SUICIDE, proclaimed Albert Camus in “The Myth of Sisyphus”, is the only serious philosophical problem. In France at the moment it is also a serious management problem. A spate of attempted and successful suicides at France Telecom—many of them explicitly prompted by troubles at work—has sparked a national debate about life in the modern corporation. One man stabbed himself in the middle of a meeting (he survived). A woman leapt from a fourth-floor office window after sending a suicidal e-mail to her father: “I have decided to kill myself tonight…I can’t take the new reorganisation.” In all, 24 of the firm’s employees have taken their own lives since early 2008—and this grisly tally follows similar episodes at other pillars of French industry including Renault, Peugeot and EDF (see article).
There are some parochial reasons for this melancholy trend. France Telecom is making the difficult transition from state monopoly to multinational company. It has shed 22,000 jobs since 2006, but two-thirds of the remaining workers enjoy civil-service-like job-security. This is forcing it to pursue a toxic strategy: teaching old civil servants new tricks while at the same time putting new hires on short-term contracts. Yet the problem is not confined to France. America’s Bureau of Labour Statistics calculates that work-related suicides increased by 28% between 2007 and 2008, although the rate is lower than in Europe. And suicide is only the tip of an iceberg of work-related unhappiness.
A survey by the Centre for Work-Life Policy, an American consultancy, found that between June 2007 and December 2008 the proportion of employees who professed loyalty to their employers slumped from 95% to 39%; the number voicing trust in them fell from 79% to 22%. A more recent survey by DDI, another American consultancy, found that more than half of respondents described their job as “stagnant”, meaning that they had nothing interesting to do and little hope of promotion. Half of these “stagnators” planned to look for another job as soon as the economy improved. People are both clinging on to their current jobs, however much they dislike them, and dreaming of moving when the economy improves. This is taking a toll on both short-term productivity and long-term competitiveness: the people most likely to move when things look up are high-flyers who feel that their talents are being ignored.
The most obvious reason for the rise in unhappiness is the recession, which is destroying jobs at a startling rate and spreading anxiety throughout the workforce. But the recession is also highlighting longer-term problems. Unhappiness seems to be particularly common in car companies, which suffer from global overcapacity, and telecoms companies, which are being buffeted by a technological revolution. In a survey of its workers in 2008, France Telecom found that two-thirds of them reported being “stressed out” and a sixth reported being in “distress”.
A second source of misery is the drive to improve productivity, which is typically accompanied by an obsession with measuring performance. Giant retailers use “workforce management” software to monitor how many seconds it takes to scan the goods in a grocery cart, and then reward the most diligent workers with prime working hours. The public sector, particularly in Britain, is awash with inspectorates and performance targets. Taylorism, which Charlie Chaplin lampooned so memorably in “Modern Times”, has spread from the industrial to the post-industrial economy. In Japan some firms even monitor whether their employees smile frequently enough at customers.
A more subtle problem lies in the mixed messages that companies send about loyalty and commitment. Many firms—particularly successful ones—demand extraordinary dedication from their employees. (Microsoft, according to an old joke, offers flexitime: “You can work any 18-hour shift that you want.”) Some provide perks that are intended to make the office feel like a second home. But companies also reserve the right to trim their workforce at the first sign of trouble. Most employees understand that their firms do not feel much responsibility to protect jobs. But they nevertheless find it wrenching to leave a post that has consumed so much of their lives.
Engineering joy
Can anything be done about this epidemic of unhappiness? There are some people, particularly in Europe, who think that it strengthens the case for expanding workers’ rights. But doing so will not end the upheaval wrought by technological innovation in the telecoms sector or overcapacity in the car industry. And the situation in France Telecom was exacerbated by the fact that so many workers were unsackable. The solution to the problem, in so far as there is one, lies in the hands of managers and workers rather than governments.
Companies need to do more than pay lip service to the human side of management. They also need to learn from the well-documented mistakes of others (France Telecom has belatedly hired Technologia, a consultancy which helped Renault with its suicide problem). Bob Sutton of Stanford University argues that companies need to do as much as possible to come clean with workers, even if that means confirming bad news. He also warns that bosses need to be careful about the signals they send: in times of great stress ill thought-out turns of phrase can lead to a frenzy of anxiety and speculation.
As for the workers, the habit of battening down the hatches, which so irritates many companies, may be a sensible response to economic turmoil. In the longer term workers can take comfort from the fact that history may be on their side: in the rich world, low birth rates, an impending surge in retirements and caps on immigration could reduce the number of people of working age by 20-40%. Today’s unhappy workers may one day be able to exercise the ultimate revenge, by taking their services elsewhere.
法國哲學家阿爾貝.加繆在他的著作《西西弗的神話》中說到，自殺是唯一嚴肅的哲學問題。對現時的法國來說，這也是一個嚴重的管理難題。法國電信內大量自殺未遂及成功自殺的員工，在全國範圍內激起了有關現代公司內員工生命問題的爭論，而這些自殺行爲，很多是因爲在工作中遇到困難所致。一個男人在會議進行到一半時刺傷了自己（後倖存），一位女士給自己的父親發送了一封有自殺傾向的郵件，說了“我已決定今晚自殺...我承受不了新的重組”之雲後，從四樓辦公室的窗戶上跳下。自2008年初至今，法國電信總計已有24名公司僱員自殺身亡。並且這種恐怖的自殺數字也類似的出現在法國其他支柱產業內，包括雷諾，標緻以及EDF。
造成這種令人悲哀的趨勢的原因有一些特定因素。法國電信正艱難地從國家壟斷企業向跨國公司轉型。2006年以來，該公司已裁員兩萬兩千人，但是三分之二的保留工人仍像公務員一樣擁有鐵飯碗。這迫使其尋求嚴苛的策略：培訓老員工新技能，同時招募簽訂短期合同的新人。然而，這種問題不僅存在於法國。據美國勞工局統計，2007年至2008年之間，與工作有關的自殺事件增長了28%，儘管該比率略低於歐洲。而自殺也只是工作不開心表現中的冰山一角。
美國的`一家諮詢公司，“工作-生活政策中心”的一項調查發現，2007年6月至 2008年12月之間，盡忠於僱主的僱員比例從95%下降到了39%；信任僱主的比例也從79%降到了22%。美國DDI諮詢公司的最新調查發現，有一半以上的受訪者形容自己的工作“停滯不前”，這意味着他們的工作非常無聊，升職無望。這些“停滯者”中，有一半人計劃一旦經濟復甦就去尋找另一份工作。不管有多討厭現在的工作，人們還是得繼續堅持，並期盼經濟好轉可以換份工作。這種現象對短期生產力和長期的競爭力都敲響了警鐘：等到經濟好轉之時，最可能跳槽的是認爲才能被埋沒的心高志遠之士。
對工作的不滿情緒增長的最明顯的原因是經濟衰退，其正以驚人的速度使更多人失業，人人自危。但是經濟衰退也突出了長期問題。這種不愉快似乎在遭受全球產能過剩的汽車公司，以及正受技術革新打擊的電信公司尤爲普遍。法國電信2008年在對其員工的調查中發現三分之二的人認爲壓力過大，六分之一的人處於長期焦慮中。
痛苦的第二個來源是企業努力提高生產力，而這一過程註定伴隨着對員工工作表現的評測。大零售商採用“工作管理”軟件來監督員工掃描購物車內的貨物需要多少秒，然後獎勵最勤奮，工作時間最長的工人。在公共部門，尤其在英國，都設置崗位檢查員並設定業績目標。查理.卓別林在電影“摩登時代”中對泰勒主義的諷刺令人印象深刻，而泰勒主義現在已從工業經濟彌散到了後工業經濟。在日本，有些公司甚至對員工是否足夠頻繁的向顧客微笑監督。
一個更敏感的問題在於公司傳達的有關忠誠與奉獻結合的信息。許多公司，尤其是一些比較成功的公司，要求員工有特別的奉獻。（有個關於微軟的老笑話談到了微軟所提供的彈性工作制度：“你可以根據自己的意願任意選擇一天中的18個小時工作”）。一些公司會使辦公室感覺起來像第二個家。但是公司同樣保留一旦麻煩出現就削減勞動力的權利。大多數員工理解公司不願意承擔太多責任保護工作。但儘管如此，離開爲之耗費大量精力心血的工作職位時，他們仍然十分痛苦。
Engineering joy 快樂工程
對於這種憂愁的流行，我們能做些什麼嗎？有些人，尤其在歐洲，認爲正因爲這種盛行的對工作的不滿，更強化了擴大工利的原因。但這樣做對於電信部門的技術革新或汽車行業的產能過剩所帶來的劇變也於事無補。並且法國電信的局勢由於不能解僱如此多的員工而惡化。對該問題目前爲止唯一的解決方法，在於管理者與工人而不是政府。
公司需要對人員管理做出更多努力而不是空口承諾。也要從他人所犯的清清楚楚的錯誤中得到教訓（法國電信已經遲僱了 Technologia諮詢公司，這家公司曾幫助雷諾解決自殺問題）。斯坦福大學的鮑勃.薩頓說公司要儘可能的對工人坦誠，即使意味着確認壞消息。他還警示老闆們要小心自己對工人所傳達的信號：未加思索的/脫口而出的一些話可能導致焦慮和懷疑肆虐。
工人們未雨綢繆的習慣，讓很多公司都很惱怒，但這或許對經濟動盪來說的是一個明智選擇吧。在較長時期內，工人可以從各種歷史事件中得到一些安慰：在發達國家，低人口出生率，迫近的退休浪潮以及移民限制會減少達到工作年齡人數20%-40%。今天有不滿情緒的工人某天可能以跳槽的方式實行最終的報復。