Recently, I was saddened to read of the 25th France Telecom worker to commit suicide in the past 18 months. The full circumstances behind such tragic events are undoubtedly complex, but some of the suicide victims left notes blaming working conditions, citing “overwork”, “stress” and “management by terror” as key reasons for their actions.
France Telecom was privatised in 1998, around the time of significant changes in the telecommunications industry, and the company continues to modernise in order to stay competitive in an increasingly global market. One reason why France Telecom may be having more trouble than most companies in cutting costs in response to the economic climate is that 65% of the 100,000 employees have civil-servant contracts, signed when the company was state-owned, and therefore have jobs for life. Unions say that there is pressure on many employees either to leave or to accept new working conditions and the stress of learning a new trade, often in a new city, has proved difficult for some workers to cope with. In the press, there are examples of engineers, traditionally employed to repair phone lines, being reassigned to work in call centres. Understandably, some are struggling with this change. There are parallels here in the UK, at a time when postal strikes over pay and modernisation are becoming increasingly common in an organisation that is struggling to compete in an open market.
As for the reaction from France Telecom, many press commentators were appalled at the company’s apparent apathetic response to the prevalence of suicide amongst its employees. A spokesperson from France Telecom is reported as saying that there is no real cause for concern because the company is ‘in-line’ with the national average for suicide rates (for France, in 2007, the number of suicides per 100,000 inhabitants was 16.3). If you need an example of the misuse of statistics, then this is surely one! To hide behind such grim statistics of a high “national average” is, to say the least, highly dubious. We should instead be asking whether the high suicide rate is because France Telecom did not implement sufficient preventative measures effectively in their organisations – and whether this is prevalent in other French organisations.
France Telecom remains a quarter owned by the French state. I am pleased to read that unions have called for a parliamentary debate on the suicides, and France Telecom does now appear to be responding to the situation. Reports say that employee transfers have been stopped; more physicians specialising in occupational medicine are being hired, as are more human relations staff; there will be help stations for employees in need of psychological assistance; there will also be an anonymous advice helpline for distressed employees; and managers will receive training in a bid to help them deal with employee depression when it occurs. This is a good start and hopefully their chosen approach will be successful. But looking ahead it’s crucial that they don’t settle for matching national averages in this area – they need to make a point of striving for better than the typical – in all related metrics, but especially in terms of suicide rates.
