Isabelle Guyomarch, CCI Productions

Isabelle Guyomarch purchased CCI Productions in 2008. She managed to give new impetus to the company to preserve its future. Her business is focused on perfumes and cosmetics manufacturing for third parties, from the development to the packaging phase. Then, four years ago, she had to fight an aggressive breast cancer: that is when she realized how difficult it is to manage both an activity and a disease.

As a company director, I just could not stop working, and yet I was sick,” she explains. Through her career, she happened to meet many women like her, who also felt desperate because of their diseases and distressed to lose their jobs or not be able to get back to it. “After this hardship, I needed to make sense of something that was, well, nonsense. I felt like creating a different model in my company,” she claims.

The day she met Anne-Sophie Tuszinsky - who has founded the company association Cancer@work - was decisive. Isabelle Guyomarch decided to set up an original CSR policy [1] within her own company. She created a training workshop in January 2017 to help people stay at work or make them get back to it after a long disease through flexible hours and work pace, as well as a considerate management. “When you are off for a long time, it is very stressful to get back to work – you are tired, things go fast, and it is hard to make contact with the others. This workshop helps gradually readapt to the world of work and reconnect with your social life and life as well,” she says.

The project is intended for every profile and all sources of exclusion due to illness, and not just cancer. It has already showed positive results on the whole company. The overall absenteeism rate has declined. “It does not mean sick people work more, but their will and courage are seen as models by others,” explains Isabelle Guyomarch, who also observed a caring social climate in turn, as well as a certain pride of the employees in their company – 80% are women.

These aspects corroborate the Director’s vision on her approach: make this societal project a positive, profitable element for the company. “I wanted to make it a strength, an opportunity, not a cost item full of constraints like most other companies do. You can earn money and still do good to your environment and measure the benefits of your actions,” she asserts.

To her, wellness at work, the positive effects the company’s activity creates on her internal and external environment represent a management solution. The human parameter is at the core of the industrial group’s culture. “Beyond this experience, my strategy is also aimed to break taboos on cancer at work and breast cancer in particular. 50% of women lose their jobs three years after the disease. The less skilled can very quickly find themselves in a precarious situation,” adds Isabelle Guyomarch, who insists on the notion of societal project. She will share this message and others with CCI Productions customers at the official presentation of her action next October 19 – she will also announce her decision to sponsor the Cancer&Travail “Allo Alex” hotline.

Our relationship with our customers goes much beyond the quality of our products. These brands are also committed, and they really want the company with which they work to take care of their employees. Just because you are demanding, does not mean you cannot be caring – it is the combination of the two aspects that is innovative,” concludes Isabelle Guyomarch.