors for customers at its Massay site. The company’s 2018 results were satisfactory, achieving a productivity rate of 87%, meeting 80% of all delivery deadlines and keeping the customer complaint rate below 2.5%. But the division was ready to do more.

How?

Staff members had expressed a need for greater clarity regarding France Fermetures’ overall objectives: a better circulation of information seemed to be the tool most conducive to even loftier aspirations!

Communications channels built around proximity management


Striving for excellence in both customer service and satisfaction and in staff relations, the company would set two objectives to drive the circulation of information.

Firstly, proximity roles would play a key role in communications and performance dialogue process. Thanks to the daily meetings they now hold, managers can share information with their direct reports. This gets analysed within one day, at which point objectives for the following workday are set together with the managers. Middle managers also schedule weekly meetings with staff to share and comment information.

Lastly, France Fermetures organizes staff work groups addressing specific issues, like improving workshop productivity or making door packaging jobs less painful. Each workshop gets its teams involved, with everyone free to share ideas.

Greater trust among staff members

France Fermetures has become ever more aspirational in the wake of these actions. In October 2019, productivity rates hit 91.5 %, 98 % of all deliveries were on-time and complaint rates fell to 1.31 %.

Staff members’ trust in one another has also risen on a daily basis, thanks to the improved circulation and appropriation of information. Many now take it upon themselves to suggest solutions supporting whatever changes managers make, one example being workstation polyvalence.

France Fermetures has shown entrepreneurial agility in a fast-moving environment, getting its management teams to feel even greater empathy for – and listen even more closely to – staff members.