Photoroom, an AI photo editor, is making a bet on employees — and it’s paying off.
The France-based company started offering workers negotiation training three years ago, a move other leaders questioned, CEO and co-founder Matthieu Rouif told HR Dive. Every six months, employees can receive training on salary offers, the negotiation process and how to handle those potentially tricky discussions.
“Other people and entrepreneurs would tell me, ‘You’re shooting yourself in the foot,’” he said.
But Rouif said the training is good for business. As with any training, workers develop skills, which can make them more productive; plus empowering workers strengthens trust and helps with retention, he said.
“You can train your people, and then they become better. They ask for a better salary because they’re better and they’re more productive,” Rouif said. “You want your team to grow faster than the rest. You want them to grow as fast as the business.”
Rouif was inspired to offer the training at his now five-year-old startup by a class he took on one-on-one negotiation while earning his master’s degree at Stanford University.
The training not only helps workers negotiate better salaries for themselves but also better contracts for the company, which pays dividends, he said.
And empowering workers feeds into the company culture at Photoroom, Rouif said. The hybrid team comes into the office once per month, and the company offers trainings on topics from management development to artificial intelligence.
“It’s quite easy to learn. In a day, you can learn a few basics, and it goes a long way,” Rouif said about negotiation training.
The company also shares data sets on industry benchmarks for salaries so workers can be better equipped in their salary negotiations. The training goes a long way toward pay equity, Rouif said, because it helps level the playing field for workers.
“If the problem is that people who are negotiating will have a better salary, one solution was, ‘Let’s train everyone on negotiation, so everyone is on the same page,’” Rouif said.