May 23, 2018, TDF has signed a three-year Quality of Work Life (QWL) agreement with French trade unions CFDT and CGT. Following on from gender equality and home working agreements (dated April 21, 2017 and February 20, 2015 respectively), TDF management and the relevant trade unions now seek to build on existing work/life balance procedures by giving staff a ‘right to disconnect’.
For TDF, quality of life in the workplace is a key factor to enhance wellbeing for both individual employees and collectively. Consequently, TDF plans to have QWL underpin its HR policies while nurturing a continuous improvement program in relation to staff wellbeing.
TDF’s QWL pledges break down into five areas as follows: a managers training program, a good work/life balance, staff health and wellbeing at work and workplace quality & welfare commitments.
Everyone buys into promoting quality of work life
To ensure everyone is involved in enhancing QWL, a training program for all managers, Executive Committee members and HR managers will be set up. The program will focus on the entire workforce and aims to spread and promote management best practices to ensure QWL principles are applied on a standard basis throughout all the company’s operations and offices.
Healthy work/life balance
Having signed up to the ‘15 work/life balance commitments’ charter drawn up by the French Women’s Rights Ministry, TDF strives to give every employee a healthy balance between work and private life by introducing flexible work arrangements. This latest agreement adds to current procedures by giving staff a ‘right to disconnect’ and to ‘choose connection method’, which will cover sessions to teach staff about proper use of communication devices.
On top of existing parenthood benefits, TDF undertakes to make arrangements for ‘active grandparents’ by introducing flexible working hours and granting leave during school holidays and/or on Wednesdays (1/2 day in French schools) to working grandparents.
Health and wellbeing in the workplace
TDF plans to continue rolling out employee health and wellbeing information and prevention action plans designed to beef up existing prevention procedures in relation to worker stress and burn-out, harassment at work and road safety.
Wellbeing at work also includes curbing worker isolation, particularly among technicians, while also promoting and fostering social interaction and team spirit.
Workplace quality
TDF strives to upgrade work areas and provide employees with improved and latest equipment and area layout. Coinciding with the Paris and Lyon office moves, TDF plans to develop a common office model for any future moves or regional location reorganizations.
Staff welfare and diversity commitments
To help employees cope with family emergencies, TDF has decided to set up a ‘Solidarity Fund’ to grant and manage free days off.
TDF is also looking to promote employee voluntary work for good causes including charities and society at large. It will donate funds to some jury-selected charities, in which staff are involved out of hours, and will back employees who are French armed forces reservists. Furthermore, the company sponsors charities where employees can offer assistance, namely “Passeport avenir” and “Nos Quartiers ont du Talent”, where they coach youngsters from deprived backgrounds and give wounded army veterans work immersion programs together with the French Aid Unit for wounded soldiers. The company backs the “Elles bougent” charity that seeks to encourage girls to take up science and engineering careers, etc.
Christophe Maximilien, Group senior VP HR, confirms TDF’s commitment: “This agreement has come about at a time when TDF is growing fast. We are proud of what we are planning to do as this addresses the needs and wellbeing of our people. We wanted to make our managers more responsible and take good care of our people by giving them more freedom to balance work and private life themselves. Looking after staff properly will have enormous benefits on the company’s overall performance and our employer appeal. We reached this agreement after constructive and responsible talks with our staff representatives”.