Results of the Accor Services 2006 barometer on employee involvement and well being in Europe.
For its second barometer, Accor Services opened up the field of its survey to the employees of eight European countries : Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Spain Sweden and the UK.
This barometer highlights employee expectations/constraints that the company needs to face in order to increase its attractivity and improve its performance. It identifies standard profiles for European employees, among whom the French seem to combine all features.
French employees or pleasure first
French employees now work in an environment where their private and professional lives are intimately linked (87% reconcile both), unlike their Nordic neighbours who find a balance by separating the two areas.
In addition, they invest their work with a highly developed emotional load. They are the ones who most often talk of pleasure when discussing the meaning of work (whereas Germans talk above all of "security" and the English of "routine").
At the same time, they have the highest satisfaction levels with respect to their work environment, to which they attach considerable importance.
- 60% of French employees say that they are increasingly bothered outside work and are the ones who most frequently declare themselves to be led to settle personal problems during their working hours (56% vs. 42%).
- 42% "often" believe that they find fulfilment through work, as opposed to 30% for the European average.
Yet dissatisfaction reigns
Despite their passionate and enjoyable relationship with their professional environment, French employees reveal one of the highest levels of dissatisfaction. It should be noted that lack of money is a major concern, one of the highest for Europe (33%).
French employees are therefore upset romantics with respect to their work.
The most frustrated of all European employees
On that basis, in a constrained environment, French employees seem to experience a measure of professional frustration that is especially strong because their feelings about work are clearly more affective than their neighbours'.
They show the highest level of professional frustration of the whole panel. French employees consequently feel only an average involvement in the company (except for senior executives) and show a strong desire to change jobs or leave the company.
- 45% declare having already considered leaving the company or planned their departure.
Moreover, this frustration produces a desire for compensation from the company. Like their Latin neighbours, they declare that they expect "priority involvement" from their company in areas such as training support in 60% of cases (as opposed to 39% for Europe), employee savings/pensions (57% vs. 39%), catering facilities during their lunch break (45% vs. 29%) or housing assistance(42% vs. 20%).
Disloyal? Yes, particularly in thought
In the end, like faithless, guilt-free consumers before a varied offer, French employees are disloyal to their company, but actually in thought only as in fact, they are largely forced to stick to their company .
One or several European models?
Contrasting with this "constrained" French model are three other European models:
- The "private happiness" Swedish model: low involvement, loyalty to the company, satisfaction but relatively low self-fulfilment in work, private and professional lives strongly compartmentalized, therefore a reduced collective rallying capacity.
- The "contractual" German model: involvement, security, loyalty to the company, good level of satisfaction (especially concerning work content) but limited personal self-fulfilment, priority given to collective issues.
- The "opportunistic" English model: fulfilled employees, not very involved, satisfied but very demanding (wages) and lacking commitment to the company.
In the European model, all employees nevertheless share a common point: happiness at work. On average, 37% of the employees interviewed "often" believe that they are happy and 52% feel so "from time to time".
To conclude, the most promising prospect seems to be a human resources approach that takes into account the expectations and needs of each employee and of his/her "cultural" characteristics.
Accor Services will continue its observation work and extend its barometer at the end of 2006 to other countries, in Latin America and Eastern Europe.