What do railroads, state-of-the-art medical devices, household appliances and power grids have in common? The workers who make them. It is thanks to their hard work and sharp skills that we have all this equipment and infrastructure, which have revolutionized our daily lives.
Workers have been a force in our modern societies since the Industrial Revolution. Most of the conversation has revolved around the struggles and hardships they faced in the past, but it is also important to shine a light on the vital role they have played in humankind’s progress and accomplishments.
Workers have changed throughout history. They have also had a hand in shaping history. Notably through the profound transformations in society and technology that they have navigated. So many of humankind’s amazing achievements in the past three centuries—from railroads to space travel to hydroelectric dams to sweeping sustainable electrification—have come about thanks to them. And that will be the case, even more so, tomorrow.
Let’s take a quick look back. The place of workers in our societies has undergone radical changes since the end of World War II, from quantitative as well as qualitative perspectives.
Safety, meanwhile, has risen up the agenda. The days when occupational accidents were quietly dismissed as inevitable are over: worker health and well-being matter more than ever and manufacturers are now aiming for zero accidents.
Worker safety is paramount everywhere, but even more so in the energy sector, where the risks can be particularly serious and there are many of them. To minimize them, manufacturers are rolling out comprehensive strategies including safety upgrades at plants and around machinery. But that’s not enough: they also need strict safety rules and ongoing worker training. Awareness of risks and the best practices to avoid them is the first step to effectively prevent accidents. Setting the example at every level starting at the top is a very close second.
Worker safety is an absolute priority at Nexans, where workers account for 65% of the workforce.
The safety “dojos” we have set up at Nexans plants are one example. We borrowed the term from the martial arts world and use it to describe facilities we have set up within factories to provide theoretical and practical training on safety rules. They heighten our own employees’ and our external service providers’ awareness of best practices, notably including our Safety Golden Rules. They address different topics and organize a variety of activities each month to nurture a genuine safety culture among all our workers. One of these dojos in China, for instance, holds tournaments to test workers’ knowledge of the rules and best practices the fun way. Another, in Qatar, has miniatures to illustrate the 15 Golden Rules. The dojo at Cobrecon, in Peru—which opened on the plant’s first Safety Day—divided workers into two groups and asked each one to give the other a full presentation on the Rules. And there are many more examples: our dojos are constantly coming up with clever new ways to enable their teams to stay safe.
Electrification would never have happened without workers. And it’s a good thing it did: it has powered economic and social development since the late 19th century, enabled industrialization, improved living conditions and is now playing a central role in the transition to renewable sources of energy.
The figures reflecting this momentum are striking: in 2023, about 16.2 million people worked in the renewable energy sector worldwide according to the Renewable Energy and Jobs Annual Review 2024 published by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and International Labour Organization (ILO). Many of those jobs involve technical and maintenance roles, and manual workers are filling most of them. A 2022 McKinsey study found that the industry will need an additional 1.1 million or so workers to build new solar and wind farms, then 1.7 million more to maintain them.
The high-voltage grids carrying electricity over long distances already span over 10 million km around the world, and are expanding fast to meet growing demand linked to the energy transition. Workers, in other words, will play an increasingly vital role building and servicing these infrastructure assets.
As demand for clean energy continues to soar, the role that workers play in quality and innovation is becoming more essential than ever. Their craft is becoming increasingly technical across the board, but this is especially so in the electrical sector in general and cable production in particular. They transform raw copper, aluminum and rubber into ever more efficient cables packed with cutting-edge technology. It’s true that research centers play a big role in developing new technologies, but workers have experience in the field and are often the first to suggest practical ways of improving production processes. This teamwork combining theory and practice is vital to keep the electrical industry at the leading edge of innovation and efficient. Cable workers master unique skills and appreciate a job well done, and that is fostering a culture of excellence and their pride in their profession.
Several Nexans plants hold open days for workers to show their family and friends around their workplace. Visitors can also take part in workshops to learn more about how the plant operates, the products it makes and the reality and complexity of workers’ jobs. The workshops go into various topics—including the latest innovation, safety rules, digital technology and recycling—and some of them are specifically for children and involve coloring books relating to electricity or edutaining games to learn about science.
By shining a light on workers and their jobs, these Family Days are also helping to kindle workers’ pride in their work.
While tasks are becoming increasingly complex, “there’s no school for making a cable” sums up Franck, lead operator at the Nexans plant in Jeumont, France, in one of the videos in the series on our industrial legacy. This singular expertise is passed on by the more experienced workers to the newcomers, and they are all enriching it all the time with fresh ideas. Teamwork among workers in a plant, therefore, is one of the keys to performance and quality. So it is all the more important for the teams to be united and committed to quality. Pride and striving for excellence foster a desire to share what we know.
Robotization and digitalization are now speeding up job transformation. Some tasks—often the most repetitive and strenuous ones—are disappearing and the people who did them are now supervising or servicing machines, or optimizing flows or operations, all of which involve more training and additional skills. At the Nexans plant in Autun, for examples the forklift drivers who in the past shuttled goods around the plant have retrained to supervise the machines in the MegaMag, a gigantic automated vertical storage facility that Arnaud, a supply chain technician at the plant proudly and admiringly describes as “sensational” in another video in the series on our industrial legacy. Equipping our plants with ever more advanced technology entails training workers to use these new tools, which in turn enables workers to widen their range of skills.
The Autun plant—which methods, process, product and innovation technician Ludovic describes as the Nexans group’s flagship—pioneered its digital transformation to industry 4.0. At the heart of this shift is the “Cockpit”, a completely soundproof room with several touchscreens where workers can find all the critical information they need in real time. This collaborative room, where workers can do their job calmly and sheltered from the noise on the factory floor, quickly impressed the workers.
Workers’ jobs have changed significantly. They are the craftspeople behind electrification, playing an essential role in cable production and energy infrastructure development. Their expertise, ability to innovate on the ground and commitment to quality and excellence are a few examples of the ways in which they are helping our society on its journey to a more sustainable future. In a world where technology is changing fast, it is vital to acknowledge their valuable contribution, their role in sharing knowledge and their unfaltering support. The companies in the sector are playing a fundamental part in showing their appreciation through training and safety, and by preserving these essential trades.
By protecting these jobs, we are not only keeping industrial legacy alive: we are playing an active part in building a future where innovation and humanity continue to advance hand in hand.
