How to promote the transmission of know-how and intergenerational links between employees in the company - Interview with Jérôme Permingeat, general manager of the Breton brand Le Minor.

Jérôme Permingeat is one of those people who have entrepreneurship in their blood. After finishing his master's degree focused on taking over struggling companies and creating new businesses, Jérôme first joined a consulting firm that provided support to company management. He quickly realized that he was missing something concrete. In 2012, with his best friend Sylvain, they launched “ Le Flageolet ” , a brand of colorful and modern bow ties made of cotton and Made in France. Their success quickly led them to develop other products such as socks, belts, scarves, then in 2015, they met the Breton company Le Minor for a project to manufacture hats. This meeting would be decisive since the manager of the company, retiring, was looking for a buyer. Seduced by the know-how and history of this iconic company from Brittany, the two best friends bought the company in 2018. Big challenges awaited them: the average age of Le Minor employees is 58, 98% of its turnover comes from B2B and 90% of the turnover comes from exports. In addition to these challenges, Jérôme Permingeat made the crazy bet of keeping all the employees of the company and even bringing some back to pass on their unique know-how to new generations. We met him so that he could tell us about how he valued this transmission of knowledge from one generation of employees to another at Le Minor, and maintained a technique and brand image recognized worldwide.

You took over Le Minor in 2018. What challenges did you encounter?

The challenges were on all levels!

The first reorganization was an industrial organization, since there was absolutely no industrial process. We created production lines, planned manufacturing and imposed minimum orders on our customers. This immediately resulted in a challenge in terms of human resources and know-how. When we bought the company, we took on 100% of the employees at the time, it was one of our commitments. But the average age was 58 and they were long careers, people were going to leave the company. There was no anticipated skills transfer plan, and no young people in the company.

There, we needed a real plan of attack. Recruiting younger generations who are looking to join a company that has a project like ours, and who agree to be trained by older employees. The challenge was also to bring back former employees who were retired, to train the new ones. People agreed to come back because they gave their whole lives for this company, and they were extremely sensitive to the fact that this company continues. The objective was to transmit this know-how and skills to secure know-how that no longer exists in France, because there is no longer a school. The knitting schools closed in 1999, so there is no longer anyone who leaves a knitting school. We are recreating one with other companies, this year in France.

The third challenge was commercial, since we had to eliminate bad turnover. We sorted through customers, explaining that today, the minimum orders would go from 10 to 100 pieces per color, for example. We only had one customer who left, all the others increased their volume to the wish we had set. We immediately had an increase in volumes, in compliance with the industrial conditions we had set, therefore much more profitable, allowing us to anticipate and bulk up purchases.

There was an IT challenge, since it was necessary to overhaul and recreate an ERP because the one that was there dated from 1980. The ERP is an industrial performance tool that meets the needs of the company in SAS mode.

And then the corollary challenge was to empower the teams, make them responsible, and organize a governance of the company, which is a shared and delegative governance, by organizing the company by departments. We created an Industrial department, a Financial department, a Marketing department, a Sales department and a Production department. All that took a little time, then we had a challenge of communication and redevelopment of the brand, since it was a brand that no longer had any notoriety on French territory.

Why do you make a point of passing on know-how in your company and what actions do you carry out on a daily basis?

One of our challenges is that we work with knitwear, which is an extremely complicated material to work with. Particularly because it is made from natural fibers, and natural fibers are not stable, and it is almost alive. In addition, we make products that are striped or patterned, which requires perfect alignments, while maintaining an industrial pace. The challenge is to continue to manufacture very high-quality products, because we have a promise: that a Le Minor sweater will last 40 years.

The second mission we set ourselves is to continue to manufacture 100% French clothing, from the thread to the finished product, in total verticality. To do this, we have created 50 jobs since we have been here, which allows us to work for the common good, ultimately, in a certain way.

The whole issue is that know-how must be maintained and passed on. In France, there has not been a knitting school since 1999, so we had to train on the job. We brought in people who were interested in learning what knitting or computer programming is, and we trained them internally. Today, a seamstress or someone who masters cutting, for example, requires one year of training, and three years to reach a minimum level of productivity. And we need support from all the other people who have learned this on the job.

How do you ensure that employees enjoy their work and stay at Le Minor? What have you put in place for employee retention?

Today, manual work is highly valued, so it is more difficult, a priori, to keep people in their positions. But we are lucky to have a turnover of less than 1% per year because people are attached to the history of this company. We also work a lot, the employees see it very well: we are there before them in the morning, and we leave 5 hours after them in the evening. They also feel that we have always respected our commitments, that is to say that each time we had to buy a machine, that we had to change the heating, that they asked us for things, it was done for their well-being.

And at the same time, people who work with a noble product are proud of the quality of these beautiful clothes. We have a lot of positive customer feedback and the media are interested in us, and that values ​​our employees directly or indirectly, and it contributes to maintaining and retaining talent.

Are there things that you are considering in your business plan that anticipate this perpetuation of knowledge?

Already, within the framework of the financing project, what was important was the mission that we set ourselves, which was to continue to manufacture sustainable, desirable and eternal clothing, while safeguarding traditional textile know-how in France. So there is a notion of safeguarding textile know-how, and there is a notion of social and employment that is very strong. For example, in the financing program that we are setting up, there is absolutely no question of not associating employees with the capital of the company. So we want to reserve a share of the capital for employees who will have the possibility of subscribing to preferential shares of course, to be able to be associated with this project. That is already a way of keeping and giving meaning to the people who work in a company, because they work a little for themselves, too. The second subject is to continue training. The inter-company knitting school that we are setting up with the last French knitters will be in Roanne, in partnership with the Manufacture de Layettes et de Tricots, from September 2022. At the same time, we have set up internal training programs with around ten people who participate in training in manufacturing and assembly, sewing, with an obligation on our part to hire them at the end of this program. We will launch the fourth promotion in May. People participate in training courses that last 8 and a half months, and after 8 months, they are hired on a permanent contract.

Finally, what attracted you to Le Minor?

The Flageolet project was a side-project with the desire to make clothes, accessories for men at the beginning, for us. Sylvain and I were naturally attracted to established brands that have a real history, a real heritage. When we came here for the first time and discovered the catalogs from the 1960s, the old machines, the history of this brand, the books that had been written about this brand, it left a mark on us, and above all, it is a brand that has never deviated from the principles of quality. We have never lowered the quality grade, and that is important. The second thing is that the company was run by someone extremely honest, and who had never relocated his production. It was these values ​​of honesty and quality that spoke to us a lot, with this somewhat heritage and historical notion, which made us quite naturally say to ourselves “one day, we must succeed in buying a company like that”.

I would also like to add that the values ​​of sustainability and product traceability are values ​​that increasingly speak to consumers, and they are values ​​that we also subscribe to. These values ​​of honesty and quality, this desire to continue a story, I think that this is what is also reflected in the quality of the product, and therefore can be seen in the enthusiasm that we can have for the brand today.

Today, Le Minor has 62 employees, with an average age of 34, 60% of the turnover is exported and 40% of sales in France. B2C now represents between 18 and 20% of the turnover. Since their arrival, Jérôme and Sylvain have created a B2B sales, industrial, financial, marketing and supply chain management.