I’d commented last month on what has been called a “suicide wave” at France Telecom.

French newspaper La Croix today features a column by René Pardieu, a French statistician. Pardieu comments, People commit suicide less at France Telecom than elsewhere. And, it seems, less than a few years ago. There’s no ‘suicide wave’.”

To reach this view, Pardieu compares the suicide rate for French people aged 20-60 (19.6 per 100,000) and compares it to France Telecom, with 25 suicides in 19 months, or about 16 suicides in one year; France Telecom has about 100,000 employees. These numbers point to human suffering, but not to a suicide wave.

Pardieu takes the preoccupation over suicides as a meaningful symptom of societal unwellness of some sort; on this point we are in agreement, too. Several of France Telecom suicides left behind notes critical of company management or working conditions.

As the media have widely reported, France Telecom has temporarily frozen a compulsory transfer policy that required employees, every three years, to relocate or change jobs. There must have been a reason for this policy, but France Telecom doesn’t seem to be communicating on it today. Common sense suggests that mandatory transfers could be hard on couples and families, for whom moving could be a hardship; or on employees who value seniority or stability, such as those who joined the company when it was a state-owned monopoly.

France Telecom has communicated on one point this week: it commissioned an outside firm to survey all employees about workplace conditions. This troubles me, on two counts:

  • An employee survey tends to frame the problem as an employee problem, not a management problem, and to point to coping strategies for employees, not managers;
  • Confidentiality works somewhat like a one-way mirror: management commissioned the survey, and management will study aggregate results; I strongly doubt that ordinary employees will have same-time access to the same data.

Is there a business or communications rationale behind the survey? At this point, deplorable working conditions seem to be acknowledged by all parties and by the French public. Given that no one disputes that conditions are bad, is there really something to be gained by measuring the extent of discontent? Why doesn’t company leadership instead vow to have the most satisfied workforce possible, and to survey its employees on what would offer them the greatest satisfaction on the job?