In the meantime companies scramble barometers

The deadline fell yesterday. Under penalty of seeing their names delivered feed to the public, undertakings with more than 1,000 employees were engaged in negotiations on stress prior to February 1. It is a flagship measure the emergency plan launched early October by the Minister of labour, Xavier Darcos, following the wave of suicides which struck France Telecom. The Government should establish a first review of the good and bad students in mid-February. Thus, the subject is on the table of large 2,500 companies. However, these agreements suffice to reduce stress Not sure. "To achieve compliance within a short time, the temptation is great to include in the agreements, visible actions, which have the looks, but which have no impact in the short term," said Marc Banet, expert in prevention of psychosocial risks in the business & staff association.

With what weapons, then, should businesses fight against what appears to be the evil of the century Alone, the stress would have cost between 1.9 and EUR 3 billion in 2007, according to a study by the national Institute for research and safety (INRS) and Arts et Métiers ParisTech engineering school. But these expenses related to care, absenteeism, the activity ceases, and premature death, would have determined a minimum, because the study considered that the most commonly observed pathologies, such as depression, cardiovascular disease or certain musculo-skeletal disorders.

Individual management

To combat these evils, the battle raged. On the one hand, the followers of the individual stress management want to develop the ability of each employee to cope. For them, the evil being emanates from individual situations. On the other, supporters of organizational transformation believe that the company must reduce the constraints for its employees. In their eyes, the risk is collective and takes its source in the Organization of the work.

"Today, the individual stress management dominate", finds Valérie Langevin, a psychologist working at the INRS. With the key cells for psychological support, toll-free numbers... and a thriving "tickets psy" offer, sessions of shiatsu or software of relaxation for each employee take his health in hand. And, according to the trade unionist Bernard Salengro, it is not a chance: "these measures give the impression of moving companies and does make them faulty s pa, says the Secretary national the CFE - CGC, in charge of health in the workplace.". Many consider that employees must adapt to a deleterious work environment and arguing their powerlessness in a context of competition and globalization. However, it must be to instead change the rules of the game.

If simple step, says consultant Eric Albert ("echos" columnist): "We must remain pragmatic." What account is to be effective in the short term, to employees who suffer the most, believes the latter, who chairs the French Institute against stress. And the idea that a vast organizational reform may everything is abstract and disconnected from the reality of the company.

The methods also compete in the field. "Our goal is not to make the social regulation, but to promote operations that preserve the psychological state of the employees," said Patrick Lègeron, psychiatrist and cabinet Stimulus pattern. He advocates, inter alia, to transform the managers of proximity in "psycho-social risk in their immediate environment managers." A charge for them, for example, to identify employees who go wrong.

A trend that concerns Henri Forest, the CFDT: "the intention is perhaps laudable but this puts managers in trouble...." On the other hand, the approach does not put in question, for example, the individualized performance assessment which puts employees in competition, isolate them and destroy the work collectives.

Collective approach

Contrast stimuli, cabinet Secafi (Alpha group) advocates "a more collective approach, examining the Organization of work, managerial, strategy of the company culture, says Francois Cochet, Director of the health activities to work in Secafi.". "In terms of prevention, it is wrong to focus on the search for frail people." Among its recommendations to client companies: debate on labour, establish a tutoring, Act on the sound or lighting, better take into account the skills, reorganize offices... "It is not the employees who are ill, but the work", said Françoise Mesnard, occupational physician in the Deux-Sèvres, which advocates to the problem at root. Even broaden the debate to mental work, its social utility issues and ethical conflicts that it induces, suggests the consultant Anne Flottès. Because employees are struggling to do quality work in which they recognize.

Conditions of employment to review

However, rethink the Organization of the work is a complex task. Evidenced by the case of Renault. January 21, a cabinet Technologia prérapport revealed that the percentage of engineers Renault "tense work situation" has fallen from 31 to 27 since 2007. He also noted an improvement of their autonomy, a reduction in the workload and a decline in activity constraints. However, in October, a collaborator of the Technocentre in Guyancourt was death, three years after a series of suicides involving other employees of the site. "Each drama is too, says Jean-Claude Delgènes, Director General of Technologia.". But to make prevention by reducing occupational risks does not give results in a day.

This is where the shoe pinches. As organizations address takes time. "These are projects in four or five years, said Marc Banet." They involve analysis of the causes of stress and solutions that may not be all made and changing modes of management for many years.

In the meantime, companies scramble barometers. Like SAP or the Caisse nationale des Caisses d'Epargne, whose agreements create, among other devices, evaluation and monitoring of stress. For Philippe Douillet in the NAALC (National Agency for the improvement of working conditions), the employers certainly need diagnostics. But they must remain vigilant: "stress has a subjective dimension, unlike noise known exposure above a level of decibels is deaf," he said. Drift await. "These assessments measure the acceptable and the unacceptable." "They stick the employers to a point of crisis management," said Serge Dufour, Cabinet Emergences. INRS intends to put his weight in the balance: he published, in the spring, a practical guide to help businesses to locate in the maquis of the consultants and adopt a prevention focus on working conditions.