Overtime, right to disconnect… Be careful when monitoring your workload

The working hours of executives continue to soar, this is one of the findings of the "Opinions and Expectations of Executives 2025" barometer published by the General Union of Engineers, Managers and Technicians (UGICT)-CGT on June 24. 63% of executives report working more than 40 hours per week and 28% even say they work more than 45 hours per week.

This increase in working hours is particularly significant among executives on a daily rate. Indeed, 37% of executives on a daily rate report working more than 45 hours per week, 8 points more than the average respondent. However, this compensation system, initially limited to senior executives and based on the number of days worked per year, is increasingly becoming more widespread.

In 2021, the European Committee of Social Rights had declared French law contrary to the European Charter of Social Rights concerning the flat-rate working day agreement because it allows working hours of up to 78 hours per week .

Caroline Blanchot, national secretary of the Ugict-CGT, advocates for changes to working time agreements. "While it is conceivable that the working hours of many managers cannot be determined a priori, there is nothing to prevent them from being calculated a posteriori," she emphasizes.

The CFE-CGC, for its part, is instead calling for the adoption of agreements on the right to disconnect . "Between digital tools and teleworking, work tends to spill over into personal life, agreements on the right to disconnect can help develop good practices such as the "this email does not expect an immediate response" statement, which helps avoid pressure from the manager," emphasizes Nicolas Blanc, national secretary for economic transition at the CFE-CGC.

As it stands, while labor law does require companies to monitor their workload, it remains largely insufficient, almost symbolic. "As in many companies, this monitoring was limited to a single sentence during the annual performance review. We had a motion passed in the CSE stating that the fixed-day agreements did not comply with the legal framework. The union threatened legal action," says Fabrice Lallement, a union representative at Soitec, an industrial company.

The contract can be canceled, which requires the company to pay for overtime worked. It's therefore best to keep a careful record of the hours worked, even if you're on a fixed-day basis, just in case...

"Management has agreed to at least one monthly exchange between employees and their managers and has communicated with employees about workload monitoring. We encourage them to objectify their workload by counting the number of hours spent on each project. This allows for adjustments to be made as close as possible to actual work and gives managers arguments to use against their own superiors," he says.