In 2022, Thales is stepping up its recruitment plan, with programs to seek the services of 11,000 new individuals throughout the world. In this joint job interview to coincide with Euronaval 2022, expertise advancement supervisors Audrey Attenti and Myriam Chevreuil discuss the possibilities available within the Team, which sees skills and vocation progress as a extensive-time period endeavour.
What would you say to a new graduate interested in becoming a member of Thales?
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Myriam Chevreuil (MC): I’d say that a vocation with us is a likelihood to acquire section in bold, far-reaching assignments. For instance, Thales is at the moment establishing options for greener aviation and designing the next era of satellites. Or, to just take an case in point from the naval sector, our Maritime Mine Countermeasures Programme (MMCM), which aims to raise overall performance in mine-clearance operations and strengthen personnel basic safety. It’s exciting and rewarding perform: you’ll be concerned in producing cutting-edge programs and disruptive new technologies for our prospects, such as our Folding Gentle Acoustic System for Helicopters (FLASH) and the SonoFlash air-droppable sonobuoy, which can detect and identify progressively evasive submarines. With these two the latest accomplishment stories, Thales has cemented a position as a crucial participant in naval defence and maritime safety.
Audrey Attenti (AA): I’d say that doing the job for Thales usually means choosing a profession that can make a change to people’s day-to-day life. In their own way, each and every a person of our 81,000 workers is serving to to make the planet a improved and safer put, to protect nationwide sovereignty, to obtain new means to react to climate change, and a lot much more moreover.
What alternatives are now accessible at Thales?
AA: Right now, we’re mainly in search of software program and devices engineers and architects, cybersecurity engineers and undertaking administrators. With so a lot of roles on offer you, we in a natural way recruit men and women from all walks of existence. In simple fact, if you appear at the 9,000 new workers we hired globally in 2021, you will be challenging-pressed to locate two people today with equivalent backgrounds. And mainly because range is a single of our core values, we really do not see a person’s education and skills as a barrier to advancement. At Thales, nobody’s trajectory is established in stone. We empower our employees to get control of their professions – to make their expertise and capabilities so they can development upwards or sideways in just the Group.
MC: We have extensive-standing partnerships with engineering educational institutions, business enterprise educational facilities, universities, institutes of engineering and even significant faculties. In the naval sector, for instance, we have close ties with the French naval academy and ENSTA Bretagne. Our workforce is extremely diverse in terms of roles and backgrounds, so we’re not only searching to hire engineers! We also have to have people to be part of our output and mend teams. Numerous of our staff members come to us with undergraduate degrees or vocational skills in electronic systme or industrial IT, for case in point. Internships and apprenticeships are also a crucial part of our recruitment plan: in 2021 by itself, we took on 2,500 men and women on these varieties of contracts in France.
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What is the Group’s interior mobility policy?
MC: At Thales, really don’t preserve our employees in a box. If you are an engineer or technician and you be a part of us in a naval-targeted role, there is practically nothing halting you from moving into aerospace or cybersecurity down the line. Our men and women have transferable capabilities and we actively inspire them to retain striving their hand at a little something new. The Brest web-site, for occasion, is household to each our naval and aerospace groups, so it’s somewhat straightforward for employees to switch in between the two. Thales’s popular core of technologies – electronics, software program and systems – drastically improves mobility opportunities. Right now, we have 3,000 positions open to inner candidates.
AA: We also recognise the relevance of retaining talented, motivated staff members. When it will come to developing prolonged, fulfilling occupations with Thales, resolve and ambition make a difference just as a great deal as specialized experience. To cite an case in point close to residence, one of my colleagues in the expertise acquisition workforce has an HR background but has normally harboured a passion for aerospace. Just lately, we gave him an opportunity to transfer into this line of work as a project manager. It was not something he’d finished prior to, but he worked with his manager to get the teaching he desired prior to building the switch.
Does Thales offer you global mobility opportunities?
AA: Yes, of program. Thales has 46 web sites in France, distribute throughout 7 distinct locations (Nouvelle Aquitaine, Ile-de-France, Centre Val-de-Loire, Grand Ouest, Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur, Rhône-Alpes and Occitanie). But it also operates in 67 other nations. We seek the services of people today to fill vacancies in all these places, as properly as giving worldwide mobility alternatives to latest workers throughout all roles and functions. For illustration, one particular of our complex bid administrators lately put in 18 months in Brazil, functioning on digital safety jobs at our Thales Electronic Identity and Stability websites in São Paulo and São Bernardo do Campo.
Do employees receive ongoing instruction and coaching?
MC: Yes. Our e-understanding portal incorporates modules on all our areas of experience, and we also operate competencies improvement programmes. Schooling is also a fantastic way to familiarise employees with the adjustments affecting our company, these types of as the increase of drones and the second quantum revolution in the naval sector.
© F. Dekker – Brandbuilde©THALES
AA: Considering the fact that our people today operate in an ecosystem which is in continuous flux, we follow the “70:20:10” model for studying and development.
This implies that workforce achieve 70% of their new awareness and competencies by means of practice and experience, i.e. they “learn by doing”. A different 20% comes from interacting with their colleagues, supervisor, professionals and associates of their skilled network. The ultimate 10% is acquired as a result of formal finding out – by attending in-person or on the internet classes, gaining certifications or completing accredited schooling. This model puts our individuals in demand of their very own growth and fosters a lifestyle of understanding-sharing across the organisation. Due to the fact the assignments we perform on are so sophisticated, our workers require on-the-job training and consistent assistance from their supervisors and colleagues. Talking individually, there were holes in my understanding when it came to techniques engineering. To tackle people gaps, I put in hrs traveling to websites and chatting and listening to colleagues. Each individual office is accustomed to onboarding new hires and welcoming staff who are transforming roles.
Do all staff spend time immersed in entrance-line functions?
MC: Staff operating on naval systems go out into the discipline far more often than most. Our engineers and experts routinely devote numerous times at sea screening the solutions they’ve produced, this kind of as new sonar suites or mine countermeasures methods. These immersive ordeals are a fantastic way for them to get to know our clients and understand a lot more about their requirements and priorities.
Do you have any ultimate phrases?
AA: Whether you’re thinking of signing up for Thales’s naval division or any other region of our business, you can appear ahead to an interesting vocation, endless progression and growth prospects, and a chance to see the effect of your function very first-hand. And you’ll be performing with terrific colleagues in a stimulating and gratifying environment. So really feel free of charge to be a part of us!