"There is not a great resignation among the French, with regard to work, but a great disappointment."
Two years after the collective work What do we know about work ? (Presses de Sciences Po, 2023), in partnership with Le Monde , several researchers have published Working Better (La Vie des idées-PUF, 112 pages, 18 euros), in collaboration with Le Monde , which puts forward concrete avenues for improving the quality of employment. For Christine Erhel and Bruno Palier, who led this work, France must break with overly vertical management, in order to restore meaning and well-being to work.
The French say they are attached to their work, but many find it difficult, even unbearable. How can this paradox be explained?Bruno Palier: It can be explained by a large gap. The French have both higher expectations and more difficulties with regard to work than in comparable countries. The result is not a "great resignation," like the one we've seen in the United States in recent years, but a "great disappointment."
People aren't leaving their jobs, but they don't feel like they belong there. They feel neither listened to nor recognized. This translates into unease, a sense of a loss of meaning. Poor listening at work is a major issue, whose political significance is underestimated. If they aren't listened to at work, people will go to the roundabouts. If they aren't listened to at the roundabouts, they end up voting for the far right. There is a direct link between the feeling of being excluded at work and voting for the National Rally. Poor management has a high social cost.
Is this low quality of work a French specificity?BP: All the indicators confirm this. To begin with, there are far more sick leave due to occupational illness. And 750 deaths per year at work, which is, in proportion to the working population, twice the European average.
Christine Erhel: Compared to countries with the same level of wealth, such as Germany, the Netherlands, and the Nordic countries, job dissatisfaction is high in France, and workers there report greater difficulties. This observation of lower work quality is not based solely on perceptions. It is well documented. It emerges, for example, from the European Survey on Working Conditions, which collects information on arduousness, postures, schedules, listening skills, etc.
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