Each year, The Foundation FNEP (National Foundation for Enterprise and Performance) offers executives from companies, administrations and grandes écoles the opportunity to compare their experiences and enrich their thinking with concrete proposals. For its second report, eight co-authors  looked at the place of people and emotions at the heart of companies and administrations, in a book entitled I feel, you feel, we are...   Mathilde Svagelski, a member of the SNCF AU FÉMININ network and internal auditor in the Audit and Risk Department, is one of them.

Your book is subtitled Putting people and emotion back at the heart of companies. Why ? What is happening today ? What do we do with our emotions ?

Today, in France, we don't do much with our emotions. We have a culture of " working well ", " making efforts ", rather than the Anglo-Saxon " enjoy ", which invites us to take pleasure in our work. This can be explained by our Cartesian side, but also by our desire to separate professional and private life. In France, when we talk about humans, we often have the feeling that we are talking about private life. However, it is simply a matter of accepting your emotions in the office.

Why is it important to express your emotions? What are they revealing about?

When employees can express their emotions, they are more fulfilled and engaged in their work. Emotions are testers of our inner state, they are not necessarily positive or negative, even sadness or frustration are useful. They are also indicative of the state of organizations. If they are not taken into account, they can be the cause of malfunctions. A company that does not take into account the emotions of employees who evoke unhappiness exposes itself to psycho-social risks. And if we don't try to develop positive emotions, the company won't create as much value and harmony as it would like.

Which countries have you observed? How is this subject dealt with? 

We studied the Scandinavian model, Denmark, Canada, India, the Czech Republic, and Italy. As a result, there are many differences in the way people are approached in business. In India, for example, emotion has a very important place, in Canada, we are working in particular on emotional intelligence and in Quebec, a " healthy company" standard has been implemented : well-being in the workplace is very well taken into account. And yet, there are cross-cutting subjects, strong ideas, such as benevolence, wisdom or freedom that are universal.

How can we put people and emotion back at the heart of companies?

We have identified six levers :

Authenticity is the most important factor, because it is the first thing you feel in someone and without it, everyone else will not work. To learn to be oneself, to know oneself better in order to be more real.

The second lever is benevolence : managers must develop their attention to others and give them the right to make mistakes.

Dialogue : it is about listening, opening up speech, and thinking about the impact of one's emotions and actions on others.

Wisdom : we must respect the human dimension of organizations, so that everyone gives meaning to their work, so that they know the company's vision of each person's actions.

Freedom : the idea is to reduce a priori controls and to accept non-perfection, so as not to kill creativity and prevent everyone from flourishing.

Accomplishment : it is the promotion of pleasure in work: accept this famous enjoy!

What would you like us to remember from this book ?

A humanist message. We must take into account the human being and move away from human resources: it is a wealth, not a resource, which is not inexhaustible and it can become scarce.