The Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Procurement, the Hon. Greg Combet, recently announced $3.1 million for training activities at Thales Australia. Under an agreement drawn up through the Skilling Australia’s Defence Industry (SADI) program, Thales Australia has committed to up skilling a total of 2325 staff over the next three years.

But what happens now once the SADI agreement has been signed?

OnTarget spoke to Mr Paul Bowles, General Manager of Thales University to find out.

Why did Thales Australia decide to join the SADI program?

Thales Australia joined SADI as one of the founder members. We recognised right away that SADI gave us a great opportunity to partner with Defence Materiel Organisation (DMO) to develop skills for the benefit of not just our organisation, but also the wider Australian defence community.

What are the benefits for Thales Australia in joining the SADI program?

Quite simply, it allows us to deliver more training to develop future skills – not just those we must have to meet short-term needs, but skills for the future.

What training activities are planned for Thales Australia employees?

We have plans to up skill over 2000 people within the coming three years through our SADI agreement. Our SADI sponsored program, delivered through our corporate Thales University, covers training programs as diverse as welding, through a suite of project management training, to systems engineering. It also covers training on some internal tools.

SADI is part of our holistic approach to employee learning and development. Earlier this year Thales University was launched in Australia (the seventh Thales University campus worldwide) to offer a greater range and quality of training options for employees. So far this year, Thales University has delivered over 150 training programs at locations throughout Australia, and has touched over 1800 of our people. Before the year end, we will open a new dedicated Thales University training centre at our Sydney headquarters.

What planning was undertaken before signing the SADI agreement?

Before signing the SADI agreement, we looked at our company’s 10-year Technical Strategic Plan and People Review (Succession Planning and Strategic HR planning process) to look at the skills that Thales Australia would need in the short and mid-term. We identified a list of skills that would be in demand for us, and used this as a basis to identify training courses that would help us fill these gaps.

How has the skills shortage impacted on your business?

If we were not to take a forward looking approach to our future skills needs, we would have some significant problems. We are taking the approach to grow as many high-demand skills inside our company as possible. Being part of a global group allows us to leverage expertise from around the world and bring these skills to Australia. Sometimes we bring people from overseas to work for a short time on specific projects, and we always use these secondments as an opportunity to embed the expertise within Thales Australia by transferring knowledge to local employees.

What would your advice be to other companies out there, interested in joining the SADI program?

Go for it! The SADI teams are friendly and responsive, and will help guide you through the process. Although the process itself is fairly intricate, it makes sense in order to bring some rigour to your training planning.

Although we have just signed a new agreement, we would like to keep building on this as we identify new areas where we need to grow skills. We look forward to a long and happy association with the SADI team.

For more information about the SADI Program, please visit http://www.defence.gov.au/dmo/id/sadi/index.cfm