For a long time, questions related to social dialogue were confined to the sphere of human resources. This reading has now become insufficient.
For a long time, questions related to social dialogue were confined to the sphere of human resources. In many companies, they were seen as regulatory, administrative or legal subjects that simply had to be ensured. As long as obligations were met and no major conflict emerged, few leaders considered the matter strategic.
This reading has now become insufficient.
Companies operate in an environment where human issues play an increasing role in their overall performance. Difficulties of recruitmentemployee loyalty, mental health, quality of life at work, prevention of psychosocial risks, team commitment: so many subjects which now directly influence the ability of an organization to develop sustainably. In this context, continuing to consider social dialogue as a simple HR subject amounts to profoundly underestimating its impact on the functioning of the company.
Companies have changed, but the perception of CSE is sometimes ten years late
Many leaders continue to associate CSE to a logic of conformity. A body that must be consulted. Meetings to organize. Documents to be transmitted. Obligations to respect. However, the missions entrusted to staff representatives no longer have much in common with those of ten or fifteen years ago. Elected officials are today required to intervene on particularly sensitive issues: health at work, harassment, psychosocial risksworking conditions, prevention, accidents, reorganizations or even support for change. In other words, on subjects that directly affect the stability of the company and its ability to maintain a healthy working environment. The paradox is that many organizations recognize the importance of these issues while continuing to consider the training of elected officials as a simple regulatory formality. As if we could entrust increasingly complex responsibilities to people who do not have the necessary tools to carry them out.
The cost of poorly prepared social dialogue is rarely visible
When a company invests in a new management tool, in a communication campaign or in the development of its sales teams, it is generally able to identify the return on investment expected. Conversely, when it comes to social dialogue, the reasoning often remains limited to the immediate cost.
- The cost of training.
- The cost of time spent.
- The cost of the organization.
Yet the biggest costs often lie elsewhere.
They appear when tensions arise without being identified early enough. When a weak signal is ignored. When a situation of suffering deteriorates due to lack of having been correctly analyzed. When a misunderstanding between management and staff representatives ends up producing distrust rather than dialogue. These situations do not appear on any financial dashboard. However, they produce very concrete consequences: disengagement, absenteeism, turnover, loss of collective efficiency or deterioration of the work climate. The cost of poorly prepared social dialogue is rarely visible in the short term. This is precisely what makes it difficult to measure and therefore often underestimated.
Prevention becomes a governance issue
One of the major changes observed in recent years concerns the place taken by prevention subjects. Long considered a legal obligation, prevention is gradually tending to become a real subject of governance. The most mature companies have understood that it is less costly to anticipate a difficulty than to manage it once it has already occurred. They also know that staff representatives can constitute a valuable lever for observation, alert and understanding of the field when they have the necessary framework, methods and skills. The question is therefore no longer only whether elected officials are trained because the law requires it. The real question is whether the company still considers social dialogue as a cost center or whether it is starting to view it as a management tool.
Human issues become performance issues
For a long time, companies have separated economic subjects from human subjects. The first were considered strategic. The latter as peripheral. This border is becoming more and more artificial. The ability to recruit, retain, engage and protect employees now directly influences the economic performance of organizations. Companies that succeed over the long term are not just those that sell better or innovate more. They are often those who manage to build work environments strong enough to absorb the transformations, tensions and uncertainties they face. In this new reality, social dialogue is no longer an HR subject. It is gradually becoming a subject of management, governance and sustainable performance. And companies that have not yet understood this risk discovering, in the years to come, that the subjects they considered secondary were in reality among the most strategic.
