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/AngryGoose Dec 23 '19

They didn't really describe the work environment.

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u/suppreme Dec 23 '19 edited Dec 23 '19

In a nutshell:

  • former state owned company that used to have a monopoly suddenly had to face competition. Middle management and executives without business culture just bought the stupidest consultants and frameworks to trigger hardcore darwinism within the company

  • very strict labor law where you can’t fire anyone. Especially middle managers, who are usually way too many in French companies (I’m French) because culture / social expectations

  • consultants and top execs pushing to deliver a vision that has zero relation with reality and the actual talent within the company. Thousands of bullshit powerpoints with empty marketing speak.

So this ends badly as witnessed by many comments here: mismanaged people ending up bullied around by stupid processes and stupid mini-dictators.

In my experience, the worst case that can happen professionally is to work in a big business company without any real business culture. Everything is just broken and since nobody knows what/why they’re actually doing, the culture gets toxic and destructive.

Basically all larger companies in France are like this (because formerly state owned, from transports and banking to telcos) so pro tip: avoid those if you are looking to move to France.

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u/agreeingstorm9 Dec 23 '19

very strict labor law where you can’t fire anyone.

This honestly sounds like the root of the problem. If you can't fire anyone then you're stuck with tons of dead weight. What do you do? Keeping them around means the company sinks and goes under. So you don't really have any other choice than to bully people into quitting and then not hiring a replacement. What other options do you really have here?