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‘In the UK you are expected to attend drinks or other functions with your employer.’ Photograph: Bloomberg via Getty Images
‘In the UK you are expected to attend drinks or other functions with your employer.’ Photograph: Bloomberg via Getty Images

Why are French workers more productive than Brits?

This article is more than 8 years old

In France people work fewer hours and take more holidays than their peers across the Channel. So why are they more productive?

The French have a wonderful proverb: “If working hard made you rich, donkeys would be covered in gold.” The good people of France appear to mean what they say by working fewer hours and taking more holidays than their peers across the Channel. What’s surprising is not the joie de vivre which this working culture appears to reflect, but that the country’s overall productivity is higher than the UK, where people put in longer hours on lower wages.

An Office for National Statistics report shows that in 2013 UK workers produced on average between 27% and 31% less per hour than workers in France and Germany. That is also despite France having a higher unemployment level – 9.9% in 2014 compared with 6.1% in the UK. So is less really more?

French entrepreneur Thibault Fulchiron believes it is not about working less, but being more efficient with your time. Fulchiron founded men’s fashion company Monsieur London in the UK capital three years ago with friend Valentin Goux. He claims one obstacle that may be hindering UK productivity is the British habit of mixing work with pleasure.

While employees in the UK are encouraged to socialise as part of a healthy working culture, the French apparently prefer to keep a professional distance. “In France, there is the workspace and there is the social space,” explains Fulchiron.

“In the UK you are expected to attend drinks or other functions with your employer. However, by doing so you are wasting time you might have spent more productively in the office.”

According to Fulchiron, it is a case of quality over quantity. But even without the odd social or two in office time, how do the French squeeze everything that needs to be achieved within the statutory maximum 35 hours a week?

In truth, France’s famous les 35 heures (introduced in 2000) is, to a certain extent, a myth. The law has been loosened and many companies have now taken a more flexible approach, such as paying overtime at higher rates. As a result, the average number of hours worked by full-time staff in France is closer to 40.

Despite the disparity between contractual and actual working hours in France, any major tinkering with the law sparks angry protests from workers. It is the rigid and protective nature of French employment laws that Fulchiron claims is one of the keys to a more productive workforce. Higher job security in France means people are more likely to stay with the same employer for longer, leading to a better understanding of the company’s needs and greater confidence in the role.

Fulchiron adds: “It is not necessarily true that stability goes hand in hand with loyalty, but unlike the UK where the turnover is much faster and there is an aggressive recruitment industry, French workers have a less opportunistic mentality when it comes to their careers.”

Julian Kabab, CEO of Flashgap, a time-delayed photo sharing app inspired by the film The Hangover, does not believe France’s model of work should be used as a blueprint for productivity. The French small business owner claims the drone like clocking in and out for a prescribed number of hours is not the best way to encourage growth in a small business.

The startup, which was launched last December on just €10,000 (£7,000) and received investment in March, sells its products in 110 countries with France and the UK its biggest markets. Kabab says his small team work long hours but are willing to put in that extra effort because they are driven by more than simply a pay cheque at the end of the month. Instead, productivity comes from providing employees with meaning and purpose in the work they do.

“In the long-term, I don’t think money is a good motivator,” he claims. “That’s why at Flashgap, almost 10% of our stocks belong to employees. They are working for their own company, not just ours. It is now everybody’s business.”

Unsurprisingly, Kabab is sceptical about the accuracy of the statistics on France’s productivity. It’s a feeling echoed by Dr Steve Priddy, director of research at the London School of Business and Finance (LSBF) and academic dean for the Grenoble school of business. He warns against making any comparison between France and the UK on the basis of the data that actually exists.

Priddy argues that the report doesn’t take into account legislation that reduced the statutory working week in France and it is therefore unfair to compare like with like. He explains: “Your denominator is much lower and therefore productivity is going to be showing that much higher.” He reiterates the point that contractual hours may not reflect the real amount of time a person worked.

Writing for the Conversation earlier this year John Van Reenen, director of the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics and Political Science, made the point that productivity statistics are affected by the fact that unemployment is much higher in France. This means the “least productive individuals are therefore not employed, which flatters the French productivity numbers”.

The reasons for France and Germany’s high productivity extends beyond a discussion of the working week and holidays, says Priddy. He argues that both countries benefited from being less reliant on the banking sector during the global financial crisis. He suggests Britain also needs to loosen its ties and reliance on traditional streams of finance if it is to compete with its neighbours on the continent.

This is already happening, he explains, with the rise of peer-to-peer lending and crowdfunding: “The fact that London has become a huge tech city means that there are probably investments coming through now which will have knock-on beneficial effects on productivity in years to come.

“The growth of lending to businesses outside the banking sector is something we should encourage. They are on a very small basis at the moment, but increasing rapidly and do provide a lot more flexible investment routes for those fast-growing SMEs that we want to flourish.”

Priddy adds: “What is more challenging and difficult to think about – but we do need to think about it – is the combination of total factor productivity. So, the structural relationship between capital and labour. That is where we are going to find out how to solve the productivity puzzle.”

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