EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT: THE FRENCH WAY
ISAAC GETZ’S PHILOSOPHY OF ‘CORPORATE LIBERATION’ HAS TAKEN FRANCE BY STORM, BUT CAN YOUR EGO HANDLE IT?
I know, I know. ‘Employee engagement’ and ‘France’ go together about as well as a glass of 1986 Château Margaux and a KFC bargain bucket. This is the land of the 35-hour week and the out-of-hours email ban, of rampant strikes and kidnapped bosses. Of course the French don’t like work.
Indeed, in Gallup’s annual State of the Global Workplace report, typically only 9% of French employees are found to be engaged – that is, they actually look forward to coming into work every morning. That’s barely half the proportion found in the UK (17% – not that this is a figure for us to be especially proud of).
Across the channel, however, the whiff of revolution is in the air. Organisations as diverse as Michelin, Airbus, Decathlon and the Belgian Ministry of Social Security are rising up in a movement known as ‘corporate liberation’.
Read more here.
