http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/09/technology/09telecom.html?scp=1&sq=43%20suicides&st=SearchPARIS — France Télécom’s new management must move quickly “to take charge and encourage radical change” if it is to put an end to a suicide crisis, according to a study commissioned by the company.
The team of Stéphane Richard, who formally succeeded Didier Lombard as chief executive on March 1, has a “few weeks” to install a new style of leadership to address the crisis, according to an interim report from Technologia, a human resources consulting firm, which was dated March 5 and obtained Monday by the International Herald Tribune.
In response to the 43 suicides among employees since January 2008, including eight this year, France Télécom has already stopped several practices identified as being particularly disruptive, like forcing employees to change jobs and closing work sites.
In 107 separate recommendations based on 500 face-to-face interviews with France Télécom employees, the report called for the company to implement a moratorium on reorganizations, closely monitor psychosocial risk factors and create an internal network of mediators to make the personnel department more accessible.
Jean-Bernard Orsoni, a France Télécom spokesman, confirmed the authenticity of the Technologia report, and said the company was meeting with unions to discuss the recommendations.
“But we don’t have a magic wand that we can wave and just fix the problem in a few weeks,” he added.
Though three-quarters of the company has been sold to the public, France Télécom retains vestiges of the lumbering state monopoly it once was, including a work force in which civil servants with lifetime job guarantees make up a majority.
Mr. Richard last month announced an organizational overhaul aimed at improving human resources management and simplifying management structures. Many of the recommendations in the report echoed the need to create clear lines of authority. The report warned that, above all, “it is indispensable that actions accompany the talk.”
