France: Suicides prompt action on workplace stress
After a recent wave of suicides among employees at France Telecom, preventing stress at work has become a high-profile issue in France. As a result, the Government has launched an emergency plan on stress, which includes a call for immediate company-level negotiations on the issue.
On this page:
Stress in the
spotlight
France "slow" to tackle stress
Government's emergency plan
Negotiations on
harassment and violence
Negotiations at France
Telecom
Companies' responses to suicide and
stress.
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Key points
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During 2008 and the first half of 2009, at least 23 employees of the France Telecom telecommunications group are known to have committed suicide, in some cases at the workplace, while a number of others made suicide attempts. Trade unions have attributed at least some of the suicides to the stress caused by major restructuring at the company, including compulsory transfers of staff. The suicides have attracted enormous media and public attention and caused a major political debate on workplace stress.
On 9 October 2009, the minister of labour, Xavier Darcos, presented an "emergency plan", calling on companies with more than 1,000 employees to open negotiations with unions on tackling "psychosocial risks" and stress at work. On 4 November, the Prime Minister, François Fillon, set up a committee to look into the issue, made up of three members: Henri Lachmann, the president of the supervisory board of the Schneider Electric engineering group; Christian Larose (of the CGT union confederation), the chair of the labour section of the consultative Economic, Social and Environmental Council (Conseil économique, social et environnemental); and Muriel Pénicaud, HR director of the Danone food group.
The committee's brief is to collect good practices and draw up proposals on how to integrate policies on stress more fully into health and safety prevention at company level. The committee intends to report in early 2010 and its findings will be included in the Government's national health plan for 2010-14, which will make workplace stress one of its priorities.
Parliament has also responded, setting up an "information mission" on psychosocial risks, which will hear evidence on the issue and publish a report in February 2010. National trade unions and employers' organisations have opened negotiations on harassment and violence at work, which may deal with some aspects of stress.
France "slow" to tackle stress
The suicides at France Telecom have dramatically highlighted the issue of workplace stress, a topic that has until now received relatively little attention in France. A number of experts argue that France has been slow to develop an awareness of the problem and to take action to address it.
A survey conducted in October by the LH2 polling company found that 20% of respondents reported "very significant" stress in their working life, and 24% "significant stress". Experts attribute such workplace stress to factors such as excessive workloads, lack of knowledge, fear of failure, competition among employees or individualised evaluation systems.
As well as its human costs, stress at work has substantial economic effects in the form of absence from work, lost productivity and increased use of healthcare services. According to recent research from the INRS occupational risk prevention institute, the direct and indirect costs of stress in France amount to between €830 million and €1,656 million per year, the equivalent of between 10% and 20% of the budget of the social security system's occupational illness funds.
Government's emergency plan
The emergency plan on the prevention of psychosocial risks in companies presented by the minister of labour in October notably calls for immediate negotiations on the issue in the 2,500 French companies with more than 1,000 employees.
In July 2008, trade unions and employers' organisations signed a national cross-industry agreement on work-related stress, implementing in France a European framework agreement - concluded by EU-level social partners in October 2004. The contents of the 2008 agreement were to be applied mainly through sector-level collective bargaining, but the emergency plan seeks to shift the focus of implementation to the company level. The Government wants the enterprise-level negotiations to be well under way by February 2010, when an assessment will be conducted.
The minister of labour has also asked regional labour authorities to organise meetings on tackling stress with companies during 2010, involving the regional branches of the National Agency for the Improvement of Working Conditions (Agence nationale pour l'amélioration des conditions de travail, ANACT) and of the occupational illness social security funds. The participants should decide on actions to combat psychosocial problems, and an assessment of these regional measures will be drawn up by February 2010.
The emergency plan provides for ANACT and occupational health services to help small and medium-sized enterprises address workplace stress, providing them with information, diagnostic tools and indicators. The public authorities will also seek to ensure that efforts are made to prevent psychosocial risks by companies undergoing restructuring.
The emergency plan's measures will be further developed in the forthcoming 2010-14 national health plan. A special unit will be set up within the Ministry of Labour to coordinate and push forward action to combat stress.
Negotiations on harassment and violence
On 29 October 2009, French trade unions and employers' organisations opened talks on a cross-industry agreement to implement the European framework agreement on harassment and violence at work, signed by the EU-level social partners in April 2007. These issues touch on stress at work and suicide, but the extent to which the negotiations will deal with these aspects is a matter of dispute. The employers' side is in favour of a straight transposition of the EU-level agreement, while trade unions want to include forms of work organisation and management methods as possible sources of harassment, topics not dealt with in the European accord.
Employers' organisations argue that "malaise at work" is a complex subject that is related to various social issues, many of which are non-work related. Nevertheless, they see it as important that employers should contribute as far as possible to reducing the level of harassment and violence at work. Medef, the main employers' organisation, stresses that harassment is not limited to hierarchical relationships and argues that harassment must be clearly distinguished from stress at work. There is no malevolent intention behind situations of stress, unlike harassment, which involves repeated individual actions aimed at harming someone. Medef also states that harassment must be distinguished from certain management methods that may lead employees to perceive the instructions of their superiors as" excessive constraints", but which do not constitute bullying and do not aim to damage employees psychologically.
CGPME, representing small and medium-sized enterprises, wants the talks to avoid measures based on the "situations in a number of very large companies". It believes these measures would impose burdens on its members that do not face the same problems as larger companies. CGPME believes that suicides, even if they take place at work, arise from multiple factors, many from outside the workplace. However, everything possible should be done to identify and help "fragile people" and prevent "desperate gestures".
The unions argue that management methods and work organisation should be a central point in the negotiations. They also maintain that harassment and violence at work constitute psychosocial risks and that there is therefore a clear link between the current talks and the early cross-industry agreement on stress. The unions state that harassment is already dealt with in general in French law, but not the particular forms of harassment that arise from certain forms of work organisation.
The negotiations are expected to continue into 2010.
Negotiations at France Telecom
At France Telecom, unions claim that there is a high level of distress among employees, caused by management methods and restructuring. Management announced on 10 September 2009 that it would freeze all planned compulsory staff transfers until the end of October (later extended to the end of December). It also set up an anonymous hotline and psychological support services for vulnerable employees.
The company's president, Didier Lombard, met the minister of labour, Xavier Darcos, on 15 September, and said that he would act to "control and stop the infernal spiral of suicides" at France Telecom, and negotiate a "new social contract" with trade unions. The minister stated that the company should do all it could to deal with the problem and adopt a genuine strategy to care for its employees. He called on France Telecom to address: preventing stress and psychosocial problems related to employees' geographical and occupational mobility; and taking better account of employees' personal situation in the organisation of work.
The company opened negotiations with unions on 19 September, aimed at implementing the July 2008 national cross-industry agreement on stress. The talks deal with work organisation, working conditions, the management of staff transfers, work-life balance and the role of employee representative bodies.
While the negotiations continue, France Telecom has taken a number of further measures. It will increase the number of company doctors by 10% and recruit 100 additional HR staff in order to "detect people at risk and support them as quickly as possible". An external company, Technologia, chosen by the trade unions, has been given the task of auditing the current situation in France Telecom. It has drawn up a questionnaire on stress and working conditions, which has been distributed to all 102,000 employees. The questionnaire deals with a wide range of subjects, including:
- workload;
- functional and geographical mobility;
- autonomy at work;
- social support;
- hours and pace of work;
- relations with managers;
- HR support;
- training;
- working environment;
- communications;
- workplace atmosphere;
- violence and intimidation; and
- state of physical and mental health.
As part of the negotiations, it was agreed on 20 October that 1,400 jobs on open-ended contracts would be created at France Telecom. Some 380 of the new jobs will be in operational services, such as shops and client services, and current fixed-term contract employees and apprentices will be given priority in recruitment. The company will also "insource" a number of strategic activities that are currently carried out by subcontractors, creating 1,000 jobs (mainly technical posts) to be filled by external recruits or internal applicants.
Other measures agreed so far include changes to individual staff assessment systems, and additional rest breaks for staff in shops and call centres.
Companies' responses to suicide and stress
The France Telecom case is not the first time that French companies have had to respond to suicides among employees. A number of major firms have taken action in recent years to combat workplace stress and prevent psychosocial risks to employees, following suicides.
The EDF electricity group acknowledged that there was a problem after four employees at its Chinon office killed themselves between 2004 and 2007, and it implemented an action plan on workplace health, focusing on working conditions. It created an "observatory on quality of working life", involving management, unions, company doctors and external experts, which identifies problems and makes recommendations in areas such as working conditions, workplace atmosphere and support and services for staff. Through these measures, the company aims to build trust, including with the unions, and also to remove blame from individual managers.
In 2007, six employees of PSA Peugeot Citroën, the automotive group, committed suicide, two of them in the workplace. The company responded by setting up monitoring units to identify and help employees in distress and examine whether or not work organisation is the cause of the problems. It also conducted a workplace stress audit, leading to the formulation of an action plan. In October 2009, management and unions signed an agreement on psychosocial risks, which introduces a system for evaluating the risks of stress, and collective and individual measures to address problems. The company has also made a commitment to reduce the size of work teams in assembly operations.
Following three suicides among employees at a technical centre in Guyancourt
in a four-month period over 2006-07, Renault launched a plan to improve the
working and living conditions of shiftworkers, known as Pacte, and set up a
committee to follow up the plan, which seeks to identify and prevent in advance
emerging psychosocial problems. The automotive company also raised management
awareness about detecting and managing stress, and called on the services of
external consultants. Measures have been renewed in recent months, as new
problems have arisen related to periods of inactivity and uncertainty about the
future during the economic downturn.
Sodexo, a catering and facilities
management company, created a psychological support unit and a management
support unit after an employee committed suicide in 2007, raising questions
about pressure of work. It has trained HR managers in identifying at-risk
employees and added a course on managing psychosocial risks to its management
training programme. Employees have also set up their own independent association
to make their concerns heard in this area.
This article is based on
material provided by Christophe Boulay, European Employment Review correspondent
for France.
European Employment Review 431 (EER 431) contents
