Thursday 1 October 2009

France Telecom Drama

It could be a film noir movie, but it is true. 24 suicides in france telecom due to organizational stress in a few months. In 100K employees, the percentage is not much higher than the rest of the country, it is however, scandalous to think that it comes for the same reason and in a short time and due to the new status, that of a private company
Of course the unions and the socialist party went bazurk, rightfully so, and ask for the PDG's head (ceo in french)

It made me think of the stress that many people go under in organizational settings, no less the company that I used to work for a few months after leaving cisco and before engaging in starting my own venture. At the very end it all comes down to really bad top management, lack of consideration of individual rights, self centrism, and total inexistence of motivational leadership.
I can not believe that the FT top management was that much worse than many others, but I do think that the French employees had a shock as I had never before seen elsewhere a two-hour break, a short work week and so many priviledges. However, the change must have been great for those people who left their lives leaving notes behind to their loved ones that they could not have taken it any more

And I who thought I was a tender foot...

I feel for those people and their families, and I join their cry to get the PDG head on a platter

2 comments:

Unknown said...

but possibly also the stress would have been less if the restructuring had taken place in a slower, less confrontational way? Which couldn't happen due to strong opposition from the unions and the Socialist party. What does PDG stand for?

Zeta Zizou said...

I totally agree with you. However, placing personal goals to former state employees and totally putting them in a situation that their manager is threatening to lose their job is frustrating as hell

PDG=président-directeur général

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