Outsourced Proposition

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Seamless transfer of staff and services

The HR team at Thorn SDS is very used to consulting and managing all staffing aspects and issues surrounding the transfer of staff; including the transfer of undertakings for the protection of employment (TUPE) and similar European legislation. We pride ourselves on being open and communicative with existing and prospective staff, engaging with them and ensuring all concerns are appropriately managed. On the service element, our aspiration is to make this as seamless as practical to the client - this may involve additional temporary cover, additional training or other innovative solutions.

Bespoke recruitment and selection services

This is probably the most critical aspect of our service provision - get the best people and the service levels will be easily met. We are also aware that we are recruiting into the heart of our client's organisation and often, especially for key roles the client would some input. This client engagement with our processes is something we actively encourage; whilst we accept that ultimately we are providing the service, knowing that the client has the upfront confidence in our team is also fundamental to our long term success. In some cases we often recruit in advance of positions becoming available and hold a list of potential candidates, especially when we are aware of potential expansion plans or where we know staff plan to progress into other areas.

Willingness to manage and share risk

One of our key clients placed this as the most significant benefit they enjoyed from our service provision. Understanding our client's business and then being prepared to share risk, back an idea or jointly fund an initiative to the joint benefit of ourselves and our client is a clear demonstration of our commitment to stand alongside and support our customers. This may relate to external training, team motivation, up-skilling, innovative selection and recruitment, hardware, business development initiatives, all of which we are prepared to spend time, and often invest to support the overall service provision.

Dedicated staff training and development programmes

When staff commence work on any programme there is always a set of core skills needed to undertake the role. The provision of these skills and the associated training is clearly the responsibility of Thorn SDS and we undertake this through a staff members induction period. After this we then look to take the training provision a step further; we look at the evolving technologies, project direction, potential improvement opportunities and engage with staff as to what skills they feel they need. We then develop a continuous programme of development and training to ensure our team are best placed to deliver the high quality of service we demand. The training might be skills based, behaviour based or may even be pure personal development, enabling staff to be better equipped to find alternative employment or to advance their career with Thorn SDS in other programmes.

Innovative and flexible operational solutions

Often operating close to the heart of our client's business enables our project team to have a thorough and very detailed understanding of all aspects of the whole client application. We continuously look for ways to make the service we offer more effective, better value for money, speedier and more resilient for the client. We are often asked to be flexible and to mould our service provision to the changing requirements of the client which is something we naturally do well. We also look to be innovative and offer additional value whenever the opportunity arises - examples include innovative shift patterns for operations team that increase the overall efficiency whilst reducing the price to the client, new reporting mechanisms capturing areas of high cost for monitoring by management and new design process paperwork ensuring that the design authority has complete visibility of all aspects of the system that may be affected by minor configuration changes.

Fantastic client relationships

The on-going relationship with our client is the single most important aspect of the service provision from Thorn SDS. We always try to know all the key stakeholders, understand what they want from the service we are providing and then ensure we constantly deliver on all fronts. The relationships we have with our clients are generally long standing and based on significant trust from both sides. We encourage all of our management chain to engage with clients in a very open and engaging management style. If there is bad news then we feel this is best shared so that we can work out a solution together. The relationship is such with some clients that we regularly undertake 360 degrees reviews - we get great feedback and are trusted to provide constructive feedback into our client's organisation.

Added value support functions

In addition to providing the staffing solution to our client's needs, we also provide a number of bespoke support services that back this up and complete our service offering. Managing costs and spends, tasking for small procurements and ancillary support with vehicles, computers software licences are very normal. Thorn SDS also supports our clients with much larger support activities; major purchases, investigations, antenna / radio / network maintenance, project management of installations / de-installations and often formally teams with the client to jointly benefit from new opportunities.

Demanding service levels

Agreeing and then exceeding demanding service levels is the key to demonstrating and quantifying exception performance. Thorn SDS generally monitors SLAs through monthly feedback sessions with our client where all the key aspects of our service are measured and reported against. Often our clients will be providing an all-encompassing service to another client (MoD / Government), in which case the subject headings against which we are measured are often identical to our clients - this clearly enables us to share praise and correction plans alike. Thorn SDS implements internal key performance indicators that enable our management team to closely monitor progress in all areas. In some contracts we merge the SLA measures into the staff performance measures, as the two are often intrinsically linked. We strive to achieve the very best scores we can and proudly communicate this to the team as a positive measure of our client's satisfaction.

Team description

The Thorn SDS teams are made up of many different disciplines and skill sets, current examples include: System managers, Operation supervisors, Maintenance managers, Configuration controllers, Network engineers, IT support engineers, Shift coordinators, Ground-station engineers, Project controllers, Space-craft controllers, Project managers, HR administrators and Finance staff. Thorn SDS has the expertise and experience to configure or take over a team to suit the particular client application, be that managing a control room, supporting a secure network, running a data capture centre, providing a support service or completely operating and maintaining a facility.

Capabilities brochure

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Jobs at Thorn SDS

Project Controller

European Space Agency, Germany

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IT Support Engineers (Networking)

Farnborough, UK based

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Deputy Simulations Officer

(5 month contract) European Space Agency, Germany

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