Avoid the employee asks everything and anything to the company

PSA Peugeot Citroën launched this year, a vast programme to help its 35,000 employees in the Paris region to better feed and to lose weight: awareness campaigns, dietetic menus at the restaurant business, custom support... The Oracle group will offer anonymous counselling to its employees and their families. The small telecommunications future telecom operator has set up six months ago a program to help his "addicted to smoking" collaborators: poster campaign, coaching during the hours of work with an external speaker. This program was followed by 13 employees, two-thirds of smokers.

A transaction that is not trivial for the SMEs of 95 people (the cost was EUR 350 per participant) but which, in terms of image, is very beneficial. "This is the first time that my company is interested in me as an individual and not as an employee," said Didier Rossello, all smiles. Twenty years after starting to smoke, this employee thirty-seven years of successfully stopped... by his company. "It is a loyalty factor, confirms Cécile Bridgeman, responsible for human resources. Even if we do not have the means to a large group and we cannot create, for example, a Sports Hall, we want to show that the company is doing something for them.

"To give good conscience".

Stop smoking, lose weight... In a context where the company asks always more to its employees, paradoxically, it is also increasingly interested in their well-being. "It is a way to give good conscience to the pressures that it induces, observes Eric Wuithier, Director, partner in the firm of Towers Perrin. She asked the employees to be more present and more flexible in their hours of work and, in return, it is, for example, a system of child care.

Handle attempted suicide

Remains that the HRD are not only confronted with some cigarettes and pounds too. They sometimes have to handle problems more heavy, even if they concern only the employee, have an impact on his work. Debt, family problems, psychological difficulties, depression, stress, anxiety, etc., all factors that generate absenteeism, decreased motivation and productivity or a deterioration in relations with colleagues. "I am appalled by the number of personal case I have to deal with and which require me to return to the privacy of my staff," confirms Hubert de Marcellus, Director of the Bank people's Atlantic human resources management.

Examples abound: as this young woman who, after a separation, was held and, according to the occupational physician, was able to complete objectives. "Even if it is not a company which imposes pressure on employees, our professions work with targets." It is aberrant! "he continues. Or even this collaborator fallen into depression and who, for two years, has lost 90 of its productivity.

More delicate, suicide attempts. "I must manage every year, he says, so find themselves sometimes deal with a case of conscience, as there are a few months. I had noticed that a contributor closed all accounts on the computer, as if it was about to disappear. I do not have to intervene but is difficult when you feel that something serious is going on. I therefore mobilized his colleagues so they called his friends in this way that elle is not the only one weekend.

How to handle such situations The case by case basis, meet the HRD, who admit to feeling often powerless. "This is not a new phenomenon but the company must increasingly bear the burden." "Employees lead more and more their problems on their place of work and are more reluctant to talk openly to their manager or HRD", adds Hubert of Marcellus.

How to explain this trend Eric Wuithier, which is in question, it is the growing lack of differentiation between the professional sphere and privacy: "with the development of means of communication, most employees are equipped with laptop and BlackBerry". As the company has introduced more and more in their private sphere, they expect in return that their manager also takes into account their personal problems.

The danger, however, is that HRD endorse more the habit of social assistant. "Avoid the employee asks everything and anything to the company." "So far, it is important to be responsive and to help if you can," explains Jean-Marie Romani, HRD of Paprec, company specialized in the collection, sorting and recycling of paper. Thus, one of the employees which was in need of legal advice could benefit from the services of counsel for the company.

Avoiding interference

The other danger, it is that, that she likes it or not, the company is taxed of interference in the privacy of the employee. Difficult, indeed, when we know the difficulties and the fragility of a collaborator of forget about it if it is running a promotion, for example.

To avoid this, Françoise Sagorin, HRD for the Europe of Juniper Networks Europe area, one of the major OEMs networks in the world, has decided to implement a green number 50 employees and their families can call to be in relationship with a psychologist, a lawyer, a toxicologist or any other specialist. "This allows to provide a service to the employee but without as directly involving the company or some collaborators," she explains. Another advantage, even if the calls are confidential, it regularly receives a report detailing their purpose. "If there is a recurring motif, this mean perhaps that there is an internal problem in the company, which is not only a personal concern", she adds.

Precisely the employee

In the United States, where this type of psychosocial services began to be in force as early as the 1980s, 70 of the companies are using today and employees adhere more and more. A phenomenon that Françoise Sagorin had already observed in his former business, Cisco Systems Europe: "When it has implemented the green number, at the beginning they were sceptical, or even suspicious." Finally, 10 of them have come to use it.

But to address this need, is this not precisely take the risk of precisely the employee, who expects his business it solve all its problems Or strengthen the desire of interference by certain companies It is the HRD to play this role of adjudicator, a field where they feel in general rather uncomfortable.