Thales is committed to creating an equitable work environment that respects everyone and stimulates their creativity, where valuing each person's authentic self is a way of ensuring our collective success and the well-being of our employees. Trust within our teams reflects the trust our customers place in us.
Gender diversity
The Group has long been committed to proactively making advances with regard to gender equality in the workplace. To achieve greater gender equality at every level of its organisation, Thales has committed:
- to accelerate the recruitment of women at every level of the organisation
- to promote them to higher levels of responsibility
- to increase their representation on management boards.
To promote more gender diversity and gender equality in its leadership and support its employees' professional development, Thales several years ago launched an international mentoring programme for women with the participation of the Group's senior management.
Thales employees are also committed to gender diversity and have even created their own gender equality network. With over 3,000 members, both men and women, WITH (We in Thales) is an international group that provides support for Thales's gender equality initiatives and encourages women's professional development.
A few examples of local initiatives:
In Italy, Thales has partnered with the association Valore D, which promotes gender equality and an inclusive culture in businesses.
In India, to raise awareness of gender equality, Thales organises regular awareness programmes on gender diversity and sexual harassment.
In France, Thales works with associations such as Elles bougent, with over 400 wome acting as mentors to encourage girls to consider careers in science and technology.
Cultural diversity
With operations in 68 countries, Thales is inherently multicultural. Its diversity is a source of strength and contributes to the Group's performance, allowing 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.
A few examples of local initiatives:
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 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.
Generational diversity
With employees now working longer, up to five different generations can be found in the same workplace. Thales attracts many young graduates and each year is ranked highly 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.
A few examples of local initiatives:
In the UK, Thales continues to partner with the Prince’s Trust charity through the Get Into programme, which aims to help young people ages 16 to 30 who are out of school or work to gain skills and experience so they can enter or return to the workforce.
In France, Thales works with the Article 1 association by giving its employees the opportunity to mentor troubled youth. 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 do not depend on one'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.
Disability inclusion
As a responsible company, we have the twofold ambition of recruiting all kinds of talents and supporting our 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.
On the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, several events around the world gave disabled and non-disabled employees alike the opportunity to learn and talk about life for those with disabilities.
In France, 28 years ago, Thales created Mission Insertion, an organisation dedicated to the issue of employing disabled persons in France, with a network of disability correspondents for each labour pool.
Cognitive diversity
Thales strives to embrace diversity in all of its forms, including less visible forms such as cognitive diversity, which includes 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 despite their differences so they can best contribute to our collective success.
In the UK and France, employees have created networks to make this issue more widely known, raise the awareness of all employees and support those affected by cognitive differences.
LGBT+ inclusion
Firmly committed to fighting all forms of discrimination, Thales strives to promote lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT+) inclusion.
In France, the Group signed the LGBT+ Charter created by L’Autre Cercle, a leading national LGBT+ association.
In Australia, Thales 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.