A senior recruited through his professional network
After 25 years at Accenture and 10 years at Wavestone, Joel Nadjar was calmly handing over to his successor when he spoke with the CEO of Teamwill Group, an ESN specializing in business & IS solutions dedicated to credit and specialized financing.
“We had known each other for a long time thanks to somewhat parallel careers and friendly relations. Together, we shared ideas on the development of Teamwill. He introduced me to the President. During an exchange in point of view sharing mode, he explained to me the company’s strategy and in particular its desire to create an education center. And offered me to join this adventure by taking the lead of this pole”he says willingly.
Last April, at the age of 61, Joël Nadjar took over as head of the new Education division following the acquisition by Teamwill Group of the Sésame engineering school.
Excerpt from the announcement of appointment at Teamwill
A senior working on his employability
At 61, Joël Nadjar has not yet intended to stop working. But for “stand in council”we must constantly renew ourselves in order to “feel the fashions, anticipate the transformations to come”. “Education is in a state of upheaval. With AI and permanent access to knowledge, today we no longer educate like 10 years ago. The challenge now is to help people learn to learn, to decipher the issues and to orient themselves », he analyzes. To stay up to date, our sexagenarian cultivates a proactive state of mind: “no question of being content with what you know when you are a senior”.
Second string to its bow: the network.
I meet a lot of different people during one-to-one interviews. I attend conferences and seminars in order to listen and understand people’s needs.
Joël Nadjar, director of the Education division and member of the Teamwill Group executive committee
A senior who likes to pass on his experience
Joël Nadjar evolves in a multicultural ESN (the president is Franco-Tunisian) and multi-age. If the codir mainly includes managers over 45 years old, the teams are younger. It therefore naturally arises in a posture of transmission with the younger ones. “I share working methodologies with them, for example for problem solving. How to structure ideas and priorities »he explains.
At over 60, Joël Nadjar has already had a number of more or less successful experiences.
I support them to develop their own ability to take a step back. I am in a real posture of transmission. I ask myself every day how I can help them work better.
oël nadjar
A senior who earns less than before
In his previous job, Joël Nadjar received a fixed and a variable proportional to his performance indexed to certain KPIs (margin rate, etc.). “At Teamwill, I earn 20% less but I negotiated less pressure. It’s a good compromise to work well and for me to be in a constructive state of mind”he summarizes.
A senior who knows how to take a step back
“After a sleepless night, for sure, I take longer to recover than before. To stay in shape, I play sports and I learned to manage my time. For me, there is no real boundary between private and professional life. I am continuous, he acknowledges.
When he swims or rides at the weekend, he thinks about his week, his plans, for example… On the contrary, during the week, he takes breaks off. Two hours to read a book on a subject that has nothing to do with his interests… and a few days later, it is not uncommon for his readings to “match” with a human problem to be solved, an organizational question… “I like this porosity between the two lives. But I don’t impose it on my teams. I explain to them how I work. If I manage to inspire them, for sure, they will work differently”he argues.
A senior who wonders about the place of seniors in business
When asked about his feelings on the reform of pensions and the employment of seniors, Joël Nadjar summarizes it as follows: “in France, we work a lot and in a way that is too stressful over a period that is too short. I expect this reform to relax the relationship to work with less stressful modes of operation”. And to quote pell-mell the 4-day week, alternate a month of work with a month off. But also for seniors, the reinforcement of arranged part-time, the development of the function of “teachers”.
Why ask outsiders to come and train people in work methodologies when experienced employees could take care of it as a “temporary teacher” for 2 hours a week or 1 to 2 days a month?
With all his projects in mind, as we can imagine, Joël Nadjar is not ready to hang up even if he is eligible to retire in December 2024. “A job is a cycle so I give myself 2-3 more years. Then I may go part-time in order to prepare myself slowly for retirement. In my professional life, I multiply contacts and I am at the heart of societal transformations. If I stop all this in its tracks, I feel it as a potential trauma ”he concludes, delighted for the time being with his social life around the coffee machine at work.
The point of view of Olivier Le Hénaff, CEO of Teamwill Group
Olivier Le Henaff
“We do not have a strategy for or against the employment of seniors. Age is not a subject as such, we never talk about it. Teamwill has 700 people worldwide, including 350 in France. Our top managers are between 50 and 61 years old! Below is the classic pyramid of an ESN with a high proportion of consultants aged under 30 and business experts between 30 and 40 years old. We do not recruit top managers for their business skills but for their ability to involve the most junior in a strategy and a vision. With their experiences, seniors have an experience that allows them to react as well as possible in a context of customers, employees in the event of conflict for example, but also to motivate teams. On the remuneration side, we practice market prices. Seniors agree to pay cuts because they are less involved in marketing than before. They generate less turnover and therefore perceive less variable than before. At 55, I consider that we still have the capacity to take one or two positions”.