The Romanians behind Logan

Renault Technologie Roumanie, Renault’s engineering centre in Romania, is in the middle of one of the most ambitious recruitment plans ever launched on the domestic market; a plan that targets the recruitment of 3,000 engineers by late 2009 and the transformation of the Romanian units into the French carmaker’s second most important design centres, after Technocentre-Paris, which employs 15,000 people.
By late 2009, 3,000 people will work in the three locations occupied by Renault Technologie Roumanie (RTR) – Bucharest, Pite[ti and Titu. The engineering centre in Romania will thus be the second largest in the world, after the one in France, and the biggest on emerging markets. Why 3,000 engineers, why now and why Romania? “We’ve tried to plan depending on the market’s business needs and supply of specialists,” says Dana Opri[an, HR manager with RTR, who has the task of driving the number of employees to 3,000 in a year and a half, from a little over 2,000 employees at present.
Another explanation for Renault’s focus on Romania could be the success of the Logan model. The Romanian engineers working with Renault designed 40% of the Logan Pick-up and worked for the European version of the Sandero.
The largest part of the 3,000 employees (around two thirds) will work in Bucharest, with 500 people each in Pite[ti and Titu.
At present, 1,100 engineers work in Bucharest, with their number due to reach 2,000 by late 2009. More than a third of employees are women.
Embarking on such a broad recruitment campaign at a time when a rising number of people on the market are speaking about a shortage of skilled workforce could be a project that is difficult to accomplish. Even the French at Renault were sceptical about the potential success of recruitment plans in Romania, but from the very beginning assumed the risk of not being able to find the same specialists available on the French market and were prepared to invest in training.
RTR has brought around 10 Romanian engineers who worked abroad, from Canada, the US, Germany and Italy.
RTR uses a mix of recruitment methods, whilst one novel recruitment method is the use of a recruitment forum. In the 2007-2008 period, 17 such forums have been scheduled.
Besides the shortage of specialists, another difficulty is related to employees’ reluctance to relocate considering Renault recruits for three separate locations. The company adapts recruitment methods to the profile of the sought candidates. At present, 60 expats work with RTR, the largest part being French citizens, whilst a Frenchman, Philippe Prevel, also runs the centre.
RTR has an annual budget of 2m euros for training employees.
Although the current target stands at 3,000 engineers, the HR manager does not rule out the possibility of the team exceeding this number.