A well-maintained GEPP alerts you that a setter is set to retire in eighteen months, when there’s still time to train a replacement. If poorly maintained, it produces a reference document that no one opens and an agreement that is renegotiated every three years just for the sake of it.
We compared the advantages and disadvantages of GEPP with a Dares study of twelve agreements and with data from 210 industrial sites equipped with Mercateam.
97 %
Some of the sites studied have at least one skill possessed by only one person
26 to 50 %
Validated skills are not used for any assignments within 12 months, depending on the sector
20.2 1Q3Q
Some of the employees surveyed lost at least one skill within twelve months
14.3 1Q3Q
Some assignments involve an employee who lacks the required skills or authorization
Mercateam Study: 210 industrial sites, 59,298 employees, August 2025 through August 2026. Details are provided in the methodology box at the end of the article.
GEPP at a Glance, and Who Should Negotiate It
Job and Career Path Management (GEPP) compares the skills a site currently has with those it will need in the future, and then bridges the gap through training, internal mobility, or recruitment.
It is based on an analysis of job roles, forecasts of labor market and technological trends, and training and career path planning aligned with the company's strategy.
Does this apply to your company?
- 300 or more employees
- Negotiations on the GEPP shall take place at least every four years, or every three years if no agreement is reached on the procedure (Article L2242-2 of the Labor Code).
- Since October 24, 2025
- Additional negotiations on the employment of experienced employees, a topic that had previously been optional.
- Fewer than 300 employees
- No obligations, and the same tools: skills assessment, interviews, and training plan.
At an industrial site, start with the production stations, where an unfilled vacancy will be noticeable as early as the next day in the schedule.
The Benefits of GEPP for Businesses
In production, one advantage of GEPP becomes apparent when a decision regarding assignment, training, or hiring is changed.
Anticipating departures from positions held by a single person
Of the 108 industrial sites we studied, 105 have at least one qualification or certification held by a single active employee. In the aerospace industry, the median site has 52, including 7 certifications.
GEPP cross-references these monopolies with the age pyramid and announced departures. This lets you know which position to double-staff as a priority, before a retirement or extended leave slows down a production line.
Percentage of positions held by fewer than three people at a median-sized site
Under each sector: percentage of positions held by a single operator.
Fill positions internally before recruiting
An up-to-date talent map shows who is already qualified for a similar position and what they need to move up to the next one. External hiring becomes the last resort when no internal candidate can be brought up to speed through training.
This same overview helps prevent teams from being either too large or too small, since available skills are allocated where they are needed, and downtime is reduced.
The versatility at work remains rare in our sample, where 12.5 % of operators at a median site are proficient in at least two positions. Among automotive sites subject to the same standards, this rate ranges from 0.8 % to 67.4 % from the first to the third quartile—a disparity that stems from differences in staffing and training practices.
40 %
Case Study
fewer production line slowdowns due to absences at Trigano VDL, following the implementation of a flexible workforce structure.
Train in skills that will be useful
According to our data, 26.1 % of the validated skills in pharmacy and 49.6 % in aeronautics were not used for any assignment over a 12-month period.
As a result, part of the training budget is spent on certifying skills that the planning department does not utilize.
GEPP starts by identifying the positions that need to be filled to determine who to train, and sets the number of objectives based on actual timeframes. A manufacturing company working with Mercateam, which tailored its training to address skills gaps, saw a 25 % increase in productivity.
Median duration of a completed training program, by sector
Training completed, excluding the access period and on-the-job consolidation. The longer the duration, the fewer new skills the site can target during the year.
Preparing Teams for Automation and New Technologies
Industry 4.0 builds on automation, robotics, connected sensors, and artificial intelligence. Before a piece of equipment is commissioned, GEPP identifies the skills it requires, such as operating automated systems, analyzing production data, or performing predictive maintenance.
She then plans continuing education and retraining for operators whose duties are changing, for example, through online modules on operating an automated production line. The working groups—which bring together production, maintenance, and process engineering teams around the project—break down silos between departments and ensure that needs are identified earlier.
Approaching Audits and Negotiations with Data
At the sites we monitor, 14.3 % of assignments involve an employee who lacks a required skill or authorization, compared to 11.25 % a year earlier. An ISO 9001 or NADCAP auditor specifically looks for this type of nonconformity.
A well-equipped GEPP connects the authorization management in the schedule and provides this evidence, which then serves as the basis for negotiations with the CSE.
What the GEPP Offers Employees
For an operator, the most tangible benefit is the clarity regarding the positions they can aim for, the training required to reach those positions, and the duration of that training. The skills they’ve acquired on the job—such as training a temporary worker or troubleshooting another line—are finally included in their file.
This recognition fosters commitment and helps retain employees who, without opportunities for advancement, would eventually leave. A website that highlights its training programs also becomes more attractive to candidates.
Our data also show a ceiling on career advancement: an employee on a permanent contract holds at least two positions in 10.6 % of cases during the first year, 31.8% of the time between three and ten years of tenure, and 32.9% of the time thereafter.
Percentage of employees on permanent contracts who are proficient in at least two job roles, by length of service
Note the difference in the second decade—just over one point: a formalized career path is therefore most useful for experienced professionals who are no longer advancing in their careers.
The Limitations of GPEC, and What GEPP Has Addressed
This emphasis on individual career paths addresses the main weakness of GPEC. The Social Cohesion Act of January 18, 2005—known as the Borloo Act—had required companies with 300 or more employees to implement it in order to align jobs, workforce size, and skills with their strategic objectives.
The Department of Labor set the following objective: to strike a balance between skills, jobs, and the workforce on the one hand, and strategic requirements related to economic, technological, social, and legal developments on the other.
The approach was based on the company’s needs and overlooked employees’ projects, even as the war for talent made it difficult to retain them. It focused primarily on technical skills, at the expense of interpersonal skills and cross-functional competencies.
The study conducted for Dares in 2012 summarizes this imbalance: «GPEC addresses the collective challenges identified by the company rather than individual expectations.» In 2017, GPEC becomes GEPP and the employee's career path falls within the scope. Since the Act of October 24, 2025, the career counseling session serves as the starting point for each individual.
From GPEC to GEPP: Key Dates
January 18, 2005
Social Cohesion Act, also known as the Borloo Act
Negotiating a workforce planning and management plan (GPEC) becomes mandatory for companies with 300 or more employees.
October 2012
Study for DARES on 12 GPEC agreements
The agreements primarily address the company's collective needs, rather than individual expectations.
September 22, 2017
Ordinance on Collective Bargaining
GPEC is being renamed GEPP and will incorporate employees’ career paths.
August 22, 2021
Climate and Resilience Act
The GEPP negotiations must address the challenges of the ecological transition.
October 24, 2025
Law No. 2025-989
Career development interviews every four years and job negotiations for experienced employees.
However, most of the implementation challenges observed under the GPEC system are also present in today’s GEPP systems.
The Drawbacks of GEPP, and How to Mitigate Them
These drawbacks stem from the’Study: «GPEC Agreements: From Law to Practice», conducted for Dares at twelve companies, and our skills and scheduling data.
Time and resources that are rarely budgeted for
In the companies studied, the implementation of the agreement generally did not result in any new HR hires.
The most common case
A GPEC manager has been appointed to the existing HR team, and an intern has been brought in to provide additional support at the sites.
A well-equipped facility
Nine employees in the HR department of a retail group who work year-round on job mapping and competency profiles.
Source: Study conducted for Dares on twelve GPEC agreements, October 2012.
How to Limit It
Estimate the time required before starting: assessments, review meetings, and updating fact sheets. Narrow the initial scope to a single workshop and its critical tasks.
Skills data that quickly becomes outdated
The mapping on which GEPP is based is constantly becoming outdated: over the course of twelve months, one in five employees in our panel has lost skills (expired authorizations, reorganized departments, positions filled too infrequently). Of the seven drawbacks, we rank this one first, because all decisions in the process depend on it.
Changes in the scope of responsibilities for 23,269 employees over a 12-month period
On a Excel skills matrix, each copy of the file widens the gap, and the training plan is based on documents that no longer describe the actual work.
How to Limit It
Update the record each time a validation is completed, and schedule a quarterly review, since one-quarter of the employees we monitor go more than 118 days without an update. Set up an alert before each authorization expires.
Key metric to monitor: the share of operators whose evaluation is more than twelve months old.
A framework that is too detailed or too broad
A bank studied by Dares drafted 280 job descriptions, a process deemed time-consuming and fraught with the risk of losing momentum. A nuclear energy group, on the other hand, limited itself to 31 job categories, which were too broad to be useful at the sites.
How to Limit It
Note the details of the schedule—that is, the position and the skills required to fill it. A skill that is not required for any assignment can wait until the second version of the competency framework.
Three-year forecasts that are often proven wrong
GEPP projects needs over the negotiation horizon, although visibility varies by job category. In one aerospace group included in the study, visibility exceeds five years in design, compared with a month at most in maintenance.
How to Limit It
Plan for what is certain: scheduled retirements, authorization deadlines, and approved product line launches. Address the rest through scenarios that are revised annually.
Production managers who are not very engaged
In the study, managers do not sit on monitoring committees, and plant managers—who are tied up with production—delegate the matter to the site’s HR department. Vague communication about objectives and operators who are never consulted have the same effect on the shop floor.
How to Limit It
Assign the task of updating skill sets to the team leader, using the tool they already use for scheduling. Present the objectives during a team meeting and ask each operator which position they would like to learn.
A move suspected of paving the way for job cuts
Most of the unions that did not sign the study reject an agreement that would serve as a «stepping stone to a job preservation plan» (PSE). At an automotive group, three voluntary separation plans followed the 2007 agreement, and the job observatory is seen there as a tool for reducing the workforce.
How to Limit It
Negotiate the GEPP independently, outside the context of any restructuring plan, and specify that the proposed transfers are voluntary. Share the same data on position coverage with the CSE and managers.
Benefits That Are Slow to Materialize
A skill is validated in 8 to 57 days, depending on the sector, and the impact on staffing follows shortly thereafter. Without a metric established from the outset, management sees only the cost, and the initiative loses its sponsor at the first budget review.
How to Limit It
Attach three or four GEPP indicators and measure them at launch: single-holder skills, versatility rates, assignments without the required skill, and evaluations spanning more than one year.
Is your GEPP on display?
Check the situations that apply to your site. The assessment ranks the countermeasures by priority.
Should you implement a GEPP at your site?
For companies with 300 or more employees, the question is how to implement the process. For companies with fewer than 300 employees, a workforce planning process is warranted as soon as any of the following signs appear:
- several positions or authorizations rely on a single person;
- Retirements are expected within the next three years in positions that require extensive training;
- Temporary staffing covers a large portion of absences and peak periods;
- An audit found instances of personnel being assigned to positions for which they lacked the required qualifications.
To assess your company's position, count the positions held by fewer than three people and compare them to your industry. At a median-sized site in our sample, this proportion ranges from 24.8 % in the pharmaceutical industry to 40 % in the food and agribusiness sector, 52.6 % in the aerospace industry, and 77.8 % in the automotive industry.
Locate your site
Compare your job openings to the median for your industry, as measured in our panel.
Start with a pilot project at a facility and its critical workstations to verify that the data remains up to date before expanding the initiative.
The Five-Step Guide
- 1List the positions the workshop and the skills required for each one.
- 2Rate the operators including these qualifications, authorizations, and expiration dates.
- 3Identify the positions with fewer than three participants and scheduled departures.
- 4Set two to four goals training programs tailored to the work schedules in your industry.
- 5Review the matrix Every quarter, measure the deviation from zero.
Launch the pilot using our matrix template
A free Excel template to cross-reference positions, skills, and proficiency levels, and see who is qualified for which roles.
In Mercateam, the skills matrix is linked to the assignment schedule: exclusive assignments, time-limited authorizations, and non-compliant assignments are automatically flagged without the need for re-entry. Our clients report saving half a day per week on skills management and reducing training time by 75 percent.
The benefits of GEPP are realized when its data is kept up to date and team leaders use it. Most of its drawbacks stem from a static database managed solely by HR. To compare tools, see our guide to GPEC software.
View your GEPP linked to the schedule
Monopolies, time-limited authorizations, non-compliant assignments: the demonstration is based on a case similar to your site. More than 300 industrial sites have been equipped, including Bonduelle, Collins Aerospace, and Saint-Gobain.
How the Mercateam figures were produced
- Source
- Anonymized and aggregated usage data from the Mercateam platform. Demo accounts and internal environments are excluded.
- Period
- 12 rolling months, from August 2025 to August 2026.
- Scope
- 210 French industrial sites and 59,298 active employees. Sector-specific figures for 98 sites; 108 for single-owner operations.
- Measures
- Skill development among 23,269 employees tracked throughout the entire period; compliance across 3,651,583 scheduled assignments.
- Calculation
- Each indicator is calculated on a site-by-site basis and then consolidated into a median and quartiles.
- Limit
- These data describe manufacturers using Mercateam, not the entire French manufacturing sector.
Sources
- Grimand, A., Malaquin, M., Oiry, E., GPEC Agreements: From Law to Practice. Lessons Learned from 12 Case Studies, final report for Dares, October 2012.
- Labor Code, Article L2242-2 and Article L2242-20.
- Law No. 2021-1104 of August 22, 2021, known as “Climate and Resilience.”.
- Law No. 2025-989 of October 24, 2025 in support of employment for experienced workers and regarding the evolution of social dialogue.
- Mercateam Study, 210 industrial sites and 59,298 employees, August 2025 through August 2026.
