At Orange, a new departure plan for seniors

Despite the success of its latest departure plan for seniors, completed in 2022, Orange stated that it did not want to launch a new “senior part-time” (TPS). In addition to its cost (1.7 billion euros), the management of the telecoms operator was worried about its destabilizing effect: in 2022, 7,600 employees had rushed to the system, many of them at the last minute , which had disorganized certain services and made technical skills disappear.

Orange finally turns around. On November 7, during a meeting with the unions organized as part of the three-year negotiations on Job and Career Management (GEPP), the group opened the door to a new TPS. “This responds to a strong demand from the social body”explains Vincent Lecerf, Orange's human resources director. Many employees regretted not having been able to take advantage of the previous plan for a few months.

According to the terms revealed by the trade union organizations, the new TPS would cover the period 2025-2028. It could be activated by the employee five years before retirement: the first year would be worked at 50% and paid at 70%; the next four would be released and paid at 60%, with a guaranteed minimum remuneration. To be eligible, you would need to have fifteen years of seniority, with a retirement age of between 2026 and 2033.

Management's objective is to smooth out TPS requests as much as possible to avoid experiencing the same shock as in 2022. The plan could be accompanied by commitments on hiring. The previous one predicted 8,000, an objective almost achieved according to Orange.

Low noise

For Mr. Lecerf, the TPS “is the most appropriate system to support the adaptation of the group’s workforce” from activities in decline to those in growth, in a context where “technological developments and new digital uses are causing a profound and rapid transformation of the telecoms sector”. Other major European telecoms operators (Telefonica, Vodafone, BT, Deutsche Telekom, etc.) have also announced departure plans over the last two years.

Created by Stéphane Richard, the former CEO of Orange, in the aftermath of the suicide crisis of 2008-2009 (thirty-five employees killed themselves in two years), as a tool for social appeasement, the TPS has become a means of quietly reducing staff numbers and payroll. The new vintage would make it possible to anticipate the retirement of 1,500 to 2,000 people per year. Over the four years of the plan, this would represent 6,000 to 8,000 employees, or 9% to 12% of Orange's workforce in France. They would be added to the 42,000 employees who have gone through the system since its creation in 2010. In ten years, the operator's workforce in France has fallen by a third, to fall to 65,000 employees (including 11,000 civil servants). ), with an average age of 49 years.

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