In order to meet the needs relating to each company’s business and particularly to ensure continuous operation, the Group’s employees may be required to provide a continuous service or be on call outside of regular working hours. These arrangements are adapted over time according to the changing circumstances at each company, legislation and new authorised work organisation practices, particularly communications technology developments. For companies based in France, the duration of the working week in France is 35 hours, with services available for a minimum of 5 days.
Group entities are seeking to modernise the organisation of working time to promote employee agility and empowerment. Following the implementation of agreements fora fixed number of working days a year in most of the Group’s companies (EDF, PEI, Sowee, etc.), which have been signed by almost all managers, the EDF group, as part of the CAP 2030 transformation project, has implemented work organisation policies addressing the challenges of simplification, empowerment and innovation:
The exceptional circumstances in 2020 have shown how important it is to capitalise on the trials conducted in the areas of empowerment, new approaches to the organisation of work and remote working and teleworking arrangements in the Company’s various business lines. The Company has strengthened managerial responsibility for the TAMA project (another way of working, another way of managing) launched by the Executive Committee in all the Group’s departments and subsidiaries.
The Group’s employee benefits policy is based on three main principles: a principle of accountability, a principle of balance between competitiveness and sustainability, and a principle of appropriation by beneficiaries.
In France, the majority of the Group’s workforce are employed by companies descended from “historic operators” (EDF, Enedis(1), PEI) which have electricity and gas industry or “EGI” status. This status carries an entitlement to special social security schemes, including special sickness, disability and pension schemes. If employees with EGI status are unfit for work (sickness/maternity/disability), they thus benefit from a customised level of cover. In terms of healthcare costs, in addition to the basic scheme, their special scheme includes an additional mandatory part, which also covers retired employees. Employees with EGI status and EGI pensioners have access to centralised social activities, financed by the companies in the professional branch and managed independently by the unions. In addition to these schemes, there is a benefit in kind historically based on a company decision which covers gas and electricity supplied by historic operators to employees and which is maintained for retired employees.
EDF’s IPO and the application of international accounting standards required the valuation and provisioning of commitments to retired employees. The maintaining of the industry’s special welfare plans faced with this requirement was supported by the overhaul of their financing: affiliation with standard mandatory plans for pensions and strengthening of affiliation between current and retired employee plans for complementary health insurance cover.
The special pension plan has also, like other public sector special pension plans, been increasingly affected by efforts to reform mandatory pension plans launched by successive governments. Except for the pension calculation method (specific rate, applied to a salary at the end of career, with a reduced base), the main parameters(retirement age, required contribution period, etc.) tend to be in line with the standard compulsory plan. A number of other less wide-ranging rules remain specific.The definition of active service, enabling earlier retirements, has also been revised and how it is taken into account significantly overhauled for newly-hired employees, via the creation of a Retirement Days Savings Account. In addition, a bill introducing a universal pension system for all employees affected by the reform, regardless of their pension scheme, including the EGI scheme, was examined by the National Assembly in February 2020, before being suspended on account of the Covid health crisis.
If the government’s proposed pension reforms go ahead, even in a different form, there will be three major issues for the EDF group:
Since the beginning of the consultation process, the Company has been keeping a close eye on the consequences of this reform for all its employees, regardless of their status. It will continue to monitor the situation if the proposed reforms are put back on the table at the beginning of 2021.
The level of employee health, disability and life cover appeared to need updating to meet that offered by other major groups, which led to the introduction in 2008 of complementary cover in these three areas, in the form of an agreement at branch level.
An agreement on family rights was signed in 2017 at the level of the EGI branch with the trade union organisations, to modernise the social system and reflect the changes to family life that have occurred since 1946 by adapting the EGI status in a concerted manner.
In terms of health insurance, 2020 saw the culmination of an in-depth consultation between the social partners of the EGIs and the government concerning are balancing of the accounts of CAMIEG (health insurance fund for the electricity and gas industry), which have carried a surplus since its creation in 2007.
The rebalancing is based on a reduction in employer and employee complementary health insurance contributions, a reduction in the solidarity contribution paid by the working population for the non-working population and an improvement in optical benefits. €175 million of the surplus was also transferred to the CNAMTS (national health insurance fund for employees), €40 million for the working population accounting section and the rest from the non-working population section.
These measures should allow the fund’s accounts to be restructured in a sustainable manner, for the benefit of EGI employees, with a positive financial impact on their pay in 2021 and 2022: the rate of employee complementary health insurance contributions is 25% less than in 2020 and, from 2023 onwards, this rate reduction will remain 5% less than the 2020 rate of employee contributions. In addition, the solidarity contribution paid by the working population for the non-working population has been permanently reduced by 17%, from January 2021. These measures will also improve health benefits.
The Group’s other employees in France are covered by several collective bargaining agreements and can have fringe benefits provided by their own employer. Each employer must therefore ensure that the benefits provided are consistent with theGroup policy. For Group companies outside France, even if the regulatory context specific to each country must be taken into account, each entity is required to ensure that the capital paid out in the event of a death under death benefit contracts covers one year’s salary at the very least. This social protection matter is regularly discussed with the Group’s Human Resources Department..
(1) Network operator, independently managed.
