It’s an open secret in business. Some employees, whose presence is no longer desired, are “fired” by their employer. A technique that aims to insidiously push them towards the exit, without being able to fire them.
Specifically, employers will gradually empty their posts of their content and assign them to almost non-existent or meaningless tasks. They also separate them by excluding them from the work group and stop giving them a hierarchical follow-up. An illegal practice, which can be assimilated to moral harassment, as pointed out by the echoes. This is why it remains largely taboo and so difficult to quantify.
However, the Kantar research institute at the Institut Montaigne has attempted to measure it. According to a note from the think tank and published this Monday by the newspaper, some 200,000 employees would be affected in France. All profiles and all sectors seem to be affected. Women, on the other hand, appear a little more often victims of this practice.
A cost that goes beyond maintaining employment
In general, employers do not have the possibility to dismiss the employees in question, nor do they foresee a higher “cost of dismissal” than keeping them in the company. However, this phenomenon has a real cost for the company that is not limited to maintaining the employment of “closed” employees.
Estimated at 10,000 million euros per year, it includes, first of all, the wages paid to workers for almost non-existent tasks.
But this practice also has an indirect cost. In fact, it is not without consequences for the health of the affected employees, which can lead to repeated work stoppages. An additional cost for Health Insurance that is also included in the calculation of the Institut Montaigne.
To combat this phenomenon, the think tank proposes in particular to launch an awareness campaign with companies, trade unions and HRDs to “shed light” on these harmful consequences. Occupational medicine could also focus part of its preventive work on these situations.
Source: BFM TV
