Thales FAQ

Friday afternoon off, kind of flexible hours, good level of responsibility, people mostly nice

Terrible pay, no bonuses, no fridge to put packed lunch in, no milk, no kitchen, useless contractors are kept, inflexible working style, slow promotion system, retirement home

Recognise achievement as well as length of service

Good flexible work hours, decent office environment with everyone gets the same kind of office. Good working environment. Decent health insurance with choices to save money on premiums. Good benefit package 401K, PTO, Long term disability ins.

A lot of spinning around and little progress made . Little visibility on 6 months ahead in many departments, no visibility at all a year ahead. Workers are unsure of where the company is going. Many employees think the company is going down and the morale is bad . Strong presence in US but definitely not a US style or US culture company. Turn overs are way too high for departments to have any effective talents.

clearly assign tasks, functions to groups and individuals with expected results, leave room for negotiation, but hold accountable for dead lines, deliverable. Give more communication meetings to review progress, status and set corrections to meet expected results. Hiring more managers is NOT the solution. Managers must provide direct solutions to problems ( aka working managers - instead of BS managers ) When negotiate with American companies, send in Americans.

Benefits, housing allowance, car allowance, great work conditions

French company, 90% french speakers

Good 401k match and vacation schedule. Flexible hours as needed depending on manager.

Toxic environment - attrition rate is very high for a reason. Legacy programs pay the bills but are treated like red-headed step children. Too much micromanagement and metric chasing. French managers take 3 weeks off like normal; US people have to work a deal with the devil and still stay in touch while away. If you are going use the French management style, give your employees the French benefits. Pizza parties and kudos are nice, but consider paying people for all the extra hours they work (not just the contractors).

Stop making ridiculous schedules and promises to the customer. Engage engineers early in the project to get realistic timelines and equipment needs. Stop promoting people to VP/Director/etc. You need capable people who can do the work not just a bunch of managers creating metrics. You can turn this around if you talk to the people actually doing the work; otherwise Thales IFE will cease to exist.

Good benefits, particularly around maternity / paternity, decent pension

Can sometimes be hard to earn promotion