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Corporate

INESC TEC, in the words of our partners – Statement by François Aumonier at AEROSPACE VALLEY

Limelight

Jorge Pereira (CPES), Susana Silva, Duarte Viveiros and João Barbosa (all from CAP)

Have your say

"A few days before leaving INESC TEC, I was talking precisely about this invitation when someone half-jokingly said 'Speak now or forever hold your peace!'", Filipa Ramalho (CESE)

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"We have the quality – look at INESC TEC and Cristiano Ronaldo! But we have to do, structure, invent and persevere!", Francisco Maia (HASLab)

Gallery of the Uncommon

"Kick butt, before your butt is kicked."

Where are you now?

Every month INESC TEC sends highly qualified individuals into the market...

Jobs 4 the Boys & Girls

In this section, the reader may find reference to public announcements made by INESC Porto offering grants, contracts and other opportunities of the same kind.

Biptoon

More scenes of how life goes merrily on...

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Have your say

Have your say

“Speak now or forever hold your peace”

By Filipa Ramalho*

First and foremost, I’d like to thank the BIP team for the pleasant invite to write an article for this section. More than an honour, for me this is a challenge. And why is it a challenge? Well, because it’s no easy task, including the choice of theme (those who have written it surely know what I mean).

A few days before leaving INESC TEC, I was talking precisely about this invitation when someone half-jokingly said "Speak now or forever hold your peace!" And this was the sentence that inspired me to write: now that I’m leaving, why not suggest some improvements?

After five and a half years working at INESC TEC, and now that I’m about to embark on a new professional challenge, this seems an opportune time to take stock! The past few years have been quite positive: many opportunities to share and learn, for personal and professional development and many experiences that have made me the professional I am today. Today I am a better person. Moreover, I’ve made many friends and it was a pleasure to be part of this institution of Excellence that has been evolving and growing tremendously from the moment I got here. In fact, many things have changed since I came here in the end of 2008. And so I thought: where can INESC TEC still grow, innovate and be competitive?

When I came here in 2008, we were about 339 employees. In 2014, that number had gone up to 813. I should say that of all great changes, one of the most important is this growth. After analysing these data, I thought I had finally found an interesting topic to focus on, perhaps the most important: the people and the challenge of managing them.

Because there’s little room to write and I’m not an expert on the matter, I just wanted to set the tone for future discussion and provide my humble opinion on some key points.

Employees today are more participatory and autonomous, they can cooperate in the decision-making process and participate in the organisation’s business development and innovation. The old mechanical version of Human Resources does not fit this reality... In the old days, Human Resources were in charge of more bureaucratic issues, such wages and recruitment, among others. We have now witnessed a shift towards People Management, where the goal is to empower, involve and develop the most important asset in an organisation: its people. Creating, planning, managing, controlling and assessing related to recruiting, hiring, assessing performance, training, developing and motivating, as well as those aspects related to health, safety and hygiene at work, are some of the main components of People Management.

Many actions have been proposed in order to reach this more holistic version of People Management, such as: promoting plans to integrate new employees, devising annual training plans suited for the employees’ functional and personal development, rewarding people (be it with monetary awards or by complimenting and providing feedback on the work and performance). Other actions include promoting interaction of the employees with the outside community, as well as the organisation’s social responsibility, promoting a 360-degree performance assessment, encouraging team building activities, creating methods that will help visualise the reach of individual and team results, encouraging discussion and idea and knowledge sharing, conducting surveys on the satisfaction and motivation of employees, or devising career plans.

At INESC TEC some of these actions have already been implemented and I would say that one of the institution’s greatest competitive advantages is its people and their skills, their team spirit, as well as the environment that promotes knowledge sharing and the integration of teams to develop innovative projects that make a difference all over the world. All we have to do now is keep on the same track, and spend some time on the actions that haven’t yet been implemented.

See you soon! :)

*Collaborator at the Centre for Enterprise Systems Engineering (CESE), former Manufacturing Systems Engineering Unit (UESP)