O2 Développement – Guillaume Richard – Manager

The home service industry has been strongly growing for 10 years. The activity has even doubled which means 26,500 full-time jobs in France. Many home service companies have set up in the local area and we present you one of them, the company O2, whose head office is located in the tax-free urban zone, rue Edgar Brandt. This company managed by Guillaume Richard is specialised in cleaning, ironing and childminding.

Why did you set up your company in Le Mans?
O2 Développement was created in September 2004 in Lille. But we wanted to move our head office to an area more easily accessible than the North region and above all close to Paris. The motorway, railway (TGV) and air services together with the advantages of the tax-free urban zone have worked in favour of the setup of our head office in Le Mans.

3 years and a half later we do not regret our choice. The only remaining recurrent problem concerns the recruitment of senior executives for our head office. More investments than anywhere else are needed to attract applicants and take part in student fairs and forums. To target more applicants and present our company, the ideal thing would be to gather the local companies facing such recruitment difficulties in fairs. Accommodation support services should also be implemented. We are currently looking for applicants with a Master’s degree.

At the head office, the number of employees has increased from 2 to 50 and we have opened 93 branches throughout France. We have 2,000 employees in the aggregate, which corresponds to 900 full-time jobs, and the branch in Le Mans employs 30 persons.

The “Challenges” magazine has recently placed our company at the 19th position of the best recruiting companies. And the company O2 is at the 56th position as regards internship offers. We keep on creating jobs because the home service market is steadily growing. Indeed companies only own 20% of the market, 30% are provided by employment cheques and 50% by non-declared work.

How many companies have this activity in Le Mans?
There are 10 to 15 service companies in Le Mans. Growth is holding steady at about 10%. To maintain a certain quality the group O2 has launched a certification process that will be effective in April 2008.