Carlo Zucchini, Human Resources Organization and Planning Director for Thales Alenia Space, talks to Giorgio Sparacino about why dynamic organization charts are such a valuable tool for his international company

Thales Alenia Space is a joint venture between Thales and Finmeccanica and is a worldwide reference for development in the space sector: from navigation to telecommunications, from meteorology to environmental monitoring and from defence to science and observation. As a complex entity, with11 industrial sites located in 4 European countries and more than 7,200 employees, coordination across the international company and its national branches are key activities, especially when it comes to managing the company’s organization charts.

Mr Zucchini, Thales Alenia Space is a complex company, can you tell me more about its structure and your role?

In Italy, we have about 2,200 employees working in the operations located in Rome, Milan, Turin and L’Aquila. In addition, 4,300 employees work in the three French operations in Toulouse, Cannes and Colombes, and in Belgium and Spain. At an organizational level, the joint venture has an international management structure. This is more important than the national statutory structures, which are the legal entities. The international management structure is composed of about 220 formal organizational positions covered by Italian and French people.

I am in charge of Human Resource Management and my role also includes responsibility for organization, labour costs and management practices (for example, definition and implementation of compensation policies). In addition, as we are part of the joint venture with Thales in the space field, I’m also the International Director of Organization and Planning.

What led to the project for managing your international organization charts?

One of the drivers for introducing an organization charting tool was the desire to facilitate communication between all of our international employees.

With HRCharter, which was supplied by Tekno, we moved from using organization charts presented in paper format (pdf) to the use of a tool that, through the creation of a dynamic organization chart, allows everyone to access the system, query the organization structure and find the appropriate record with data about individual managers (personal information, email, telephone number, photo, etc…). In this way, it is possible to find out who is in charge of a specific area in this big company, as well as to see who manages the organization at an international level.

With static organization charts on the intranet, it is only possible to search by organization; you can’t immediately search for a manager or drill down to a lower level of the organization, you have to make multiple requests. Thanks to dynamic organization charting, the search is more immediate. You can start a search based on a name or organizational unit, and find the information you are looking for.

When did you start the project?

We started in 2006: the first prototype phase lasted for about three months, as it was important to get the data we decided to load right. We don’t have a single system covering all of our international employees, and we decided not to create a link with our SAP system. Instead we copied the data in SAP to an Access database, which included information about our colleagues in France. The database contains about 220 positions that need to be managed, which we update manually.

Were there difficulties during the implementation phase?

When you automate a process there are always, in the beginning, issues in managing change. Change creates panic in those who are not used to computers but, after the initial confusion an adjustment phase takes place, during which people start using the application on a daily basis and soon see the advantages in terms of simplicity and added value.

We’re in the process of implementing a lot of new systems at the moment – employee evaluation and development, job posting, compensation policy management…. We have to remember that it takes time for these changes to be assimilated, especially for employees who, until only two or three years ago, were used to working in a national rather than international environment. The cultural change associated with dealing with foreign people every day can be significant. The assimilation process has to be part of a policy that places a lot of emphasis on transparency in terms of compensation policies and organization. This is one of Thales’ objectives. It is for this reason that the use of tools, such as HRCharter, which make the structure of the organization visible and reflects changes over time, is important.

In your opinion, what is the relation between technology and human resource management?

Even though I’m responsible for Human Resources, I keep up with technology. I’m an electrical engineer, so I think that computerization has a fundamental role to play in HR. Fifteen years ago, an American guru said that the future of human resources was linked to their ability to automate processes and to deliver information to the line; otherwise the HR function would disappear.

In fact, if we look at best-in-class companies, human resource management is increasingly moving to this concept. Process automation is becoming more and more common, and supporting line managers in managing employees and in identifying the right people in terms of development, careers and compensation is a must.

I always tell the HR managers who work with me that we need to move from contractual or administrative management to becoming a business partner. For many of them, this is not an easy task because it means they have to learn new skills; they have to understand that it is not enough to know how to handle disputes or manage administration, they also need to support line managers, to understand the work load and the business.

I believe we need this kind of change; the two worlds of IT and HR must come together.

A full version of this interview appeared in Persone&Conoscenze review, n. 39, May 2008