France — PSA Peugeot Citroën: mapping the workplace to better manage the workforce

PSA Peugeot Citroën is a car manufacturer employing 118,080 staff, 29 % of whom are over 50 years, with older manufacturing operators experiencing reduced capacity. In 2009, French legislation required the company to negotiate with its social partners to promote the employment of older workers. In accordance with the government’s six priorities, Peugeot implemented several initiatives, the most significant of which were complete workplace mapping and the categorisation of jobs into ‘heavy’, ‘medium’ or ‘light’. To achieve 58 % light jobs, they reduced manual handling, redistributed tasks according to physical capacity and implemented job rotation. Skills assessments were conducted to allow for better career planning; these are under review to improve career-needs assessments. Heavy jobs have reduced to 8 %, with no older workers undertaking heavy jobs. Agreements are revised every three years. Recently, ‘Mission Handicap’ was launched, which involves similar protection of workers with disabilities in the company. Success factors include the strong legislative context, involvement of social partners and relevance to all workers. Workplace mapping is frequently used and is easily replicated.