Blog
Anne works as a Field Trainee at Elia
At Elia, we give enterprising and driven colleagues every opportunity to flourish. We work together, share our knowledge and strive for open dialogue. If an employee shows a natural aptitude for leadership, we will support him or her all the way! Meet Anne, Field Trainee.
Happy employees
“In the spring of 2021, I completed Elia’s Field Engineer Programme as a Young Graduate. The experience taught me a lot: I learnt how Elia technicians actually do their job, including maintaining and securing electrical installations. And given my own technical background in industrial electromechanical engineering, I was also able to expand my practical knowledge.
“The combination of technology and a people-oriented approach has always interested me. Ensuring a safe and pleasant working environment at a market player like Elia requires not only a coherent technical framework with clear internal procedures and processes, but also a management framework that supports and guides employees. When people are managed in the right way, they feel happier in the workplace and are also more productive.”
Major responsibility
I’ve been working as an Operational & Safety Excellence Manager at Elia since the start of September 2023. The role involves line-managing a fellow technician while also acting as functional manager to a number of team leaders. Together, we oversee the maintenance, repair and renewal of circuit breakers and transformers for major customers such as BASF and TotalEnergies. It’s a very responsible job but also a very fulfilling one!”
Prepared for new challenge
I’m very grateful to Elia for giving me every opportunity to develop my leadership skills. I was prepared for this exciting challenge thanks to an internal training programme, which included an intensive language immersion course to help me hold my own in multiple languages in a complex technical environment. I’m now all set to help realise Elia’s vision of the future as an innovative market player in the sector. To achieve this, I want to capitalise fully on my strengths: empathy, enthusiasm, people skills and a clear helicopter view of our business. And if I’m taken out of my comfort zone, that can only help me grow in the long run!”
Innovation or tradition?
“If asked to choose between tradition and innovation, I’d opt for both: the use of new techniques and technologies is obviously extremely important in the industry Elia operates in, but I also think we need to maintain traditional systems and action plans that work well. Innovation allows us to deploy advanced technologies within our company, such as smart grids and renewable energy integration, which can boost efficiency and promote sustainability. On the other hand, tradition is essential for the stability and reliability of our power supply. So finding the right balance between the two seems to me to be the best way forward.”
