Sanofi’s chief digital officer says remote work means employees lose the ‘serendipity’ needed to innovate

That’s an impressive feat for a company that said last year it was going “all-in on AI.” The $50 billion French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi is quickly converting its operations to an AI-first model. Thousands of employees utilize its automated app plai, powered by German startup Aily Labs, on a daily basis.

Managers at the company are able to pinpoint manufacturing capacity at plants across the world and quickly schedule meetings with colleagues using its AI agents, cutting communication barriers in Sanofi’s multinational operations.

However, despite all this global digitization, the company has reinforced the need for face-to-face contact to drive innovation.

‘Serendipity’ in the office

Sanofi employees work in the office three days a week under a hybrid model, typically coming in on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. 

Speaking to Fortune in Paris, Sanofi’s chief digital officer, Emmanuel Frenehard, said this shift was vital to bring innovation to the company after employees kept things going during the upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Providing reassurance that AI was a job augmenter rather than a job taker, Frenehard reiterated the value of humans in the future of work, but only if they could work together in person. 

“This technology is a facilitator. Technology is not going to supersede us. Technology is not going to take our space. Technology is going to complement us. So you need, really, the humans to be able to still drive that,” Frenehard told Fortune. 

“And you need something that is very special, that humans have called serendipity,” he added.

“When you work from home, every part of your day is scheduled because this is how my calendar is. There’s no moment of, ‘Hey, have you thought of that?’

“How many great inventions were scheduled? How many great moments of innovation were scheduled? They’re not. They’re conversations, they’re challenges. And so it’s very difficult to get that [working from home].

“Now you come back to the office, because to keep something going when you’re remote in one of our largest existential crises, you do it.

“To create new innovation, I find it’s partly difficult, and so we said to people, we’re going to give you flexibility, but Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, you’re going to be together because that’s where you’re going to be the most productive.”

Frenehard said when Sanofi implemented this shift, very few candidates dropped out of the hiring process.

“But I think we were contrarians,” he said. “I think the contrarians are becoming the norm.”

Indeed, a swathe of companies have cracked the whip on their workforces who went remote during the pandemic. Several large companies have joined Sanofi in calling for employees to return to the office on a hybrid basis.

Others, however, including Amazon and iPhone challenger Nothing, have asked staff to come back into the office five days a week or face the sack. The news has typically not been received well by employees. 

A common rationale for these RTO mandates among bosses is the intangible innovations that come from in-person collaboration. Frenehard’s eloquent explanation of these trends may explain why Sanofi’s employees have been ready to make the return without much fanfare.

Sanofi’s AI hiring push

Because of its AI overhaul, the nature of talent Sanofi seeks has shifted to hiring data scientists and engineers. That leaves the company fighting with tech groups in an increasingly competitive job market.

There’s one reason in particular, Frenehard says, that sought-after tech workers, which Frenehard said he hasn’t had an issue recruiting, weren’t put off by Sanofi’s RTO mandate.

“You can work for digital bank or fund. You can work for TikTok, that may be fun. Or you can work and you can truly see the impact that you have on people’s lives,” Frenehard said.

“Finding that that voice into the public took us some time. But we don’t have an issue recruiting at this stage, because since COVID, in our industry there’s a better realization that health is important. There’s a better realization that life-saving medicine is super important.”