Tag: France

OM in the News: Meet Zora, The Robot Caregiver

This is Zora. It may not look like much — more cute toy than futuristic marvel — but this robot is at the center of an experiment in France to change care for elderly patients. When Zora arrived at this nursing facility near Paris, a strange thing began happening: Many patients developed an emotional attachment, treating it like a baby, holding and cooing, giving it kisses on the head. Zora offered companionship in a place where life can be lonely. Families can visit only so much, and staff members are stretched. Patients at the hospital have dementia and other conditions that require round-the-clock care.

Zora often leads exercises and plays games. It can have a conversation because the nurse (out of view) types words into a laptop for the robot to speak.

Zora doesn’t dispense medicine, take blood pressure or change bedsheets, but its Belgium-based provider has sold over 1,000 of the robots (at $18,000 each) to health care facilities around the world. In nearly every country, the population of older adults is rising. The number of people over 60 will more than double to 2.1 billion by 2050.

There simply won’t be enough people for the required health care jobs, so new technology must be created to help fill the void, writes The New York Times (Nov. 27, 2018). The challenge is particularly acute in France, where hospitals have been facing a national crisis, with health care professionals striking and protesting budget cuts and staff shortages. In Australia, a hospital using a Zora found that it improved the mood of some patients, and got them more involved in activities. And patients have told the robot things about their health they wouldn’t share with doctors.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. What can and can’t Zora do?
  2. Where else can “service robots” make their mark?

OM in the News: Trying to Close French Factories Can Lead to “Boss-napping”

Workers set tires on fire at this French Goodyear plant where 2 execs were held hostage
Workers set tires on fire at this French Goodyear plant where 2 execs were held hostage

Negotiations broke down last week at a Goodyear tire factory scheduled for closing in northern France, so employees kidnapped the bosses. Hundreds of employees held two senior executives captive, threatening to detain them until the company agreed to pay out “huge amounts of money” to nearly 1,200 workers about to lose their jobs. The revival of the French unions’ “boss-napping” tactic clearly causes concerns of multinationals about France as a place to locate, reports The New York Times (Jan. 8, 2014). “This happened because workers were desperate,” said a French prof. “But it is still an act that will underline the perception that it’s difficult to do business in France.”

Tension at the Goodyear plant flared last year after Maurice Taylor, CEO of an American tire company, Titan International, rejected a government appeal to step in and buy the plant. Taylor described French workers as loafers of minimal productivity. “In the U.S., we call this kidnapping,” he stated. “These people would be arrested and prosecuted. But in France, your government does nothing — it’s crazy.”

France’s rigid labor market and the influence of labor unions has long been a source of aggravation to employers. The country’s 3,200-page labor code embodied what the government acknowledged was a “cult of regulation” that choked business. Procedures for shedding workers when economic conditions deteriorate are lengthy and expensive, and businesses pay high taxes to help fund France’s social welfare system. For an employee earning 1,200 euros a month, employers pay an additional €1,000 in tax and pension costs. Unions at the Goodyear plant had been demanding severance packages of €80,000 ($110,000) plus €2,500 for each year worked.

In recent years, French employees took executives of Caterpillar hostage when talks over revamping the company’s operation broke down, trapped the CEO of the group that owns Gucci, while bosses at 3M and Sony were held in an attempt to get bigger severance packages.

Classroom discussion questions:

1. How else can companies in France deal with overcapacity?

2. Why does the French government seem to favor unions?

OM in the News: U.S. CEO to France: “How Stupid Do You Think We Are?”

titan“How stupid do you think we are?” With those choice words, writes The New York Times (Feb.21, 2013), Maurice Taylor, CEO of American tire manufacturer, Titan International,  touched off a furor in France as he responded to a government plea to take over a Goodyear factory slated for closing in Amiens, France. “I have visited the factory,” said Taylor. “The French work force gets paid high wages but works only 3 hours. They have 1 hour for their breaks and lunch, talk for 3 and work for 3. I told this to the French unions to their faces and they told me, ‘That’s the French way!’ ”

Taylor’s assessment quickly struck a nerve in France, where concerns about declining competitiveness have led economists to ask whether the nation is at risk of becoming the next sick man of Europe. But Industrial Minister Montebourg released a letter calling the executive’s comments “extreme” and “insulting,” adding that they pointed to a “perfect ignorance” about France. French media outlets also minced no words. “Incendiary!” and “Scathing!” were just a few of the terms replayed in French newspapers. And the head of France’s main labor union wasted no time in weighing in, saying Mr. Taylor belonged in a “psychiatric ward.”

“Goodyear tried for over 4 years to save the Amiens jobs that are some of the highest-paid, but the French unions and the French government did nothing but talk,” said Taylor. “Titan is the one with the money and the talent to produce tires. What does the crazy union have? It has the French government.” He said his company would seek to produce cheaper tires in India or China, where he said Titan would pay the workers less than 1 euro an hour, and then sell the tires back to the French. He predicted that Michelin, the French tire maker, would not be able to compete with lower prices and would have to halt production in France within 5 years. “You can keep your so-called workers.”

Discussion questions:

1. How does France rank in the Global Competitiveness Index (see Table 8.1 and www.weforum.org)?

2. Relate this discussion to the major location decisions listed in Chapter 8.

OM in the News: Why It’s Hard to Find Qualified Employees in France

Employers in the U.S. complain they can’t find qualified workers. But, as BusinessWeek (July 23, 2012) reports, the problem is not unique to American industry. While French  unemployment rose to 10% recently, about 43% of French companies were unable to recruit the workers they need. In some industries, 2/3 of the companies encountered difficulties hiring. It’s not just high-level engineers who are in short supply. The shortfall for home nursing and cleaning jobs was the highest, at 67%; it was 62% for engineers, 61% for cooks, and 58% for nurses.

The skills mismatch reflects France’s inability to adapt its educational and vocational training to business needs, as neighboring Germany has done. Every year, half a million German businesses take on teenage apprentices to teach them a trade: The apprentices supplement their on-the-job training with classes at vocational schools. In Germany, not only are vocational training firms obligated to provide details to the government on their job placements, but trainers’ pay is partly dependent on how many trainees find a job, which forces them to build classes around well-identified needs. The result: Youth unemployment  in Germany is 8.5%; France’s is 22%.

France’s educational system, somewhat like ours in the U.S., looks down on vocational training (a topic in Chapter 1), perpetuating the notion that intellectual jobs are more worthy than manual work.  “For years, there has been a deep hatred in the education system regarding manufacturing,” says an industry leader.  The lack of mobility among factory hands even inside France adds to the skills mismatch. French employees are rarely willing to move, compared with the U.S. and the U.K., because the French housing market lacks fluidity. While France spends a bigger piece of its national income on education than Germany—6% compared with 4.8%—it gets less bang for its buck.

Discussion questions:

1. Why don’t we have more apprentice programs in the U.S?

2. Where are there shortages of skilled workers in the U.S., and why?