Employees’ mental health appears to be at an all-time low. In its special report on the subject, France Culture interviewed Thomas Périlleux, a Belgian sociologist and winner of the 2024 Penser le travail prize for his book Le Travail à vif [Work on edge].

One of his observations is particularly interesting: often, he writes, what causes an employee who has been enduring a difficult situation for months to “snap” is a contradictory injunction. The problem is not that there are contradictions within a company; those are inherent to its very operation. The problem is that we are strongly encouraged to keep quiet about them.

Employees are thus asked to “do things faster and better at the same time”, to “get more involved in their work while also showing greater detachment”, etc. One telling example: a technician who was forbidden from mentioning the technical difficulties he might encounter unless he was able to offer a solution. This imposed silence causes psychological suffering, just as when we use indirect wording, or poorly understood terms borrowed from other languages, to soften a harsh reality.

Openly saying things and talking about them: a first step in the fight against such suffering?

Source: Santé mentale : que révèle l’épidémie de burn-out ? [Mental health: what does the burnout epidemic reveal?], interview of Thomas Périlleux by Marguerite Catton, France Culture, La Question du jour, October 10, 2024.