Questionnaire sur le stress chez France Télécom : 80 % de réponses

source Le Monde.fr

France Telecom employees gather in memory of a colleague who committed suicide last July. Photograph: Anne-christine Poujoulat/AFP/Getty Images

(source)

A morbid one in our ongoing series on mistakes and lies in statistics, from a news report some weeks ago:

French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde Thursday voiced her support for France Telecom’s chief executive, who is coming under increased pressure from French unions and opposition politicians over a recent spate of suicides at the company.

Ms. Lagarde summoned France Telecom CEO Didier Lombard to a meeting after the telecommunications company confirmed earlier this week that one of its employees had committed suicide. It was the 24th suicide at the company in 18 months.

In a statement released after the meeting, Ms. Lagarde said she had “full confidence” that Mr. Lombard could get the company through “this difficult and painful moment.”

The French state, which owns a 27% stake in France Telecom, has been keeping a close eye on the company, following complaints by unions that a continuing restructuring plan at the company is putting workers under undue stress.

The suicide rate among the company’s 100,000 employees is in line with France’s national average. Still, unions say that the relocation of staff to different branches of the company around France has added pressure onto employees and their families.

On Tuesday, a spokesman for France’s opposition Socialist Party called for France Telecom’s top management to take responsibility for the suicides and step down. Several hundred France Telecom workers also took to the streets to protest against working conditions.

In the statement released after Thursday’s meeting, France’s Finance Ministry said Mr. Lombard had set up an emergency hotline aimed at providing help to depressed workers. The company has also increased the number of psychologists available to staffers, according to the statement. (source)

More on the problems caused by averages is here.

Un Natale fuori stagione, magari con una battaglia all’ultima palla di neve in piena calura estiva: una gigantesca illusione collettiva? No: piuttosto colpa di Orange, brand di France Telecom, e delle sue incredibili offerte in materia di telefonia mobile e Internet. Regali a tutti gli effetti.
La creatività è di Publicis Conseil.

The Apprentice

As quarenta tentativas de suicídio dos trabalhadores da France Telecom, das quais 25 foram consumadas, chamaram a atenção do mundo para as práticas laborais da empresa. Agora confirma-se a existência dum plano sistemático que beneficiava os directores que conseguissem afastar trabalhadores.

A edição francesa da revista “Vanity Fair” publica uma reportagem com o título “Suicide-se, por favor”, recolhendo depoimentos de trabalhadores, sindicalistas e dirigentes da empresa de telecomunicações francesa. Eram estes os principais beneficiados dos suicídios, uma vez que recebiam um pagamento extra (entre 15% a 40% do seu salário) pelo sucesso na desmotivação no pessoal, evitando o custo da indemnização devida em caso de despedimento. O objectivo seria afastar 22 mil trabalhadores da empresa.

O assédio aos trabalhadores tinha várias modalidades que eram aplicadas várias vezes ao ano e sem motivo aparente: mudança de posto de trabalho, de loja ou mesmo de cidade, ou alteração de funções, colocando técnicos no atendimento ao público, ou informáticos no departamento de marketing. Por outro lado, eram dadas admoestações graves e cortada uma parcela do salário a quem vendesse pouco, fosse muitas vezes à casa de banho ou saísse do posto de trabalho um minuto antes da hora.

Nos cinco anos decorridos desde a privatização, a France Telecom mandou embora 30 mil trabalhadores e fechou um terço das sedes no território francês. Calcula-se que em 2008 a soma dos dias de baixa tenha sido de 2 milhões para 100 mil trabalhadores. No mesmo ano, a empresa facturou 53 mil milhões de euros.

O número elevado de suicídios na empresa chegou a ser desvalorizado pelo responsável de recursos humanos da empresa, recordando os 28 casos de 2000 e os 29 de 2002. Na verdade, só quando um trabalhador deixou uma carta a acusar a empresa da sua morte é que a atenção do poder político se voltou para as práticas laborais da France Telecom, com investigações que ainda decorrem.

Castarco nos informa de los últimos hallazgos detrás de los suicidios de France Telecom:

France Telecom: perversidad en estado puro « El Diario de Aleth.

Bueno, en realidad nada nuevo bajo el sol. Así actúan todas las corporaciones, lo que pasa es que cada una de una forma y sobre un problema propio específico. En el caso de France Telecom, eran los trabajadores que recortaban los beneficios el objetivo de la corporación.

Como sentencia el autor al final, y como he comentado en más de una ocasión, la única forma de parar a esta gente es no comprándoles. Parece demasiado simple, ¿verdad? Pero es que es tan fácil y tan difícil para eso. No compréis productos Orange, la marca de France Telecom en España, si no estáis de acuerdo con sus prácticas económicas y laborales. Y así con todo.

Il avait pourtant souscrit un abonnement à 50 euros par mois, pour une clé 3G  illimitée.

Un médecin urgentiste a reçu une facture de 159.212 €uros sous cette offre.

Le groupe France Télécom estime ne pas avoir fait d’erreur et explique que cette offre est une offre professionnelle non destiné aux particuliers. (Clé 3G Business Everywhere)

Environ 30 clients dans le même cas auraient été enregistré chez Orange pour le moment.

Bref, chez Orange, on ne vois pas trop la vie en Orange en ce moment, mais plutôt en noir.

Apple has esprit de corps, France Télécom does not. After all, people would kill to work at Apple, but kill themselves if forced to work at the maligned France Télécom. More than any other type of organization, save perhaps the nation itself, the army has esprit de corps, surely that’s where the very term was born. So what to make of private military contractors?

There are currently 250 thousand contractors fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The figure is rarely bandied around, but it does represent half of America’s fighting forces. Most of these guns for hire are army veterans, though many are not even American. In fact of map of PMC deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan would color the globe. To date at least 1,360 private contractors, working for the U.S., have lost their lives, and countless were seriously injured. No trumpets or flags. Their sacrifice was largely ignored. Soldiers are heroes, contractors are just doing a job.

Workers at France Télécom too, are just doing a job, not that the number of deaths are comparable. Their esprit de corps, founded on firm nationalist values, upheld by society, disappeared with the company’s privatization. Radical transformation, however, was not accompanied by cultural reinvention. Employees and clients had been mobilized around certain goals and beliefs, not least idea of a collective France. Today it seems like the company’s primary goal is not to serve customers, formerly known as compatriots, but to make a profit.

Blackwater, the largest, most charismatic, private military company, was so successful on the ground and caused such an impression that it actually had to do reverse branding, changing its name to an unmemorable ‘Xe’. Though they did keep the red and black claw logo. Together with others like Triple Canopy and Dyncorp, Xe is leading the privatization of war. Undoubtedly they need to profit in order to exist, but soldiers too need to profit.

Romantic notions of patria overshadow the fact that companies like Xe, by assuming the responsibility of serving their customers, exercise a civic duty. That’s when true esprit de corps, and respect, arises. Private military contractors or anybody who takes on that responsibility should be celebrated.

Un client de chez Orange a reçu une facture de 45.923 €uro et 61 Centimes  pour seulement 1 mois de connexion internet.

Orange lui a conseillé un échéancier sur 40 ans pour payer sa facture !

Le client, Eric Gernez, explique que le fournisseur ne l’a pas informé que le forfait était en faite limité à 1 Go.

« L’offre souscrite par M. Gernez est adaptée à un certain type d’usage. Ce n’était peut-être pas le cas » explique le directeur régional, Laurent Vitoux.

Il faut croire que non.

On espère que le groupe France Télécom aura un peu de jugeote et prendra en compte la bonne foie du client.

En attendant, le dossier est en cour d’examen.

Nono : Car je veux déjà que l’année finisse.

En 2009 c’est le revival 20’s, les afghans de gare de l’est remettent à la mode la galle.

En 2009 la jungle ce n’était plus Tarzan et Cheeta mais Oslof et les associations.

En 2009 les gens ont travaillé plus pour sauver leurs jobs.

En 2009 on a remis le chômage central.

En 2009 la liberté d’expression s’est réduite sur Internet.

En 2009 on a abandonné toutes réflexions construites pour l’information (presqu’) en temps réel de Twitter.

En 2009 il fallait n’avoir que le bac pour se présenter à l’EPAD.

En 2009 les étudiants sont descendus dans la rue mais que dans les bons quartiers.

En 2009 il fallait réseauter socialement avec des cons qu’on déteste sur… les réseaux sociaux.

En 2009 les agriculteurs n’étaient pas contents contre l’Europe… comme l’année dernière.

En 2009 Mickael Jackson est devenu Christique.

En 2009 on a perdu la plupart des stars 80’s.

En 2009 un noir c’est fait élire au pays du KKK.

En 2009 aucun beur ne s’est fait élire au pays du fromage.

En 2009, il y’a eu un génocide au Gabon ?

En 2009 il existait des prostituées male de 40 ans en Thaïlande.

En 2009 on a cri(s)é.

En 2009 on se tuait à la tâche… surtout à France Telecom.

En 2009 personne ne peut t’expliquer clairement Clearstream.

En 2009 l’album de Carla Bruni comme si de rien n’était ne s’est pas vendu…comme si de rien n’était.

En 2009 L’otage franco-colombienne était humainement pire que ses propres tortionnaires.
En 2009 les auvergnats sont la cible d’attaque raciste.

En 2009 le mot anglais mood était très proche de mode.

Pablo :

En 2009 il fallait être cinéaste pour se faire pardonner sa pédophilie.

En 2009 le FN a lu des livres paru 4 ans plus tôt.

En 2009 on n’a pas parlé de “canicule”.

En 2009 on n’a pas non plus parlé des tentes Quechua.

En 2009 les anglais ont découvert que les matons racistes existaient… surtout dans les camps de rétention de demandeurs d’asile.

En 2009 des femmes ont été lapidées par des barbares.

En 2009 des noirs ont reçu une injection létale par d’autres barbares.

En 2009 quelques chanceux ont toutefois pu y échapper grâce à leur physionomie.

En 2009 tous les barbares n’avaient donc pas la même efficacité.

En 2009 des gens ont regretté Jacques Chirac, même des gauchistes.

En 2009 les bus n’avaient toujours pas d’air bag.

En 2009 les bus volants ont connu des turbulences.

En 2009 des rafales ont fait des étincelles.

En 2009 Marie Trintignant n’a pas ressuscité, pas plus que Noir Désir.

En 2009 la ligue 2 était plus intéressante que la ligue 1.

En 2009 l’affaire clearstream n’a fait peur à personne.

En 2009 le FMI a été harcelé sexuellement.

En 2009 Ségolène avait mauvaise haleine.

En 2009 la presse a perdu des lecteurs.

Nono :

En 2009, Sarkozy cassait le mur de berlin…en 1989.

En 2009, on aimait toujours les artistes, pas les majors.

En 2009, le grand politologue et scientifique Bigard nous apprenait que le 11 Septembre était un complot en se basant sur les propos des grands philosophes Cotillard et Kasovitz.

En 2009, Claude Lévi-Strauss est mort deux fois le même jour, une fois physiquement, l’autre fois quand BHL lui a rendu hommage

Si vous voulez rajouter votre pierre à l’édifice, marquez vos phrase en commentaire, sur twitter ou tatouez-le vous sur le bras.

Monsieur Didier Lombard ne semble plus savoir où donner de la tête. A ce jour, avec 25 suicides en 12 mois dans son entreprise, il commence à s’inquiéter… Pour certains, c’est déjà décidé, pour les autres, ils attendrons encore un peu?

Il me semble grand temps de voir comment cette société fontionne, comme elle opère.

Nous ne sommes malheureusement pas surpris de ces suicides. En tant que Clients de cette société s’appelant France Telecom, Orange, Orange Business, Orange Internet, Orange Mobile pour l’Hexagone, (nous en perdons notre latin), si le service a la clientèle est un reflet de cette structure de pensée et de gestion, nous n’en sommes pas étonnés.  Ne parlons pas des paniers Orange NL, Orange UK, Orange CH et j’ en passe: la société doit avoir des actions dans les vergers de Floride…

Vous appelez un service clientèle pour demander une rectification sur votre facture, on vous fait patienter, et enfin, on vous répond. Si votre problème semble trop épineux, on risque de vous raccrocher au nez… Vous parlez à des techniciens qui sont souvent sur des plateformes ne se trouvant pas en France mais de l’autre coté de la Méditerranée.

On vous démarche par téléphone pour un service gratuit que vous payez quand même… Attention à ce coup de fil car il peut être néfaste (le cas aussi pour SFR d’ailleurs)…

Je connais une entreprise qui passe au moins deux heures par mois pour rectifier  des factures erronées. Régulièrement, cette société est facturée pour des prestations qui ont été nébuleuse -ment pourvues.

Vous désirez un remboursement pour une facture que vous jugez trop onéreuse, un SMS que vous n’avez pas envoyé? Vous ne connaissez personne en Nouvelle Guinée? (Figurez-vous, moi non plus..)

Le service à la clientèle risque de vous accueillr avec précipitation après la musique qui ne semble pas changer non plus et probablement éditée par une société de publicité debile). Souvent malheureusement,   ces standartdistes ne sont pas polis, sont très stressés, et mal informés sur les tarifs, ainsi que sur les conditions qui changent continuellement.

Il est rare de tomber sur une personne qui sache vous écouter. On se dit que, si «elle» le fait convenablement, elle doit être nouvellement employée. J’imagine le personnel des diverses plateformes qui est obligé de noter le nombre d’appels qu’il reçoit en une heure, le nombre de problèmes qu’il a dû résoudre. J’imagine le stress supplémentaires si  toutes les conversations téléphoniques sont enregistrées et que les supérieurs hiérarchiques viennent souvent leur «remonter les bretelles»…

Les vrais ingénieurs de France Telecom venant réparer nos lignes, nos centraux ( et pas des sous-traitants) essayaient d’esquiver les questions concernant leur propre société. Je plains ces techniciens qui se font plus ou moins malmener par tout le monde.

Nous autres, dans l’arrière-pays, avons aussi droit à un service irréprochable. Pourtant, les lignes sont souvent et particulièrement  vétustes. J’imagine la comptabilité chez France Telecom, Orange et Orange Internet avec des contrats aux mégabits, des forfaits limités qui fonctionnent entre 08h00 et 18h00, mais pas de 20h à 7h00, avec des forfaits de tous genres. J’imagine aussi les tonnes de courriers qui doivent arriver dans ces divers bureaux, souvent recommandés et perdus.

Comment de fois avez-vous dû envoyer à Orange votre changement d’adresse pour qu’elle devienne effective? Moi, je vais vous le dire, c’était 4 fois à mon dernier déménagement.

Il existe d’autres coûts pour tout cela: il se nomme le respect de la vie humaine. Il se nomme la possibilité de vivre avec cohérence en produisant une chose ou un produit, de pouvoir en recevoir une juste et saine compensation, et de se débrouiller pour vivre avec ça. Des suicides , il en arrive tous les jours, seulement voilà, France Telecom est une société qui appartient en partie à l’état français. Et cela gène  l’État de savoir, que vous et moi, en payant les forfaits tout inclus dernier cri, nous aidons  à supprimer des vies…

Sommes-nous arrivés à un moment dans l’histoire du profit, où l’homme n’est devenu  utile qu’à engraisser les vaches?

C’est quand même incroyable qu’un pays aussi moderne que la France soit encore incapable de gérer le personnel du service des télécommunications que ce soit au niveau des  services clientèles ( décidément pas notre fort..Avec tout le respect que je dois aux formateurs de ces services), ou même les techniciens. Cela ne date pas d’ hier. A ceux qui ont plus de 60 ans: rappelez-vous quand vous deviez passer par l’opératrice des Postes, ou qu’il vous fallait aller à la Poste pour téléphoner? A ceux qui ont utilisé un téléphone fixe rotatif (C’est quoi ça? Ça  existe encore?…)

Au fond, je ne voudrais pas être Didier Lombard, car il  n’a pas seulement un problème humain sur les bras et la conscience mais un problème concernant la structure de sa société. Il faut espérer qu’il ne fera pas du rafistolage, une réforme comme toutes les réformes politiques… Aux formes bien aléatoires…

As someone who has lived, studied and worked in France, I have a great affection for the country and its people, unlike some of my more vocal adopted countrymen and women in the US.  This is a pity because it is a country with a wonderful culture which has added so much to the world and continues to do so. In the business world, especially on the people side of business, its reputation has been shaped in part by the introduction some years ago of the 35 hour work week (now less prevalent) and for its famous long vacations and the seeming inability to fire people.  This in turn has led to the myth that France is somehow “easy-going” when it comes to business, which is far from the truth.  While it has a unique culture driven by its history and values, which inevitably effects business life in that country, France is in fact one of the most productive countries in the industrialized world.

Recently the news that one of its major companies, France Télécom, had suffered the absolute tragedy of multiple suicides of its workers has made headlines around the world, and as one of those who care about this situation and the underlying reasons for it, I have been following the developments.  As most of you will know FT is one the largest telecom companies in the world, with over 100,000 employees in France alone, and international wireless telecom operations known as Orange.  Formerly wholly state-owned, like most European telecoms, the company has had to become majority shareholder owned because of European law, although the French state continues to hold a significant ownership (27%) and can call the shots when it comes to major moves made by the company.  When the news emerged that more than 20 people employed by FT had committed suicide (Agence France-Presse on October 16, 2009 updated the number at 25 in the last 20 months), some of whom had left notes indicating troubles and changes at FT as the reason for their despair, the French state stepped in with demands for an investigation.  This lead to the resignation of the deputy CEO, a former consultant who had been reported as being a hard-charging individual responsible for bringing the company into a more competitive era.  Recently announced was a comprehensive program which will cost the company more than 1 billion Euros, to counter this alarming trend.  This includes the hiring of an independent consulting company, specializing in morale, to examine the situation and make recommendations for steps to prevent any more instances of what seems to be a very sad epidemic.

So what is happening here?  Some early newspaper reports mentioned the fact that France has a fairly high rate of suicide and that with such a large employee population, FT’s suicides were not out of the ordinary.  From a purely cold statistical point of view, this is probably false: teenagers, older people and the unemployed likely have higher suicide rates than those not in those groups, none of which by definition work for FT, whose suicide rate for employed individuals aged between 19-60 might be higher than the French average for that demographic. Having said that, I don’t think this statistical approach says enough about the situation, and offers no solution in the case of a finding that FT’s actions have indeed contributed to the employees taking their own lives; or to look at it another way, there is a possibility that FT may not have had the high morale which could have prevented these tragedies, regardless of the underlying suicide rate in France. The role of the FT employees themselves must also be considered, not in any negative way of “blaming” them, but from a sympathetic point of view;  and we need to look at the role of the French public, FT’s customers.

Over the last decade or so, millions and millions of FT’s customers have deserted the company, especially younger ones.  The advent of services like Skype, which routes calls through the Internet, have devastated old, fixed line telecoms around the industrialized world.  Many young people now would not dream of having a fixed line phone, but instead rely on their mobile or “handy” and Skype, which gives them free worldwide audio and video calling when they are in touch with another Skype user, and extremely cheap calls (around 2 Euro cents a minute) when they are not. Clearly FT’s cost structure and its staffing levels were created at a time before Skype and other VOIP calling services came along;  Internet calling makes this cost structure unsustainable, unless the French public chooses to ignore it and stay with FT’s more expensive fixed line system, which they clearly do not, any more than German consumers have stayed with Deutsche Telekom.

As for the employees’ role, lets go back to when a person decided to join France Télécom. Was this a random event?  It was not: this person chose to go there based on his or her needs and especially, values.  Time and again I and my colleagues have surveyed employees around the world and asked them what they look for in a job.  In many cases where that employee works for a public utility like a telecom, electric or gas, water or other such company, they have said that job security and good pay are top of the list.  While some readers may think this is universal, it is not at all true for those who choose other types of industry.  Technology workers often have values which list challenge, a chance to learn new things and other such items well above job security. So we have what I call a group of “self selected” employees in a given company or industry, and at first this might work well:  their values and needs are met by the organization and in return they give that organization their loyalty and hard work. The problem comes when, for reasons of deregulation or other change in the market environment, the rules of the game change, and the long established, safe utility is stripped of government ownership or protection, and thrown into a fiercely competitive situation.  Faced with this, the company has to respond with a complete change in its culture and often, with cuts in staffing levels to meet the cost structure of its new-found competition. Those who thought they were “safe” until retirement suddenly find that they are as vulnerable as those who joined very different industries when they entered the workforce.  This can cause almost unbearable stress.  Of course this is not their fault, things changed around them;  at the same time, change is everywhere at all times, and the idea that we can stop the clock and “keep things as they are” is impossible in life.

This is not to say that resistance, failure or inability to adapt are universal in this situation: there are those who will thrive in a new competitive environment and enjoy the new challenges; they might even experience a sense of freedom from the old way of doing things and the rigidities of that style of management which often comes with government-run or heavily regulated utilities.  They might enjoy the opportunities which open up to them.  This happened in many of the US utilities which have been deregulated over the last decades. Other employees will not respond so favorably, they will not make it and the stress level will build up to intense levels.  They simply cannot let go of what they thought was lifetime job security and safety and a certain work lifestyle…witness Japan and the “lost decade”  of the 1990s when decades of such a “safe” corporate culture were wiped out: Japanese employee morale slumped to unprecedented low levels and seems to not have yet recovered.  The key is that the company going through this wrenching change has to be sensitive to employee needs and have an understanding and a plan to deal with what I have described in the paragraphs above, and some do not.  This is also about corporate values, and about morale: some of my former clients have also gone through huge change and (while significantly smaller, which does not have to be the main issue) avoided the tragic outcome of FT;  they did this by having a strong culture of “putting people first”,  not as an empty slogan but as a living, breathing part of their culture.  This was communicated and trained relentlessly and lived in the organization without exception. Their organizational morale was constantly improving, which “inoculated” them against the worst, most negative outcomes of change.  If a cut in staffing levels seemed necessary, for example, they bent over backwards to spread the pain by cutting work hours for all, rather than individuals.  I have no inside information on FT but it seems that with the new and widespread intervention, the company will have the opportunity to focus on these issues in a way that they did not do before.  It is not the employees’ fault that such wrenching change happens;  at the same time, neither the government nor an individual company can protect everyone from change, such as the Skype example, any more than King Canute could stop the tide from coming in on the English shoreline.  Its how we help people understand it and adapt to it, how we build the high morale culture which can cushion its worst effects, that is important, and we ignore this at our…and the employees’…peril.

We’ve been hearing for a while about the terrible and unprecedented number of suicides occurring at France Telecom (25 since 2008 apparently). According to a recent story in the Times, the organisation is now to make part-time jobs available on a voluntary basis to employees aged over 57 who feel that full time work is endangering their health. My money’s on the fact that those making this decision are nowhere near 57 themselves. The (potentially fatal) flaw in the argument is that these poor beleaguered older workers who are already feeling highly stressed and threatened would be doing the equivalent of throwing themselves to the wolves, the very act of admitting that they could no longer take the pace being tantamount to lying on their backs with their legs in the air waiting to be ripped asunder. As anyone who’s spoken to older workers knows, a common driver of those who still want to see themselves as contributing value in a competitive situation is not wanting to admit they’re ‘not up to it’ or ‘not as good’ as younger competitors. BT proved this when they found that few of their older workers actually wanted to take advantage of reduced hours working for just this reason.

 Okay, some older workers do want to wind down and reduce their hours, but those at France Telecom are unlikely to fit the bill as they’re not being offered the choice to do it for positive reasons (either their own or their employer’s) in a supportive environment. As a comment on the Times site said, they should at least offer the option to all workers, to single out older workers in this instance is both inappropriate and insulting – and unfortunately not likely to solve the problem. Let’s hope they call in the occupational psychologists without delay.

Read the Times story at http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/telecoms/article6895790.ece