The mailbox tintinnabule. A new message has arrived but no one is there to answer it. This umpteenth request will remain a dead letter. At least the time that the employee returns from his sick leave. This is a scene that is repeated more and more frequently in France. Sick leave is increasing for the third consecutive year, according to the fourth study by the Absenteeism Observatory published on Monday by Axa’s Datascope.
In 2022, nearly one in two employees (44%) was arrested at least once in the year. But is absenteeism really a significant phenomenon in France? Why do burnouts explode? And what avenues are being considered to reverse this trend? 20 minutes takes stock thanks to the analysis of nne Jacquelin, doctor in sociology of work and organizations.
Is absenteeism at work consolidating in France?
In any case, these are the results of the barometer made public by Axa’s Datascope. Based on anonymized data from the 3 million employees covered by insurance, the study shows that 44% of employees were arrested at least once in 2022, compared to a third of employees analyzed by Axa in 2021. Covid-19 is still having an impact on absenteeism. The curve is bell-shaped and should drop when things recover,” says Anne Jacquelin. While specifying that these data are not representative of French assets because they only concern those covered by Axa. “The economic difficulties, the economic crisis, the fact that fewer doctors are available: all these reasons lead to more sick leave”, says the doctor in sociology of work and organizations.
For example, many serious illnesses were detected late because of the pandemic. The responsibility is therefore heavier for these employees. “The question of the initial health of workers comes into play. Some have not had access to a serene care pathway for several years,” notes Anne Jacquelin. In addition, galloping inflation is strangling households and some employees are combining jobs to get by. “I have worked a lot on the issue of caregivers and I have seen caregivers and ASH – who clean up places of care – stop to do temporary work and make ends meet. “, illustrates the sociologist.
Why is the share of arrests for psychological exhaustion increasing?
Before the pandemic, musculoskeletal disorders were the main cause of long-term sick leave. This year, the study shows that professional exhaustion – or burn-out – has moved to first place. 22.2% of long-term work stoppages are attributed to it. To understand psychosocial risks, we must remember the six categories in which they fit : intensity and working time, emotional demands, lack of autonomy, degraded social relations at work, conflicts of values and insecurity of the work situation. “Many workers who have held on or even over-adapted during the Covid are cracking up today. There is an accumulation, an exhaustion”, decrypts Anne Jacquelin.
“Some of them, especially in the health sector, have made superhuman efforts and have not obtained any recognition,” she adds. In most professional circles, “the pandemic has been an extremely violent moment and the return to normal is difficult for many people to digest. Some employers who had put in place measures to better reconcile professional and personal life violently went back on it, ”recalls the sociologist. The coronavirus has also given many employees the desire to better articulate their personal life and their job. A wave of hope that has often crashed against the rocks of the labor market.
How can we stem the phenomenon?
“There is no right or wrong method,” says Anne Jacquelin, who invites us to cross absenteeism with the number of days off per year or even the workload in order to ask the question of “respite”. “We must rebuild the associative fabric, the structures which managed the interstices of people’s lives between home and work and which have been damaged by the pandemic”, also advises the doctor in sociology, citing aid for the elderly or to families when many French people are carers in addition to their work. Many experts also invite to look into the four-day week. When it is combined with a reduction in working time without a reduction in salary, it drastically reduces the rate of absenteeism. Thus, the Lyon company Elmy, which has gone from 39 to 32 hours a week over four days and without loss of pay, has divided his absenteeism by four.
Finally, it should be remembered that employees, like all human beings, fall ill, no offense to insurers. In its barometer on absenteeism in 2022, Malakoff Humanis estimates that with “more than 40% of employees arrested each year, sickness absenteeism remains a major problem”. But is it really a problem to be absent when you are sick? Is it abnormal, over a year, that less than one out of two employees is temporarily absent for medical reasons? As long as the curve remains fairly stable, 41% of employees studied by Malakoff were prescribed a work stoppage in 2016, compared to 42% in 2022. the first stone.