Helping our employees become more employable

Interview with Thierry Denjean, Human Resources Director, France Region

Since 2006, we have been involved in a unique initiative in France, that aims to improve the employability of ST employees. What is particularly original about it is that different partners from the same regional economic area (bassins d’emploi) have been working together on this shared issue.

The project began with lots of discussions with ST union representatives. An agreement was then drawn up, called the GPEC (Gestion Prévisionnelle de l’Emploi et des Compétences), to formalize everyone’s commitment to the initiative and agree what we wanted to achieve.

The main aims of the initiative are to:

• Publicize local jobs through a ‘job observatory’
• Help employees prepare for moving jobs, either internally or externally
• Enable all sizes of companies and laboratories to work together and share skills
• Regenerate regional economic areas (by creating new companies, and regenerating existing ones)
• Give employees time to think about their long-term career options - and help them move forward with their plans.

Why did we launch the project?
We learnt from the past

• In 2003, despite having a clear social plan in place, our restructuring plan, which we started in Rennes, proved very traumatic. There was a lot of misunderstanding, both within ST and locally – and we realized we needed a long-term plan for managing similar situations.
• In 2005, we needed to cut a further 1,000 jobs in France. We did this using a GER plan (Gestion de l’Emploi dans le cadre des orientations de restructuration), signed with union representatives, based on voluntary redundancies (see page 22). This fitted in with our aim of helping all ST employees become more employable.

We know our jobs are changing

With this initiative, we are also acknowledging the fact that our business environment is changing fast – both in terms of technology (such as the complexity of our products, and the move into new technical domains), and in terms of business factors (such as where our final customers are located, and the need for us to offer different services).

With this in mind, our objective is to secure the professional path of our employees, by helping them become more employable, both internally and externally. We want to enable them to take control of their own career paths, and equip them to move more easily between different jobs.

We’ll be letting our employees in France know about jobs that are likely to be changing through a ‘job research institute’ involving ST experts and managers. We’ll also be presenting a report to union representatives, which will be available to all employees.

What else is happening?

There will also be some new tools for employees who are going to be affected by restructuring.

This includes:

• An external center, shared with other private companies, offering specific help to research and plan job moves or new ventures, with the guarantee of confidentiality if required
• Help with specific projects such as identifying training or putting together business plans Local authorities, employment administrations and unions, who signed the collective agreement, are also involved. All parties sit on a committee to agree on which projects are suitable for support.

Local authorities, employment administrations and unions, who signed the collective agreement, are also involved. All parties sit on a committee to agree on which projects are suitable for support.