Founder of the inclusive recruitment firm Mozaïk RH in 2007, and president of the foundation of the same name since 2020, Saïd Hammouche has been working against discrimination in hiring for more than ten years.
What diversity are employers telling you about?
In reality, not all companies are talking about the same thing. It is not a subject on the agenda of the steering committees. Many are still in denial. When they raise the question, it is about the diversities notched by legislative measures: parity, the approach of work-study students via quotas… So many subjects which refer to the mechanisms of discrimination, without being at the heart of the subject.
There is a second group made up of more and more companies concerned with ethnic diversity, which they consider important especially since the Black Lives Matter movement. But all of these internationally established companies have a problem because they can’t count or manage. They have a little trouble moving forward. Finally, the third category aligns its objectives according to city policy within the framework of the Paqte system. [Pacte avec les quartiers pour toutes les entreprises, créé en 2018], which promotes indirect diversity, via suppliers.
Have companies looking to improve diversity changed the way they recruit?
It is not just a problem of finding candidates. It is also a question of supporting candidates and managers. A company that plays the diversity card reviews its processes, trains its managers, after having diagnosed the subject internally, then it becomes capable of finding candidates from diversity on its own. It is this set that generates a real dynamic of transformation. The audit firm PwC, which wanted to progress in terms of inclusive recruitment, called on Mozaïk RH to establish a diagnosis. We then trained the board of directors, then the recruiters and managers, and helped them set up an inclusive recruitment channel. Today they can do it without us.
What have they changed in recruiting to progress?
They have changed their partnerships so that the dynamic of communication reaches the working-class neighborhoods, that the messages reach this youth. Sourcing [du recrutement] on large volumes, it is also a question of the network. There are quality players, others who waste time, institutions on which companies can rely. You still have to know how to work with them: local missions, universities, etc. These are dynamics to be built.
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