World Autism Awareness Day

Meet Elisabeth, Inclusion & Diversity representative and Prune, Recruitment Business Partner who explain our program to hire neurodivergent people.

Elisabeth Lagarrigue: Inclusion & Diversity representative

What are your responsibilities at Airbus Protect?

I work on a lot of human resources projects and I am the inclusion and diversity representative for Airbus Protect. 

To understand my role, it’s important to know what inclusion and diversity means. Diversity is the plurality of singularities and inclusion refers to the creation of a healthy environment that allows the expression of these singularities.

Why are inclusion and diversity important?

It’s important to build an environment where people feel comfortable and can be themselves. I feel the company is a reflection of society which is full of diversity, of people who have experienced different things, who perceive, express themselves, or react differently.

Our goal is to create an environment where each person can always be in line with his or her own values, while taking into account the values of the company and others’ values.

What can you tell us about the partnership with Specialisterne?

Neurodiversity is one of the areas of diversity which was immediately obvious to Airbus Protect. Aware of the specificities of this diversity, we wanted the support of an expert to help us to develop our inclusion and diversity policy.

The aim was to understand how to approach the recruitment and management of neurodivergent people within the company. 

During the partnership, several candidates joined Airbus Protect for a three-week immersion. During this immersion, they had the opportunity to meet each other, to observe jobs for the roles they applied to, to participate in business cases ingroups, and also to do individual business cases.

So, while finding out about the jobs for which they had applied, they also had the opportunity to meet and exchange with many people from Airbus Protect (employees, managers, HR, and senior management). 

Specialisterne’s support enabled us to improve our processes and develop Airbus Protect to include all types of profiles.

Prune Abiven: Recruitment Business Partner

What are your responsibilities at Airbus Protect?

I’m in charge of recruitment for our Sustainability and CyberSecurity activities. I work on the continuous improvement of processes and contribute to a lot of missions, in particular inclusion and diversity within the team.

Why are inclusion and diversity important in recruitment?

Diversity brings richness. This richness comes from different experiences, different cultures, different career paths, and so on. We don’t want clones, we want people who are diverse. We are convinced that a diversity of experiences can help to improve performance. More ideas are brought together, more innovation can take place, and more the environment will be caring and rich.

How have you been involved in the Specialisterne partnership?

During the candidates’ immersion weeks, I was mainly involved in their presentations of their business cases. My role was to be as neutral as possible in comparison to the managers and people who worked with the candidates on a daily basis. I brought an outside perspective to the “jury”. The aim was to ask them different questions and challenge them. 

Did anything particularly impress you during this project?

I got a real slap in the face. I had a lot of bias without knowing it, even though I was involved in the project and convinced that it was important, I was greatly impressed by the candidates ability to carry themselves in a situation where they would most likely feel uncomfortable. I wasn’t expecting reactions the candidates had or the way they presented their results. In the end, they played the game 100%.

Ultimately, what impressed me the most was their first presentation: seeing them support an idea, speak in public and the fact that they weren’t necessarily comfortable but did it anyway. They did their presentations in front of the rest of the candidates, in front of our Specialisterne partners, and our managers.

Do you have any motivational words or advice for anyone interested in working for Airbus Protect?

I’ve never had any unpleasant surprises or bad experiences at Airbus Protect. It’s a human environment and this is one of our values. There’s always someone to listen to if you need help, and that’s what makes the company so special.

When it comes to recruitment, there are no taboo subjects, so don’t hesitate to talk to us, to the whole human resources team, and to your manager.

There’s a place for everyone at Airbus Protect if you are motivated and want to do well!