Developing our people

Partnerships with educational institutions

More than 450 Thales female employees act as sponsors for the association Elles Bougent, whose objective is to attract young women to engineering careers. The Thales sponsors share their passion for their profession in order to encourage young women in their career choices. They take part in the association’s activities (such as round tables, forums and school events) and regularly welcome secondary school students on site so that they can find out more about working in the engineering professions at an industrial group like Thales. Elles bougent network includes: 236 companies and higher education institutions, 1,065 partner high schools and colleges in France and abroad, and over 500 events in France and abroad.

Thales collaborates with schools and universities in France and abroad, notably by participating in forums, round tables and conferences, in an effort to attract the Group’s future employees and help young people launch their careers. 

By pairing mentors with students, the Article 1 association helps students from less privileged backgrounds to receive mentoring support from professionals throughout their studies, during their search for internships, and when choosing their career. 

Skills management by job family: a dynamic and forward looking approach

Employees are divided into 15 job families, each with an operational lead and an operational committee, an HR contact, and a training support team to anticipate short- and medium term changes and future trends, and put forward a collective professional development action plan. 

The Group has developed a “skills management” initiative for six job families (R&D, Industry, Customer Service, Quality, Purchasing, and Bid & Project Management), centred on the identification and sharing of available technical skills. This enables teams’ key skills to be maintained by ensuring that professional development plans (in terms of transfer of skills, coaching, training, and recruitment of candidates with specific backgrounds) are more closely matched to future operational needs. 

Professional support for employees

In order to improve the “employee experience” and contribute more effectively to employees’ professional development, the Group launched “Check-In” discussions in 2020.
Scheduled regularly throughout the year, the discussions provide an opportunity for line managers to meet with each employee several times a year to talk about their objectives, provide feedback from colleagues, identify training needs, and talk about their workload. In 2023 more than 93.2% of the Group’s employees were thus able to define their annual objectives with their manager. 

“Check-In” discussion

Check-ins are regular and constructive discussions between managers and employees, which can be initiated by either of them throughout the year.
 

Training sessions: maintaining every employee’s expertise

Thales’s commitment to training stems from the view that building a successful career path means maintaining every employee’s expertise at all times. The Group’s training policy has a dual aim: 
•    To meet the Group’s training needs in order to implement growth and performance improvement projects, and support transformation initiatives.
•    To take account of employees’ individual aspirations in terms of professional development, mobility, and the acquisition of new skills. 

The Talent & Culture International Learning Department contributes to the training and professional development of employees in the various countries where the Group operates by creating a shared training culture. Its tasks include helping employees to adapt their individual and collective skills to changing job roles while supporting the Group’s strategic goals. It is also in charge of managing the Digital Learning portal, a user oriented interface available to all Group employees which offers customised experiences and tracks the user’s learning progress.  

An attractive mobility and expatriation policy

International Mobility

Thales' International Mobility policy consists of favoring a local approach to certain destination countries (Singapore, the United States, Canada and Australia) by concluding local employment contracts that offer a wider range of solutions in terms of installation conditions and compensation to employees."

The international Business Volunteers (VIE) programme makes it possible for young  people aged between 18 and 28 from the European Area to benefit from an assignement in a foreign country for 6 to 24 months.

The Group’s compensation and benefits policy is based on transparency, fairness and dialogue

Compensation is a key component of Thales’s employment policy, aimed at encouraging performance, recognising skills and retaining talented employees. It combines collective results and individual performance and takes account of market practices in the countries where the Group operates. 

More than 54,000 people, benefited from variable (performance-related) compensation within the Group in 2021.

For more than 20 years, the compensation policy applied within the Group for employees in grades 8 to 12 has included a variable compensation plan – applicable worldwide – that defines a target rate of variable compensation for each grade. Receipt of this variable compensation component depends on the achievement of individual objectives and the collective results of the business.