By Baptiste Broughton
Edition 7 – April 2016 Pages 20-24
Tags: flexible working • coworking • productivity
France is always behind.Well,we might be the first to cut off our King’s head and hold a revolution,or to stand up on barricades and die for ideals of justice and universal equality,but when it comes down to change – especially in large organisational contexts – we always seem to lag behind. You could blame it on a number of factors: a cultural bias towards tradition and values,the legacy of an interventionist and ever-present state, spawning bureaucratic models of large state-owned corporations,the everlasting grasp of the elites stifling innovation and the ability to “think outside the box”… Whatever this may be,the debate around remote working – a type of work organisation which allows employees to work regularly away from the office – in France has always been articulated around the preconception that France was behind. And that while its Anglo-Saxon or Nordic European neighbours displayed a boastful 30 percent of the working population as remote workers,France struggled to reach a meagre 9 to 10 percent in 2010.
In contrast,French Government studies showed that by 2015 50 percent of the working population would be eligible for remote work.And with the huge advantages that this type of work organisation provides,our backwardness seemed like just another archaic trait holding us back.Which confirmed another stereotypical vision that French have of themselves: as a somewhat intellectually-enlightened but economically struggling-to- stay-ahead nation,nostalgic of the days when we could call ourselves a “great nation”.
At LBMG,we started looking closely at the subject in 2010. As young entrepreneurs who had been jumping through the hoops of large organisational transformation projects (either as consultants or as project managers in large companies), we couldn’t quite understand the world we were living in. For example in Paris,people still commuted over two hours every day,in what can only be described as quite adverse conditions (try the RER A line going into the main office hub of La Defense around 8:30) only to open their laptops and work online,on tasks that could be carried out – at least part of the time – remotely. It seemed to us that a lot of time and effort could have been saved by working in this way – but very few companies actually did; or didn’t seem to.
When trying to measure the percent of the active population working remotely in France at the time,we realised:
• That the definition of remote work or remote work itself is quite a complicated task (is working from a hotel lobby or from your car considered remote work? Should freelancers be included in the analysis? Should we take into account
occasional work from home,even if it’s a few days per year for exceptional reasons?)
• That the comparison between different European countries was made harder for the lack of serious studies on the subject, and the various ways of measuring the phenomenon.
• That even if remote work is defined in French labour law since 2012 (“loi WARSMANN” 1) most of the remote work today is done outside of a signed contractual relationship between employee and employer.The great majority of this type of organisation of work is therefore done “illegally” or what we call in a “grey area”.
This is a specific characteristic of France which needs to be understood so see how the phenomenon is evolving today and impacting the work environment at large.As labour law is very restrictive2, remote work is supposed to be strictly defined in the work contracts of employees wishing to benefit from this new way of working.The day can be set,or flexible. Most of the time a maximum number of days is set as well as hours where employees are supposed to be reachable. It requires the manager’s approval (not always easy),and a reversibility clause is included in the agreement.This means that today 60 percent of remote working is done informally on a “one to one agreement basis3.”
To measure this phenomenon,we decided to align the definition of remote work to those of other European countries as work conducted away from the office more than two days per month.With this rule of thumb,France was hovering around 17 percent in 2010,more than 20 percent in 2015. Other interesting fact,in 2010,45 percent of CAC 40 companies (top 40 companies in France) has signed a remote work agreement. In 2015,this number has raised to close to 90 percent. French companies want to put this in place by defining a general framework within their companies. However,putting a framework in place does not mean that a large percentage of the employee base actually embraces remote working.This can remain a marginal phenomenon,in companies that have not first revolutionised the work and management cultures,away from some of the typical traits that hinder our revolutionary instincts.These traits need to be taken into account to understand the situation in France. Here are a few easy ones:
In France staying late is a sign of performance
This might be a shock to some readers,but whereas in Anglo- Saxon working cultures staying late is a sign of bad personal organisation,in France it is seen as a way to prove yourself
and show your dedication4. No one really looks at the time you arrive in the office,but they do look at the time you go.Which makes no sense,we agree here.The famous joke is that when working a high powered job and leaving around 6 pm,you will have invariable heard at some point a colleague with a quirky smile “ah,so you’re taking the afternoon off?”
I see you,therefore you work
This translates in the fact that a lot of the management work today in France is not done on an objective basis,but on a presence basis: “if I see you on the open space I know that you are working” (even if you are spending most of the day on Facebook). More than that,it is the role and identity of managers and especially middle managers which are threatened by remote work,and this explains – partly – why
remote work in France means complicated situations,and why it develops in an unformal and unchecked “grey” way.
Top management remains old school…