From January 1, companies with 11 to 49 employees that have made a net taxable profit of at least 1% of their turnover over the last three years will have to set up a value sharing system.
But according to a recent Ifop survey carried out for the consulting firm Primeum in June, 57% of the small and medium-sized enterprises concerned questioned were unaware of this new obligation.
Until now, this law only applied to companies with 50 or more employees, which were required to redistribute part of their profits to their employees through a profit-sharing agreement.
"The economy is strained and I think that the priority of the majority of managers is to fill order books and ensure profitability for their company," Stéphanie Pauzat, vice-president of the confederation of SMEs (CPME), explained to AFP to explain this delay.
Risk of "gift wrapping"
While small businesses will have the choice between four schemes, including the participation bonus, it is the value sharing bonus (PPV), formerly the "Macron bonus", capped at 3.000 or 6.000 euros per person depending on certain conditions, which could be favoured primarily by SMEs for its simplicity.
Jean-Baptiste Sizes, founder and director of Eigrene, a small start-up that advises bakers on energy, has already paid the PPV several times, "hyper flexible" and "practical", which seemed to him to be the best option to start with.
Although it may result from a unilateral decision by the manager and be distributed, without performance conditions, to all employees, the former "Macron bonus" is nevertheless similar to a "gift package" without any incentive effect, underlines Émilienne Grenier, human resources consultant at Spartes.
"There is no moral contract (...) between the company and the employees, we are not in the long term," Mr. Sizes adds. The young manager wants to turn, in 2025, towards a system allowing him to "involve" his teams more "in the discussion" around the sharing of the wealth created.
Objectives and indicators
The risk of the PPV "is that employees do not understand why they are being paid, (...) that the following year, if the amount is not the same, they say to themselves +Where is my bonus?+", explains Ms. Grenier.
Conversely, the profit-sharing bonus, another mechanism that can be used by SMEs, "allows us to start from what the company wants to do" and "to set up indicators specific to it" to assess whether the objectives have been achieved or not, she continues.
The company can choose to set a target based on turnover or profit, but also on absenteeism rates or other more specific criteria, such as customer satisfaction, to trigger the payment of the bonus.
This is the "most suitable" option for small businesses, despite its greater administrative complexity, according to the consultant.
According to the Ipsos study cited above, 21% of business leaders surveyed said they would choose to implement a profit-sharing agreement in 2025, the second value-sharing mechanism cited in the survey after the PPV (43%).
No penalty
To support business leaders, the executive had planned to launch a communications campaign from mid-January, with the participation of key players such as accountants, federations and regions.
But the portfolio of Interest and Participation, entrusted under the Barnier government to Marie-Agnès Poussier-Winsback, was abandoned during the reshuffle.
For the CPME, there is no need to worry. The companies concerned should end up getting up to speed "at the time of closing the accounts" in 2025 when "the accountants inform their clients of the new obligations incumbent upon them".
No sanctions are currently planned for failure to comply with this obligation.
In addition to the three mechanisms mentioned, the contribution to an employee savings plan is the last lever that SMEs with more than 11 employees can use to comply with the law.