Better together: Supporting diversity and local communities
At Soitec, we strongly believe that people can achieve more together than they can on their own. Teamwork is even one of our core values. We have set up proactive diversity and community outreach policies to facilitate employment for at-risk populations and to support education. More than just a policy, diversity is part of who we are at Soitec. Our employees — representing 30 different nationalities — are evidence of the multicultural richness that is one of our core strengths. However, we also engage in corporate sponsorship of the arts via a partnership with the local fine arts museum, the Musée de Grenoble, renowned for its world-class contemporary art collection.
Strong ties to the local community
Community outreach is one of our top priorities. Soitec has benefitted greatly from Grenoble’s high-tech ecosystem. We give back by running a successful business that in turn contributes to strengthening the local economy.
Soitec has joined 20 other French businesses in the 100 Chances, 100 Emplois (100 Opportunities, 100 Jobs) program to promote the employment of at-risk youth. We work with advocacy group FACE (Fondation Agir Contre l’Exclusion) to help at-risk youth through a mentoring program.
Innovating for business and for the community
Soitec is known for innovation in business. We take the same approach to our community outreach programs. We don’t hesitate to hire workers without the “right” qualifications or workers with eclectic employment histories. Many of these “high-risk” recruitments have turned out to be great successes.
We made another noteworthy move to support local employment in 2009, in the middle of the economic crisis. Rather than laying off workers amid plummeting business volumes, we became France’s first company to temporarily loan out our employees. As a result, 19 Soitec employees, who participated in the program on a volunteer basis, spent between 15 and 18 months working at another company at Grenoble’s Minalogic competitive cluster. They returned to Soitec in early 2011.
Many of our employment-related community initiatives are actually one step ahead of future legislation or go beyond the strict legal minimum. For example, when we signed our first agreement on the employment of disabled workers in 2000, we were the smallest business in France to make a public commitment to this issue before the law required us to.