News

The moment the spread of COVID-19 reached pandemic levels and lockdowns were imposed, I was travelling to Germany when the border with France was closed. While I faced delays in my return I was able to access all the tools I needed to work remotely. Remote working is not new to Faurecia’s IT staff (our teams are based around the world), and our digital transformation, supported by strong IT competences and infrastructure, has enabled business continuity during the crisis. However, the abrupt transition had a profound impact on our daily working lives, and we need to acknowledge the challenges of working from home in this time and the strain of balancing all our responsibilities.

For over four years, Faurecia has been piloting a transformation not just of its business models and culture but also of its working methods. This transformation has involved shifting our mindset, developing hard and soft skills that will be essential in the working world of tomorrow, and introducing new tools for individuals and teams. Faurecia’s Digital Workplace has been both a component of this transformation and an enabler, fostering learning, facilitating collaboration across teams, departments and sites, and helping break down siloes and barriers.

It’s become the common refrain of the COVID-19 pandemic: the crisis has disrupted “business as usual”, upended normality, and led to unprecedented occurrences in global markets and supply chains. As a matter of fact, it forces us to think differently and develop new approaches and practices.

As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to rage, and we remain focused on the health and safety of our employees, our liquidity and the safe restart of production, it is also the moment to identify the key lessons to enable us to prepare for the future. If we do not do this now, the temptation will be to return to “business as normal” as quickly as possible. That would be a mistake.

Although fighting the current coronavirus pandemic is occupying all of our time and energy at the moment, and our first priority is to keep our families, teams and communities safe and healthy, we should not forget the longer-term challenges that will once again face our planet when industry restarts.