Responsable RH dans un cabinet de 500 personnes : management et difficultés (Chloé Joly - Numbr)

Executive summary

Chloé Joly describes how Numbr has tried to scale a people-centric culture built on autonomy and accountability. Rather than imposing uniform rules, the company sets shared principles, makes expectations explicit, and gives teams room to decide how to work—while holding them responsible for customer and team outcomes. As the firm grew, it also reorganized from profession-based teams into small, multidisciplinary squads and adjusted its leadership model based on employee feedback.

Company context and HR role

• At the time of the interview, Numbr was described as having 500+ employees, around 20,000 clients, €35 million in revenue, 30% annual growth, and roughly ten offices, with further expansion planned.
• Joly’s HR role grew from hands-on generalist work—including recruitment, employer branding, school relationships, quality of working life, and training—into team management. She continues to lead some operational projects, notably CSR.
• She sees the work environment, colleagues, company culture, and freedom to contribute as important factors in whether someone thrives in a role.

Culture and management playbook

• Set shared values, then translate them into day-to-day behavior. Numbr’s stated foundations include autonomy, accountability, trust, customer satisfaction, teamwork, collective intelligence, and win-win decisions.
• Use outcomes to make values concrete. Customer satisfaction is monitored through NPS and Google reviews. The company links customer outcomes to employee experience, training, service quality, and workable conditions—not simply faster response times at any cost.
• Lead with trust, but make expectations clear. Managers establish the purpose and boundaries of flexible arrangements up front. If someone’s behavior conflicts with the agreement, address that case directly rather than restricting everyone pre-emptively.
• Treat flexibility as a framework, not a free-for-all. Employees are expected to act responsibly and autonomously, and to balance their needs with client and team requirements. If an employee is not fulfilling their work responsibilities, access to flexibility may need to be reconsidered.
• Explain the “why” behind work. Joly argues that many younger employees want to understand the purpose and impact of their work, not just the task. Managers should connect individual contributions to client and business outcomes.

Organization and leadership

• Numbr moved away from teams organized by profession, where sales, client-service, and production staff could work with the same client without communicating closely.
• It created multidisciplinary “squads” of no more than 10 people, intended to operate like small businesses within the company. Teams organize their work around shared goals such as client and employee satisfaction.
• The new structure initially produced uneven leadership arrangements. HR gathered feedback through individual conversations instead of appointing managers centrally.
• The process helped identify a need for clear leaders in squads. Teams selected leaders they considered legitimate; co-leaders were then used to complement gaps, such as pairing strong technical ability with management support.
• The model is not fixed: as the company grows, it expects to keep restructuring and developing new leaders. The host mentioned six people as an ideal small-team size, but this was not presented as a formal Numbr rule.
• HR also adopted a coaching and facilitation role. The team undertook Gordon communication training and used structured, non-directive questions to help employees speak candidly about the changes.

Remote work: principles, practices, and measurement

• Numbr’s initial remote-work framework used minimum safeguards—described as at least one day working remotely and one day in the office—while leaving teams flexibility to decide what worked for them.
• The intent was to prevent both extremes: a manager prohibiting remote work altogether and employees becoming fully remote where that conflicted with client or operational needs.
• A rule can be followed on paper but still violate its purpose. For example, repeatedly moving an in-person client meeting because an employee is remote may undermine customer satisfaction.
• Rather than immediately imposing a more prescriptive company-wide schedule, HR reviewed actual practices with leaders in working groups. This surfaced differences between teams and locations, as well as issues such as working remotely abroad without notifying the company, which can raise safety, liability, and insurance concerns.
• HR’s review asked whether remote work affected performance, but the company did not have a precise performance measure for the practice. The stated response was to educate and guide managers on the policy’s intent, rather than defaulting to stricter rules.
• Apprentices and interns are considered individually, based on their autonomy and the needs of the team, rather than automatically excluded.

Employee feedback and KPIs

• The company tracks customer NPS and employee NPS and reports that employee satisfaction and loyalty indicators are strong, with turnover relatively low. No actual scores or turnover figures were given.
• Anonymous employee surveys are sent approximately every three weeks. A rotating question bank covers employee NPS and other topics, including personal satisfaction and relationships with leaders. Responses are generally rated out of 10 and allow comments.
• Results are accessible to HR and management, with leaders able to view team-level feedback. HR says the surveys help identify weak signals, but they are supplemented by direct conversations.
• HR conducts at least one individual conversation with each employee per year. If a team’s indicators decline, HR speaks with team members to understand the causes rather than relying on survey scores alone.
• The company also uses informal conversations with employees, leaders, candidates, and students to spot changing expectations and identify potential areas for improvement.

Recruitment and retention

• Numbr presents its culture during recruitment and asks candidates what kind of environment helps them thrive—not only whether they have the technical skills.
• Candidate reactions can reveal whether they are comfortable with an autonomous, less rigid organization or prefer more defined roles, schedules, and hierarchy. The company treats this as a mutual fit question rather than assuming its model suits everyone.
• The culture also supports broader skill development. Employees may be asked to take on tasks beyond a narrow specialty when team needs require it. This can be attractive to people seeking variety but less suitable for those who want to stay within a tightly defined role.
• Joly emphasizes that recruitment should communicate the purpose and client impact of a role. For example, a business-creation consultant is not merely selling a service: they may be supporting an entrepreneur’s major life project.

CSR approach and targets

• Numbr began exploring CSR roughly two years before the interview, covering social, societal, and environmental responsibility.
• Its first step was to audit existing activity before choosing new initiatives. The company found that social and societal work was already relatively developed, while environmental action needed more deliberate attention.
• The environmental approach was to choose initiatives that were measurable, lasting, and engaging for employees—not to take action simply for appearances.
• Numbr commissioned a carbon-footprint assessment, involved employees through a questionnaire, and shared the results. It set a stated target to reduce emissions by 40% by 2030 and also pursued carbon offsetting, with a stated goal of carbon neutrality by 2024. The interview does not establish whether that target was achieved.
• For offsetting, the company selected reforestation projects using criteria that included French certification and proximity to employees. Employees could vote on preselected projects, and some projects were visited.
• Reduction initiatives included:
  • A €500 per employee, per year sustainable-mobility allowance for soft-mobility purchases, with alternatives under consideration for staff unable to commute by bike.
  • Clarified waste-sorting guidance, while recognizing that local waste-processing practices can limit the actual environmental impact.
  • Reviewing energy measures, including lighting and water, particularly when opening new premises.
  • Employee awareness activities and challenges.
• Numbr tested engagement rather than assuming an initiative was effective. A conference on calculating personal carbon footprints received no registrations from a sample of about 100 people, while a different event featuring an explorer’s stories about environmental issues was well attended. Joly uses such feedback to refine formats and avoid greenwashing.
• The discussion also notes that accounting firms may be able to help clients assess emissions using financial and accounting data, though measuring indirect emissions and comparing methodologies remain complex.

Key takeaways

• Scale culture through clear principles, manager education, feedback, and accountability, not just slogans or blanket rules.
• Preserve flexibility while defining the outcomes and boundaries that make it work.
• When reorganizing teams, gather employee feedback and be willing to revise the model; structural changes may expose needs that were missed initially.
• Use both quantitative indicators and direct conversations to understand employee experience.
• Make work meaningful by explaining how employees’ contributions affect customers and the wider business.
• For CSR, audit current activity, prioritize material actions, involve employees, and measure whether initiatives actually have an impact.

Presenters and sources

• Chloé Joly, HR Manager at Numbr.
• Coonter podcast host, unnamed in the subtitles.
• Gordon communication training was cited as a resource used by Numbr’s HR team.
• The host also referenced a previous CSR episode with Stéphane Da Mota.