Reflexes sometimes die hard. Lying on the beach towel, you unlock your smartphone screen to take a look at your messages. Nothing new under the sun. Then, innocently, you press the icon for your work mailbox. And there is panic. Hundreds of emails that seem more urgent than the next saturate your mind. What to do then? Let it sink in at the risk of having a very stressful start to the new school year, or start processing the files one by one, even if it means ruining your vacation with your feet in the water?
Pick up, easier said than done
Slack, WhatsApp, Teams, LinkedIn… With the proliferation of messaging platforms and the generalization of remote work, there are now many points of contact, and any digital break is now a real priesthood. Since January 1, 2017 and the entry into application of the El Khomri law, there is however a “right to disconnect” for all workers. Companies with more than fifty employees must put in place instruments to regulate the use of professional tools, as well as a dialogue with the social partners on these subjects.
And it is not Bruno Le Maire who will say the opposite. In a post on social media on August 1, the Minister of the Economy invited the French to let go to make the most of their holidays. “You have to live in the moment. You have the rest of the year to read emails, answer professional calls or scroll through social networks,” insisted the Bercy tenant.
Easy to say, says Anne Leleu-Eté, who supports companies in the implementation of these disconnection devices. “In truth, it’s a whole corporate culture to put in place. The risk is to fall fairly quickly into standard mechanisms, the Labor Code leaving a fairly wide margin of maneuver to employers”.
The lawyer considers that the subject is not yet sufficiently taken up in the world of work. “The legal stakes are lower, there is very little risk of being convicted for non-respect of the right to disconnect as such”. It is also rare for the Labor Court to rely on this reason in its decisions, even if it can contribute to a range of clues in the context of an additional application.
“Traces”, “workation”, double-edged concepts
The hyperconnection is however a scourge for the company, carried by the increasingly large porosity between professional life and personal life. “I don’t believe that you can be everywhere at the same time, both on business and present on vacation with your loved ones simultaneously”, judge Sophie Prunier-Poulmaire, lecturer in work psychology, who however takes a few minutes on his leave to respond to L’Express.
The ergonomist, who is interested in the link between the quality of life at work and the economic health of companies, is concerned about the fashion for “tracances” or “workations” (working at one’s vacation spot). “These marketing concepts come up every summer, increasingly fragmenting working spaces and times, remarks Sophie Prunier-Poulmaire. innovative concepts”. For the expert, the “traces” carry with them a part of guilt which turns into a psychological burden for the employees. It becomes almost impossible to make the cut, yet necessary for the stability of the personal sphere. “What is too much for the individual quickly ends up being too much for the company”, she summarizes.
It’s up to the manager to start by setting an example
Among the possible ways to implement this culture of disconnection, it is possible to introduce a system that blocks connections outside working hours, as with the German manufacturer Daimler. Less radical, the Thalès group invites its employees to configure absence messages during their holidays and to “avoid the feeling of urgency in the recipient of an email by paying attention to the most opportune moment to send him a message and to specify the date on which the response is expected within a reasonable period”.
If this delay is unthinkable in certain professions which must remain on the alert during their free time, it could very well be applied elsewhere, notes Caroline Diard, teacher in human resources management. “Changing three commas in a PowerPoint can wait until Monday,” quips the one who trains tomorrow’s managers and tries to make them aware of this issue.
Lawyer Anne Leleu-Eté recommends that managers who go on leave appoint internal replacements to keep an eye on the most important files and thus avoid ending up with a mountain of insurmountable tasks at the start of the school year. This is, for example, what the Schneider Electric group provides in its agreement on the quality of life at work for urgent cases. “In some companies, it’s a one-off transfer of mailboxes. Employees must also be reminded to avoid copying the entire Earth and to reserve instant messaging and calls only for situations of extreme urgency” , continues Anne Leleu-Eté. Another option: offer a professional telephone, which will remain at home when leaving for the beach or the mountains.
“Each employee must take care of his health and safety as well as that of his colleagues”, recalls the lawyer, however, citing article L.4122-1 of the Labor Code. It is therefore necessary to empower employees to ensure that the appearance of the good student syndrome is limited, which leads employees to present themselves as available everywhere and all the time to prove that they are at the level. “This type of behavior also responds to a need to feel useful”, adds Caroline Diard, teacher-researcher at ESC Amiens. “It is then the role of the manager to say stop!”
He still has to lead by example…