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Being a socially engaged company

Promoting diversity and an inclusive culture

Thales is committed to creating a respectful, equitable, stimulating work environment, where creativity is encouraged, and where valuing each person's authentic self is a prerequisite for individual well-being and collective success. Trust within teams reflects the trust customers place in Thales.


Promoting Diversity

Thales is committed to: 

  • Accelerating the recruitment of women at every level of the organisation
  • Promoting women to higher levels of responsibility 
  • Increasing the representation of women on management committees
Thales has long been committed to improving gender equality in the workplace

In a constantly evolving international environment, diversity and inclusion are key to staying innovative and successful in the Group’s business domains. Thales promotes work environments that are respectful, stimulating, and conducive to the creativity and well‑being of employees, enabling all individuals to contribute to collective success.

Within this context, building a global and diversified company remains a major priority of the Group, and an essential component in its development. In particular, the Group seeks to promote broader access for women to the highest levels of responsibility, in management teams and executive bodies. 

Mentorship 
International mentoring programme for women.

To promote gender diversity and gender equality in its leadership group, and support employees' professional development, Thales launched an international mentoring programme for women several years ago, with the participation of the Group's senior management. 

Innovative mentorship platform 

In North America, an innovative mentorship platform, “MentorcliQ,” offers five mentorship programmes involving more than 400 employees in cycles of approximately six months each. One of them, the Women@Thales programme, is specifically dedicated to career development for women.

 

Variable compensation 

As of 2020, diversity and inclusion have been among the individual CSR objectives that could be selected by employees at the highest level of responsibility to account for 10% of their variable compensation. Starting in 2021, achievement of a Group diversity and inclusion objective is included in the compensation of 54,000 employees.

Internal gender equality network 

Thales employees are also committed to gender diversity, and have created their own gender equality network. With over 3,500 members, both men and women, WiTH (We in Thales) is an international group that provides support for Thales's gender equality initiatives and encourages the professional development of women.

Partnerships with local associations 

In Italy, Thales has partnered with the association Valore D, which promotes gender equality and inclusive culture in businesses.

In India, to raise awareness of gender equality, Thales organises regular information sessions on gender diversity and sexual harassment.

In France, Thales works with associations such as Elles Bougent, with over 450 women acting as mentors to encourage girls to consider careers in science and technology.


Recruitment and career development of women in the company

 

Performance related to Diversity and Inclusion

18.9%

of the Group’s most senior positions held by women in 2021.

Group results by the end of 2021.

71%

of Management Committees including at least three women in 2021.

Group results by the end of 2021.

20%

of the Group’s most senior positions held by women

Group target by the end of 2023.

75%

of Management Committees including at least three women

Group target by the end of 2023.

Ensuring equal treatment

For the third year in a row, Thales has published a Gender Equality Index for its French companies with more than 50 employees. Built around five indicators, and calculated out of a total of 100 points, the index measures key gender equality data for each legal entity. 

To make further progress in the fight against gender discrimination and the glass ceiling in all countries where the Group operates, a global Thales Gender Equality Index was created in 2021. 

The Thales Gender Equality Index is a tool for measuring the Group’s progress on gender equality. It enables the effectiveness of Group policies to be assessed, while giving greater visibility to areas that need improvement, and supporting units in identifying those aspects which require the greatest improvement. It acts as a powerful driver for concrete actions designed to ensure greater gender equality.  

Scored out of a total of 100 points, the index allows companies across Thales to assess gender gaps that put women at a disadvantage, with a focus on compensation and career development. It is calculated on the basis of five criteria: pay, variable compensation, promotion, the gender balance in leadership, and the gender balance among top earners.

Designed to supplement existing national gender equality surveys and indexes, the global Thales Gender Equality Index will be published annually for all Group companies with 200 or more employees, providing pertinent information that enables them to track their progress against the various criteria, and define appropriate response actions.
 

Fighting sexism: the #StOpE initiative

In 2019, Thales joined the #StOpE (stop everyday sexism at work) initiative alongside 56 other companies. In 2021, the outcomes of this commitment to fighting against everyday sexism were as follows: 

  • Training of individuals to act as leads on issues of sexual harassment and sexist conduct (nearly 100 representatives of management and the Social and Economic Committees, and more than 40 people directly involved in these issues via their roles in HR, Legal , etc.).
  • Rollout of actions to raise awareness in the Group’s Global Business Units.
  • Participation in the development of an online training course in partnership with other companies taking part in the #StOpE initiative, and distribution of the module to all Group employees.

Policies in favour of greater inclusion

Offering a work environment that is caring and respectful of people’s differences in order to bring out the best in everyone lies right at the heart of the Group’s diversity and inclusion policy.

Thales’s strong commitment to diversity and an inclusive corporate culture enables each and every one of the Group's employees to give the best of themselves, to be respected in their differences, and to be recognised for their individual contribution to collective success.  

This conviction is reflected in a proactive policy that promotes gender diversity, diversity of national backgrounds, intergenerational diversity, career diversity and the integration of people with disabilities.

Inclusion of employees with disabilities: supporting all kinds of talent

As a responsible company, Thales has the twofold ambition of recruiting all kinds of talent, and supporting its disabled employees. 

Thales therefore strives:

  • To keep disabled employees at work, and develop their skills.
  • To train people in order to help them integrate into the company. 

28 years ago, Thales created Mission Insertion, an organisation dedicated to employment opportunities for disabled people in France, with a network of disability correspondents for each employment area. 

The Group maintained its commitment to integrating people with disabilities. 

In France, a new three year agreement in favour of people with disabilities, covering all Group entities in the country, was signed with all representative trade unions on 17 November 2020.

In 2021, despite the health crisis, Thales provided opportunities for 87 people with disabilities in France, including 19 interns and 14 young people on work study programmes. 

As part of its partnership on disability with Université Paris-Est Créteil (UPEC), Thales contributed, as a founding member, alongside other economic and institutional players, to the creation in 2020 of the UPEC Partnership Foundation. A professorship in Disability, Autonomy, Employment and Occupational Health has been created in 2021. Thales is participating in this ambitious program to promote access to training for people with disabilities and to prevent them from losing their jobs

Having appointed 59 disability leads in 2019, Thales launched an online training cycle in 2020, again in partnership with UPEC. In 2021, all 14 disability leads in the first class were certified or graduated. A second class was launched in November 2021 and a third is scheduled for 2022.

Thales also continued the certification process for the AFNOR X50-783 “disability friendly organisations” standard for all of its sites in France. At the end of 2021, 41 of the 46 sites involved in the process complied with this standard. 

Thales continued its participation in the HUGO programme, aimed at providing training and employment for young disabled people via work study programmes in the software industry. In 2021, partnerships worth a total of €4million (made up of purchasing and subcontracting agreements with specialised disabled work centres (“Entreprises Adaptées”) and rehabilitation centres for people with disabilities (ESAT)) were signed with players in the disability friendly sector. 

On International Day of People with Disabilities, multiple events organised at the Group’s sites in France and abroad provided an opportunity for everyone, disabled or otherwise, to learn about and discuss the situation of people with disabilities. During the last International Day of People with Disabilities, more than 100 employees each welcomed a person with a disability and were able to discuss their jobs and disability situations.
 

Accessibility

Thales is committed to making its group website (www.thalesgroup.com) increasingly accessible, to enable people with different disabilities to navigate around the site and interact with content and applications.

Thales has audited its website in accordance with the French Reference requirements for improving accessibility (Référentiel Général d’Amélioration de l’Accessibilité - RGAA), version 4.0. 


 

6.36%

Disabled employment rate in France in 2020.
 

Generational diversity: benefiting from everyone’s experience and perspectives

Thales attracts many young graduates, and is ranked highly every year among their preferred places to work.

At the same time, the Group strives to maintain a wide representation of ages among its employees, believing in the benefits of combining the complementary experiences and perspectives of different generations.

For the seventh successive year, Thales has been awarded a top 3 ranking in the Universum Awards for the most attractive French employer for engineering students.


 

Thales has long pursued a dynamic policy of integrating young people onto the workforce. The Group maintains its commitment to this integration through a high level of work-study recruitment and internships.

In France, Thales signed 2,256 work-study contracts and 97 internship contracts in 2021. 


 

In the UK, Thales continues to partner with the Prince’s Trust charity through the ‘Get Into’ programme, which aims to help young people aged 16 to 30 who are out of school or work to gain skills and experience so that they can enter or return to the workforce.

In France, Thales works with the Article 1 association, giving its employees the opportunity to mentor troubled young people. Created by the merger of two major equal-opportunity associations (Frateli and Passeport Avenir), Article 1 is working to create a society where careers, academic success and professional opportunities are not dependent on an individual’s social, economic or cultural background. 

In Brazil, Thales has opened its doors to underprivileged youth by providing vocational training through the Formare charitable training programme. The partnership between Thales and Fundação Iochpe relies on volunteer employees who teach administrative and technical classes at the São Bernardo do Campo site to young people from the São Paulo metropolitan area.
 

Cultural diversity is a source of strength

With operations in 68 countries, Thales is inherently multicultural. This diversity is a source of strength, and contributes to the Group's performance by enabling it to understand the ecosystems in which it operates. Its teams often work on projects spanning multiple countries, bringing different perspectives together to generate new ideas.

In response to the Black Lives Matter movement, Thales North America launched a series of initiatives led by regional leadership on the subject of racial equality, combined with a communications campaign and efforts to raise awareness around the issues of inclusion and celebrating differences.

Through a Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP), Thales Australia formalised its continued commitment to creating meaningful relationships with, and improving opportunities for, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, communities and businesses. While respecting the First Peoples of Australia is nothing new for Thales, the launch of the RAP was an important step, in that it was the first time Thales Australia has implemented such a coordinated national approach. 
 


LGBT+ inclusion at Thales is everyone’s business

Driven by its commitment to fighting all forms of discrimination, Thales signed the LGBT+ Engagement Charter  in 2019 and participated in the IFOP-L’Autre Cercle survey in France in 2020. The Group has published a booklet and has launched an e-learning module aimed at raising awareness and promoting LGBT+ inclusion. In 2022, the Group will renew its signature of the LGBT+ Engagement Charter. 

In Australia, Thales has joined the Pride In Diversity organisation, which provides access to training and awareness-raising resources to help create an inclusive and caring work environment.

Employees have also created LGBT+ inclusion networks in France, the UK and Australia.
 

Cognitive diversity: embracing diversity in all its forms  

Thales strives to embrace diversity in all its forms, including less visible forms such as cognitive diversity, which encompasses neurological differences, some of which are not widely known (autism, Asperger's Syndrome, giftedness, 'dys' conditions, etc.). We believe that everyone should feel safe and respected regardless of their differences, so that they can make the best possible contribution to collective success. 

In the UK and France, employees have created networks to raise awareness of the issue among employees and the wider public, and support those affected by cognitive differences. 
 


Key documents