“Around 30% of employees benefit from an agreement or charter and are partially teleworked“, estimates Wednesday, December 22 on franceinfo Benoît Serre, vice-president of the national association of the directors of human resources (ANDRH). He considers that teleworking is a tool”effective“in the face of the crisis while the Minister of Labor Elisabeth Borne calls on companies to strengthen it at the start of the school year with a target of 3 to 4 days a week.
franceinfo: Will this call to strengthen teleworking be heard?
Benoît Serre: Yes, because for a month now we had gone to two days. We suspected that this was going to happen. What is good about this decision is that the minister does not impose anything on us. It calls on our responsibility and asks us to adapt taking into account our constraints, our activities and that is rather not bad.
Can we trust companies?
If I believe what has been happening for almost two years, I think that companies can be trusted to assume their responsibilities. Moreover, the best proof is that, even though we have no obligation, you have nearly 2/3 [des entreprises] who have switched to telecommuting. We have to be honest, some business leaders are reluctant to telework and we think it is wrong because on the one hand it corresponds to the expectations of employees and on the other hand we can clearly see that it is a tool. effective against the successive waves that attack us.
Teleworking has become a habit of the French for two years because of the Covid, do you have a figure on the number of agreements made by companies?
We know that around 30% of employees benefit from an agreement or a charter and who are partially teleworked. Before the crisis, it was 3%, we have nevertheless considerably integrated [le télétravail] and that is also becoming a form of new standard, hybrid work.
“We must not lose sight of the fact that 60% of French employees have jobs which do not allow them to telework.”
Benoît Serre, vice-president of ANDRHto franceinfo
The health situation will be reassessed next Monday in the Council of Ministers, what do you expect?
We are expecting an extremely difficult start to the new school year, with tougher rules. Obviously the confinement would be a disaster. Are we going to move towards a system of reorganizing schedules so that everyone does not take transport at the same time, that is perhaps what the government is going to ask us. We also hope that it will not go as far as curfew for stores and the like. We can see that people are exhausted.