Project overview
Thales is a global technology provider in the aerospace, transportation, defence and security sectors, employing over 80,000 people worldwide, including around 7,000 employees across nine sites within the UK. The company has developed a detailed social value strategy for delivering activities which create a lasting impact in the communities where it delivers services and for ensuring social value is fully integrated into its daily activities. The strategy is made up of four pillars: living net zero; supporting cohesion and inclusivity in its local communities; making a contribution across the UK; and promoting digital citizenship.
The Social Value Practice was commissioned to create a series of tailored workshops that would reflect Thales’ strategy in line with the four themes and support delegates to align their thinking, processes and activities around Thales’ vision and objectives.
Approach
To meet Thales’ requirements, the following approach was adopted:
- Scoping exercise – to ensure the content of the workshops was fully aligned to Thales UK’s social value strategy, we undertook an initial scoping exercise to develop a clear understanding of Thales’ social value strategy, and the requirements of its internal bid and procurement teams. This was achieved through in-depth discussions with nominated representatives and reviewing relevant policies, communications, case studies and reports. Based on this, we were able to gain a strong insight to begin producing a bespoke workshop programme.
- Social value priorities – based on the scoping exercise, bespoke content was developed to respond to the agreed aims and objectives.
- Workshop delivery – each workshop was delivered online, enabling delegates from locations across the UK to easily take part, supporting hybrid working practices. The workshops were designed with participation at their centre, with activities embedded throughout to drive active collaboration, discussion and reflection. This included worked examples derived from the central government’s social value model as well as activities developed based on Thales’ four social value priorities, providing delegates with an understanding and ideas of how the social value could be put into practice.
Around 400 delegates took part in the workshops, and we were able to successfully provide them with:
- An understanding of what social value is – embedding a consistent, shared recognition of what social value means both in theory and in practice.
- Insights into the latest thinking with respect to social value – benefiting from research and our experience of social value in procurement.
- A clear understanding of Thales’ stance and strategy for social value – as well as progress to date in all areas of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and social value.
- A recognition of what social value is – ensuring delegates were well-positioned to unlock social value within Thales’ own operations and supply chains.
- A detailed look at the central government’s social value model – specifically enabling delegates responsible for tenders and bids, to produce high-quality, competitive responses with respect to each policy outcome and the selected model award criteria.
In addition, we explored with delegates the need to understand that supplier’s commitments may be different or additional to the priorities initially identified by Thales and that innovation and varied solutions should be encouraged. To further support this, we delivered a series of workshops to core members of Thales’ supply chain, ensuring that their assets and strengths were used effectively to maximise the social value offered.
For more information on social value training, visit our dedicated division The Social Value Practice, contact us free on 0800 612 5563 or email info@executivecompass.co.uk.