2023-04-26 06:23:02
For Marguerite, it happened on a spring day, in 2017. One morning, an exchange between this kindergarten teacher and a pupil’s mother becomes “the straw that broke the camel’s back”says Marguerite: “She asked me to account because her daughter was slightly injured during recess. At that moment, I felt fed up and irrepressible tears come over me. I remained prostrate all morning, and it was the principal of my school who called my doctor, because I was unable to do so, to ask him to put me on sick leave. »
Six years later, Marguerite remembers her burnout, or professional exhaustion syndrome (MS), as if it were yesterday. “It arose following a series of relational difficulties with the parents of students, she says. I didn’t know how to manage them and it caused me sleep disorders which ended up overcoming my stamina. And then it was also the year when I suddenly changed my teaching methods. All of this put together, the pressure proved to be too strong. »
50,000 cases each year
The sequel has been a long road. “For weeks, I felt exhausted, at my wit’s end. » It took him almost six months to find meaning in his work. There “preserving the mental health of workers” is one of the subjects on which the National Council for Refoundation has looked. And in his report, delivered on April 24, he calls for a “culture change” to improve prevention. This report should feed Elisabeth Borne’s proposals, expected this Wednesday 26, in order to give substance to the “work life pact” desired by the president.
Le burn-out « results in physical, emotional and mental exhaustion that results from prolonged investment in emotionally demanding work situations,” can we read in a preventive guide from the Ministry of Labor (1). If Marguerite’s case is far from being isolated, it is impossible to have precise figures because, legally, burnout is not automatically considered an occupational disease. “Some cases are counted as such, others end up in the workplace accident box, others slip through the cracksdeciphers Jean-Claude Delgènes, founder of the firm Technologia, specialized in the prevention of professional risks. It is estimated that around 50,000 people are affected each year in France. »
All concerned
Christophe Rogier, occupational physician in the Paris region, points out that “MS can affect absolutely everyone, all professions and statuses combined. The ingredients are diverse: strong pressure at work on people exposed to professional over-investment – chosen or suffered; a narrow margin of maneuver in the missions entrusted; low professional recognition; value conflicts between the injunction to produce more and more quickly, and the desire to do one’s job well… There are many cases of MS in my consultationshe testifies. They have been multiplied by 1.5 since I took office in 2019.”
And if the Covid has been there, with its dose of high pressure on certain teleworkers, Christophe Rogier refuses to do so “the person responsible for this evil of the century, because it existed long before”. Like all observers, he believes that “burn-out says something about a general way of working in the 1980s with a very vertical management, missions that lose their overall meaning because they are increasingly chopped up into small tasks, a loss of dynamic collective for the benefit of individualistic functioning…”
Individual and collective change
Vice-president of the National Association of HRDs and herself HRD of the Afnor group, Laurence Breton insists on “prevention on a global scale (encouraging physical and sporting activity, good sleep, etc.), on the scale of specific populations of individuals such as carer employees, or those occupying arduous positions… and finally at the specific people scalein connection with their activity or their health”.
For Marguerite, the lifeline went through her doctor and a psychologist, who helped her get back on track and return to her job in September 2017. To get out of it, confirms Jean-Claude Delgènes, “You need an individual therapeutic approach but also an organizational change. According to the labor code, it is the employer who is responsible for the conditions of the physical, mental and psychological well-being of the employee”. Now in the school of Marguerite, “We still haven’t been trained in relations with parents in particular, even though all my colleagues suffer from it too. But nothing exists in initial or continuing training,” she laments.
The problem, adds Dr. Rogier, “It’s that the cost to Social Security of poor health at work is not accounted for. If so, quick changes would be put in place. Beyond finances, the challenge is to stop wasting people. »
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