She has been surveying employees since 1985. In nearly 40 years, Marielle Dumortier, occupational physician in Créteil, has seen the world of work “completely transform”. In his book “The working world has gone mad! »(Éditions du Recherches Midi), published at the end of the year, the doctor autopsies the suffering at work, piece by piece: harassment, discrimination, burn-out, violence … All the layers of malaise surface among employees who yet love their work and their company.
These psychosocial risks are increasing. According to the Sumer and DARES survey, 30% of employees say they “don’t have the time to do their job properly”. And according to a European report, a quarter of workers in Europe say they are stressed, which represents 50 to 60% of the working days lost.
In her book, Marielle Dumortier deciphers a chain reaction and a system that bites its tail: decisions without consultation, coming from who knows where, causing a proliferation of sick leaves, a drop in quality, customer complaints. … “All this feeds the vision of the new management: everything must be changed, nothing works in this establishment! By refusing any dialogue, it continues to reorganize and the social climate is inexorably deteriorating ”.
You say that there are more and more employees who are suffering at work. What are the reasons for this, according to you?
Dr Marielle Dumortier. New ways of organizing work. It’s always more and less time with less staff. This is valid in all trades. We lose the sense of the quality of our work and it is this feeling of doing a dirty job that causes pain. As for the cashiers, we know the number of items that pass per minute, so we always ask them for more. New technologies have improved many things, but the flip side is that they also allow permanent control. The problem is that employees are asked to be a top athlete every day. Except there is no finish line in the world of work. The only solution is sick leave.
You are very critical of the initiative to establish “people responsible for happiness” …
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The positions of “chief happiness officer” or “feel good manager” are rubbish. One way for companies to clear their conscience. I am angry about this because a company is not there to make people happy, but to give them a job. And well-organized work that makes sense will naturally make them happy. It is not about going to put a ping-pong table! We go to work to work and have quality human relations.
What is the most common cause of distress at work?
Seven-eight years ago, all employees spoke of harassment. Currently, the buzzword is burnout. Our job is also to help patients understand what is happening to them and use the right words. Whatever the situation, we find at one point a lack of recognition, an overload of work and a loss of sense of work. Each employee tells me “I am not recognized in my work”. This is a very complicated question because everyone puts different things behind this word. The only one who really knows his job is the one who does it. But it is the result that we evaluate. This is why they do not feel recognized, because they are evaluated on a production, and not on their actual work. But work is not just about producing.
What observations do you make on the evolution of the world of work?
Now the suffering is more psychological whereas in the past we were in physical suffering. My family, which has a lot of minors, tells me it was difficult. But at least there was collective, solidarity. She gets lost. We don’t have time anymore, everyone is running all the time. And teleworking has only made this trend worse. I am in favor of it one or two days a week, but more, it represents a loss of collective. How do you want solidarity to be created? It is born because we go for a coffee, discuss the last film we saw, and dare to confide in our difficulties. The loss of the sense of the profession is also more significant. In the past, there was a head of personnel in companies. He had a Labor Code. Now we have a human resources manager. Management asks him that these “resources” be as few as possible, that they cost as little as possible, but that they be happy. So HR is driving them crazy!
You explain that ill-being at work is expensive, 3 to 4% of European GDP, and that it has consequences for the proper functioning of a company. In extreme cases of inhuman management, you meet with management, but they often refuse any questioning …
Yes we are taking walls, but there is no longer the same denial as ten years ago. The condemnation of France Telecom has been there, and it’s scary. Hence the birth of stupid positions responsible for happiness. We do not think about the organization of work. In their defense, it’s complicated to question yourself. I also hear the chief’s difficulties. Sometimes he is both actor and victim. He is an employee like any other, with the same needs. He knows that some goals are untenable, but he has to give them or he will get slapped on the fingers. We must put the human being at the center of concerns in companies. And stop thinking that man must adapt to work: it is work that must adapt to man. We reorganize the work then we say to the employee: get by! We should have the opposite reasoning.
Is the painting totally dark?
No, I also see the arrival of young people who no longer let themselves be like that, at least in highly qualified professions. There is no longer that investment that previous generations had in work. HR now finds that when they are hired, young people ask more questions about benefits, RTTs and schedules than about the job itself! But I find it normal: it’s because they saw their parents, and their grandparents before them, suffer at work.
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