According to the Decree, the technical system implemented by the employer must guarantee the identification of the members, as well as their effective participation by ensuring the continuous and simultaneous retransmission of the sound (for conference calls) and the immediate communication of written messages during the deliberations (for instant messaging).

Therefore, the president must be able to identify all the participants without seeing them. To this end, the president may ask participants to provide their identity at the beginning of the meeting and then establish an order in which they will speak. Thus, participants will have the possibility to speak up after having been invited by the president. In any event, it is advisable to set out the applicable rules for attending the meeting clearly from the beginning and, in particular, ask participants to provide their first and last names before speaking.

The Decree specifies that the use of these means of communication must not prevent to suspend the meetings.

When a secret ballot vote is needed, the voting system must comply with the conditions laid down for videoconferencing by Article D. 2315-1 of the Labor Code, which provides that: “the voting system guarantees that the identity of the participant may not, at any time, be linked to his/her vote. In case of electronic vote, the system used by the company must ensure the confidentiality of the transmitted data as well as the security of the addressing of the authentication means, the issuing, recording and counting of the votes”.

As regards the organization of the vote, the employer must liaise with an external provider in order to set up a voting system (e.g. by telephone for instance).

In addition, the employer shall ensure that the following principles are respected:

• Deliberations shall be initiated only after checking that all members have access to the relevant technical equipment, meeting the conditions laid down in Article D. 2315-1 ;
• The vote shall take place simultaneously. To this end, participants shall have the same time limit to vote once the voting operations have been opened, as indicated by the employer.

Finally, the employer must inform the staff representative members about the fact that the meetings will be held through conference call or instant messaging under the rules usually applicable for the convocation to the meetings.

The president informs the staff representative members that the meeting will be held by instant messaging and specifies the date of the meeting as well as the duration of the meeting (starting and ending hours).

The meeting is held in accordance with the following steps:

1. Deliberations shall be initiated only after verification that all members have access to the relevant technical equipment;
2. Debates shall be closed by a message from the employer, which may not be delivered before the time limit set for the closure of the deliberations;
3. The vote shall take place simultaneously. To this end, participants shall have the same time limit to cast their vote once the voting operations have been opened, as indicated by the employer;
4. At the end of the period set for the expression of votes, the president shall disclose the results to all members.