Destination Postal bank

How could a sales profession be implemented in a public administration? ? Nadège Vezinat’s work attempts to resolve this enigma. In this context, he is interested in the case of the Post Office, and brings together an impressive material produced by a wide choice of what the range of sociological survey methods can offer (questionnaire, interviews, observations, archives) while part of a triple line of already existing work: that of work “ socio-historical » on the one hand, inviting us to take a detour through history to shed light on contemporary questions relating to administration ; those of ethnographic research on bureaucracies and their relationship with users on the other hand, concerned among other things to shed light on the ordinary conditions of what is now commonly called “ modernization » of the state ; and that of sociological work on professions, the work being entirely devoted to the invention of a new profession at the Post Office: that of financial advisor. Through the choice of her subject and the originality of her perspective, the author judiciously complements the already existing publications on the institution. But, beyond its detailed knowledge which will be of particular interest to specialists, the subject is worth considering the extent of the metamorphoses of the public service concerned which, in around fifty years, has gone from the status of state administration to that of limited company. Among the mass of information provided by the seven chapters of the work, distributed according to the scales of analysis that the author uses in turn (the macro, the meso and the micro) and which structure the different parts, we will retain three important results.

Between public service and market, financial advice at the Post Office

A first argument consists of overturning a generally accepted idea: the financial activities of the Post Office do not constitute a novelty linked to the liberal turn of the last twenty years. The work insists, on the contrary, on their seniority: the postal network is essential, from the XIX^e century, as a central player in fundraising for the State, and appears as a regulatory lever for the banking sector as a whole through financial products of which the Post Office will maintain a monopoly for a long time (livret A, network of credit unions savings placed under his authority). In fact, the developments in the Post Office’s financial services are inseparable from a story in which a multitude of actors intervene: the Treasury, the Ministry of PTTbanks, but also different governments, local elected officials, unions, etc. In the first part of her work, Nadège Vezinat tells this complex story. A quick reading would suggest that this retrospective, relating to the too often neglected seniority of the role of the Post Office in financial matters, provides a sort of backdrop for understanding the more recent place and role of financial advisors. We would be wrong. Because the argument is the opposite: the ambiguities of their mission, which outline what the author calls a “ double prescription » (the public service and the general interest on the one hand, the bank and the interest of the company on the other), have its roots in the history of the financial activities of the Post Office, one characteristic of which is precisely due to the impossibility of being able to qualify them, relating to both a public service mission and the market, and where banking education, fundraising and management of populations neglected by the traditional banking network are combined.

The profession at the service of the company ?

A second argument concerns the way in which La Poste pursues its strategy of integration into the markets and its privatization, in a context of liberalization of European posts. In this case, it is based on the establishment of a new sales profession. In the second part of the work which is mainly devoted to it, Nadège Vézinat characterizes the main historical stages, from the integration of these financial activities into the function of receiver in the 1950s to the official creation of financial advisors in 1991. It restores the challenges (developing new skills, standardizing practices, moralizing the activity, etc.) and the modalities (training, remuneration etc.) which lead in particular to the massive recruitment of contract workers and whose workforce has been multiplied by 10 in a decade, exceeding 10,000 agents at the end of the 2000s. The central object of the author’s questioning, however, turns out to be more precise: to what extent was the activity of these financial advisors formed in the terms of a “ job », describing an authentic professionalization ? The response is mixed to say the least, and that is the whole point of the matter. Certainly, on the one hand, new knowledge has been produced in terms of knowledge of clienteles or control of investments, an ethics has been able to impose itself particularly in a context of legal cases relating to fraud, a legitimacy to intervene in financial advice has been able to establish itself, staff have been able to acquire qualified work and even executive status which ensures them undeniable recognition. But, at the same time, the activity of these same financial advisors turns out to be the subject of close surveillance ensured by computer technology and management methods, so that behind what appears as a “ job “, we find above all the organization.

The convincing interpretation suggested by Nadège Vézinat of the high rate of turnover of these financial advisors appears revealing from this point of view. Paradoxical at first sight, since it goes against the interests of the employer who invests in the training of its agents, this turnover appears to the author as too massive, too recurring to be truly honest: the escape of a part of the population from the organization would be subtly maintained, the need to constantly renew the workforce preserving the employer from a risk of counter-power that a more stable group of financial advisors would not fail to highlight. For the author, the process of creating and operating the group of financial advisors is, as such, a matter of professionalization “ from above », case where a job – financial advice – becomes the monopoly of exercise of an unprecedented group of specialists but whose creation and recognition are the work of the employer, at the cost of tight control. Let’s admit it: this is a borderline case, and the reader may not follow the author in all her conclusions, although she explicitly asks herself these same questions: can we really speak in these conditions of an authentic process of professionalization, especially since the notion is itself the subject of controversy within sociology ? Why not consider that we are dealing here more with a rationalization, whose management tools – more mentioned in the work than really described – suggest that it sometimes takes a more industrial form than truly professional, even if a rhetoric on the profession of advisor covers this evolution ?

What makes a professional group

A third argument, finally, concerns the way in which those concerned themselves experience and conceive of their own employment. The fact is that these financial advisors have heterogeneous trajectories (young graduates, former private sector employees, postal workers), various statuses (contractual, civil servants), different ages and generations, so that the question of knowing what makes them However, it is indeed a group, sharing the same professional culture and authentic professional values, is not self-evident. In a final part, the work attempts to answer this question by asking whether these advisors first assert themselves as postmen or as advisors, wondering about the part of the prescription which prevails, taking into account of the “ double prescription » (public/private) to which they are exposed. But the interest of the survey carried out here is to succeed in identifying a diversity of professional identities (sellers, advisors, cultivators, withdrawal) whose nature ultimately goes further than this duality, depending on whether the compromises found — which go from the assumed articulation to the more radical separation of these prescriptions — are stable or not. We understand well, in these conditions, the imperative question that the author raises: what makes this professional group cohesive, if their identities are multiple, crossed moreover by multiple internal divisions like the conditions employment, statuses or generations ? The response is mixed, so that if we are indeed dealing with professionalization “ from above », this remains in truth fragile, uncertain, reversible and, in any case, unfinished. Here again, the reader may not completely follow the author in his doubts. Because if the work concludes on the unfinished nature of this professionalization, we could have fun reversing the reasoning by wondering if, on the contrary, this is not above all a rationalization which, despite undeniable tensions, has indeed succeeded, having managed to produce financial advice… without financial advisors who are true custodians of a shared professional culture on ways of doing well and acting.

The fact is, in truth, it remains difficult to give a firm answer. Not that there is necessarily an answer in itself, but the material given in the book hardly allows us to conclude. In particular, he appears to have little to say about anything relating to financial advice techniques (procedures, instruments, organizational methods, files, etc.), even though everything is thought-provoking – and too few in number, but fascinating observations of work situations reproduced in the work, clearly show that this is a very equipped activity. Now, if we understand perfectly that the key to the problem — what makes the group of financial advisors ? — can be sought from the side of social solidarities, drawing implicitly on a well-established Durkheimian conception of work as a link, it is less understandable that this same key has not been sought with as much attention on the side of technical or organizational solidarities, considering that work is also a material activity, a dimension that the work ultimately reveals more than it really explores. And this is especially true since what makes the complexity – but undoubtedly also the skills – of the work of financial advisors remains the subject of scattered descriptions, and seems to depend centrally on the organization of the multiple post offices.

The fact remains that this work, through its scale and rigor, perfectly succeeds in the feat it set out to achieve: restoring the metamorphoses of the Post Office, avoiding simplistic analyzes in favor of monitoring careful examination of the genesis and experiences of financial advisors, a fragile but emblematic professional group of these transformations.