As public sector employees prepare for a strike and mobilization on November 5, the core of their demands focuses on providing public services with the necessary resources to meet population needs. In an op-ed published in Le Monde, human resource management professors Caroline Manville and Karim Mignonac challenge the notion that these claims are merely rhetorical or driven by categorical interests. Instead, they emphasize that the desire to effectively contribute to the general interest remains a primary motivation for public agents, a drive that is vital yet fragile for the collective.
The researchers explain that this motivational engine can weaken or break when obstacles accumulate, hindering the ability of workers to be useful. These barriers include insufficient staffing, lack of or inadequate equipment, overly burdensome procedures, and contradictory objectives. The authors illustrate these constraints with specific examples: teachers forced to host students in freezing classrooms during winter or overheated rooms in summer; healthcare workers leaving patients on stretchers for hours due to a lack of available beds; firefighters unable to intervene because there are not enough trucks; police officers facing so many procedures that complaints remain pending for months; and magistrates handling increasing caseloads without sufficient time for each file.
In every instance, the public servant is prevented from fully accomplishing their mission, causing their sense of utility to diminish. Based on research tracking several thousand French civil servants over six years, Manville and Mignonac describe a detrimental dynamic where the accumulation of constraints erodes this sense of usefulness. The consequences include a decline in agent well-being. To protect themselves, workers begin to distance themselves from their duties by arriving late, leaving early, extending breaks, or taking sick leave. The professors conclude that what is saved today may cost more tomorrow or simply shift the expense elsewhere.
Sources: Le Monde Économie.