Should companies consider women’s health as a standalone issue to better adapt to the difficulties they face? This is the opinion of Florence Chappert, Head of the Integrated Equality Mission at the National Agency for the Improvement of Working Conditions (Anact): “A gender-specific approach to the issue of working conditions makes it understandable that women are no better protected than men. If women have four to five more days of absence per year than men, this is not only due to the children, but also to specific constraints that expose them to financial consequences, the loss of a job or isolation from the collective. »
With this observation, the healthcare specialist opened the HR Meetings on February 7 – the monthly HR news meeting organized by The world in collaboration with ManpowerGroup Talent Solutions and Malakoff Humanis −, which brought together around ten HR managers in Paris and remotely.
This inventory is the result of recent research that has made it possible to highlight occupational risks that have long been underestimated by politics and business and to which women in particular are exposed in the context of their work. Between 2001 and 2019, the number of workplace accidents among women increased by 41.6%, while it fell by 27.2% among men.
When it comes to raising awareness of occupational health issues specific to women, HR managers spontaneously mention endometriosis, a chronic, incurable disease that exclusively affects women of childbearing age, affecting almost 10% of them. In times of crisis that certain employees may find themselves in, managers must be more tolerant of short-term absences during working hours, which should not be confused with work interruptions.
Raising awareness of existing pathologies
Regarding chronic illnesses, the National Old Age Insurance Fund (CNAV) uses teleworking as a lever to allow workers a breathing space and, more generally, flexibility in working hours. For its part, Malakoff Humanis recently granted five additional days of occasional telework for women with endometriosis (bringing the cap to twenty days) or five days of paid absence per year for those who cannot telework.
The General Directorate of Labor and Social Affairs will soon publish a guide for managers and human resources departments on this topic. The main challenge remains to raise awareness of existing pathologies in order to make them more visible in the company. “In health we see the true values of a company: how it manages prevention, whether it provides salary supplements to compensate for waiting times during sick leave by setting an example.”says Laurence Breton-Kueny, Human Resources Director of the Afnor Group and Vice President of the National Association of Human Resources Managers.
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