La mesure des temps des cadres : une solution pour sortir des difficultés professionnelles ?

• Main Author: Jens Thoemmes
• Format: Article
• Language: fra
• Published: ADR Temporalités 2012-12-01
• Series: Temporalités
• Subjects: high-skilled employees; measurement; times; work; activities; oppositions
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/temporalites/2266
• ISSN: 1777-9006; 2102-5878

For a long time, negotiation and legislation have neglected the specific activity of high-skilled employees in France. Nevertheless, the “35 hour” laws in the early 2000s offered to introduce time measurements for these employees that are closer to their everyday life. The analysis of these initiatives seeks to understand whether the new ways to assess, measure and classify times met the expectations of this occupational group. First, we address the historical problem of the extent of temporalities as objectifying and limiting working hours. Next, we examine the criticisms that high-skilled employees express about their professional lives. Shield-activities that prevent professionnals from completing their missions, time pressure and social tensions expressed on the workplace, are causing strong and weak oppositions. Finally we show the limits of an analysis that treats high skilled employees as an homogeneous category without considering the fault lines between them. If time measurement provides some protection against the overflow of working hours, it can not be, in itself, a general means of improving working conditions.