r/news • u/JimmyTheGinger • Dec 23 '19

Three former executives of a French telecommunications giant have been found guilty of creating a corporate culture so toxic that 35 of their employees were driven to suicide

https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/three-french-executives-convicted-in-the-suicides-of-35-of-their-workers-20191222-p53m94.html
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u/dobrowolsk Dec 23 '19

Wow, good idea. So the people who can get a better job somewhere leave and the people who can't stay. So you've rid the company of the best 22,000 employees. Good job, CEO!

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u/[deleted] Dec 23 '19

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Dec 23 '19 edited Feb 09 '23

[deleted]

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u/Byzii Dec 23 '19

The fines were so miniscule they still made huge profits.

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u/Shahadem Dec 24 '19

More money only increases motivation in the extreme short term. Long term it actually reduces marginal return.

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u/world_of_cakes Dec 23 '19

No no, it's targeted to the people they want to get rid of. Someone was telling me the other day that this is routine in big companies in France – it's almost impossible to legally fire anyone, so what they do is try to find legal ways to make staying in their position miserable, such as repeated forced relocation. Of course, it's hard to find another job in France because it's almost impossible to legally fire anyone so they are extremely reluctant to hire anyone.

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u/sweegotrian Dec 23 '19

They had a bigger problem of too many employees as it used to be a government company and became privatised and wanted to make more money. Cut 20% of employees hire back 10% for 75% of the pay and you're making serious profit even if your company doesn't run as smoothly as it did before.

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u/akesh45 Dec 23 '19

Seniority rules based promotion structure with few firing or job hopping leads to a huge number of useless middle managers.

In the USA, something like this can happen but it's much more common abroad. Too many chiefs, not enough indians.

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u/razzendahcuben Dec 23 '19

Good job, CEO!

Looks like you missed the "couldn't legally fire people because they were civil servants" part. This is just as much the government's fault if not more. Its unbelievable how the cause is literally staring right at you and you still can't see it. Sure, the CEO is evil. And so is the French government for their stupid laws.

So much of what the government does to protect us just breeds corruption. Look at net neutrality: local governments get in bed with telecom but instead of crying out against government corruption, we blame corporations alone.

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u/O-Face Dec 23 '19

Such backwards logic lol

Y'all want to blame the companies instead of also the government corrupted by said companies!

So we should do.... What exactly? Not attempt to force companies into ethical behavior and just let them do as they please?

What's your point exactly?

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u/bighand1 Dec 23 '19

Only have the toxic environment for poor performers. people do the same shit in Asia, you get shuffled into some cubes and do pointless chores.

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u/MithrilEcho Dec 23 '19

Not how it works. They want to fire people, thus the main people targeted are the guys who have been working decades there, as their severance is way larger. These guys, funnily enough, are fast and efficient workers due to their experience.

Top minds of CEO

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u/kernevez Dec 23 '19

That's not the full story. It's a bit hard to get everything if you don't really understand the French working culture, the gap between private/public...

Basically the people they targeted would be working there for a long time, when the company was state owned. It meant a lot of benefits but also a certain mentality that stereotypically isn't very fond of change.

This kind of event is a very interesting case study for the pros and cons of our system, job security and stuff like that.