We offer our employees a wide range of specific training and development programs. Important principles for this are defined in our Code of Human Rights and in our Guiding Principles. For many units at Deutsche Telekom, specific agreements were also reached with the employees’ representatives on the subject of training. The training we offer our employees pays off. In 2023, for example, we were able to fill 51 percent of our open positions with internal candidates (2022: 33 percent; 2021: 51 percent; 2020: 66 percent).1
Training the experts of tomorrow
We offer many young people the opportunity to enter the workplace. For example, we have a comprehensive range of technical and commercial apprenticeship programs that train our skilled workers of tomorrow. In 2023, the Group offered around 2 000 training positions, including more than 1 220 positions for apprenticeships and about 750 positions for persons in dual study bachelor’s degree programs. In addition, up to 25 young people took part in our 12-month DiscoverMINT program, which offers career orientation and a chance to explore opportunities in the digital workplace. The programs we offer make us one of the largest training providers in Germany. Our training programs provide a foundation for digital competence – and thereby enable our apprentices to make a seamless transition into the digital workplace.
Promoting lifelong learning
We promote lifelong learning and support our employees on their individual learning paths. We start by reviewing the skills our employees have now and those they will need in the future. On this basis, we offer our employees tailored training and development programs. These can also include stays abroad or studies parallel to their jobs. For example, Bologna@Telekom gives employees access to part-time bachelor’s and master’s degree programs. Since its introduction more than ten years ago, a total of 2 310 employees in Germany have taken advantage of this opportunity.
Education@telekom
… takes a look at the entire educational chain from vocational training – university degree – further development.
Informal learning in the working process
Courses for students
and graduates
(Academic)
further education
In order to prepare our employees for the future requirements of the job market and ensure that they can participate successfully in the workplace, we offer them various development programs to expand their digital capabilities. With the “Explorer Journeys,” our employees can acquire basic skills in the areas of data analytics, software development, digital marketing, user experience design (UX design), artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud and DevOps technologies. These learning journeys are open to both beginners and experts. For example, our global upskilling programs in the areas of data science, data engineering, and data visualization help experts deepen their specialist knowledge. In 2023, a total of 8 200 employees took part in our Explorer Journeys. Our multi-week programs on “Generative AI” registered a total of 2 468 participants. Thanks to retraining programs such as the Junior Software Development Academy, our employees also have the opportunity to develop themselves in an entirely new area – customer advisors can retrain as software developers, for example. As a result, the programs also help us expand our own pool of candidates.
Learning independently, and digitally
From 2019 to 2022, our “youlearn” initiative supported our overall aim of developing Deutsche Telekom as a learning organization. In the process, we offered our employees worldwide (excluding those of T-Mobile US) the opportunity to manage much of their own training, with online courses, and to make learning an integral part of their everyday working life. In the reporting year, we have continued these efforts, while also highlighting the sense of community fostered by the initiative: Since the summer of 2023, “WeLearn” has been the motto for all of our learning programs.
Over the past few years, and via the Percipio learning platform, which we introduced in 2019, we have continued to expand our online education and training programs at the global level (excluding T-Mobile US). In addition to a desktop solution, the Percipio app lets users access content anytime and anywhere. It offers a wide range of courses, videos, books, and audio books on topics such as leadership, technology and development, and digital transformation, and it conveys the learning content in an entertaining way. Content is offered in 18 languages – with the help of dubbing and subtitling. In 2023, some 164 000 Deutsche Telekom employees were registered on this platform. Via Percipio, our employees can access training materials offered by Coursera, the world’s largest provider of online courses at university level. The courses, on issues such as big data, cybersecurity, cloud, and artificial intelligence, are provided by a network of around 200 universities.
The employees’ initiative Learning from Experts (LEX), which was launched in 2018 and is now successfully established at Deutsche Telekom, provides another example of the opportunities we offer for self-managed, self-guided learning. In LEX, experts from the Group share knowledge with their colleagues via a range of different channels. LEX is one of our fastest-growing communities. Its LEX sessions, lasting 30 to 60 minutes, are especially popular. More than 20 000 LEX sessions had been held by the end of 2023.
Throughout the Group (not including T-Mobile US), our employees completed some 3.8 million hours of learning in 2023, as investments in their own personal and professional development. Slightly over half of these hours were devoted to acquiring technical and digital skills. Overall, LEX users completed a total of almost 2.8 million hours of online learning in 2023. The comparable figure for 2019 was only 1.8 million. In 2023, fully 88 percent of the training courses available for registration throughout the Group were available online.
Training and skills management
We are aiming to develop Deutsche Telekom into a skills-focused company that orients its learning and development programs, and its pertinent processes, completely to its employees’ skills requirements.
We are continually building and upgrading our skills management program. With the help of a special, smart tool, skills management supports us in identifying skills gaps, throughout the Group. It thus enables us to offer targeted, focused continuing training and education programs for our employees. We tailor our learning programs to the skills gaps we identify. Also, we show our employees skills profiles that they can aim for, and achieve, by developing their skills. Since 2023, following a successful pilot program that began in 2017 and reached several units, we have been running our skills management program interdepartmentally, throughout the Group. To date, some 46 000 employees have successfully completed the skills management program.
Strengthening leadership skills in the digital age
In our management and leadership development programs, we are also increasingly relying on virtual solutions. The aim of such programs is to strengthen virtual leadership skills.
In 2021, we introduced WeGrow, a new approach to performance development, for employees at Deutsche Telekom in Germany and at T-Systems’ Local Business Units (LBUs), and subsequently rolled it out in other companies as well. By building on regular feedback, this process will help us enhance our employees’ development and commitment, create clarity about tasks and expected results, and strengthen trust-based relationships between managers and employees.
In addition, it will dovetail closely with other HR processes, such as skills management, talent management, and succession planning – and thereby help us tackle the challenges we face as a company. Since 2023, we have also been using WeGrow in our career development meetings with employees covered by collective agreements and with civil servants.
Talent management at Deutsche Telekom
Deutsche Telekom completely overhauled its approach to talent management in 2022. The aim was to garner a holistic, Group-wide view of talents at Deutsche Telekom. This is enabling us to a) develop centralized talent initiatives for all employees, and b) supplement those initiatives with local initiatives tailored to the specific requirements of the particular business unit involved in each case. For us, all employee groups harbor talents, including employees covered or not covered by collective agreements, and executives. WeGrow, our Group-wide performance development approach, serves as our basis for identifying talents. WeGrow, providing for ongoing dialog between managers and employees, is designed to further our employees’ development and help us identify talents. To this end, we have developed common, clearly defined, and comparable talent criteria – summarized by “4 As,” standing for Achievement, Ambition, Attitude, and Ability. As the 4 As suggest, in addition to reviewing previous achievements and existing skills, we also consider whether employees have the necessary ambition and attitude for inclusion in talent initiatives.
All our initiatives aim to develop suitable talents towards positions that add value to the Group. To this end, we network talents and managers, create transparency regarding our talent pool, and promote direct contact with prospective hiring managers.
In the WeGrow framework, we hold annual “People Days” events. They bring management teams together for discussion aimed at identifying talents among the employees under their responsibility. At these meetings, a holistic, forward-looking evaluation process is applied that takes account of aspects such as performance, values-based skills, and potential future development.
The “Executives and Prospective Executives” target group is promoted via the Global Talent Hub, a globally operated talent initiative that includes up to 200 talented people who are directly suited for, and aiming for, an executive position in the company. Since 2022, the Hub also includes up to 100 talents who, early on in their careers, have already shown that they have the necessary potential to reach the executive level. This group receives extra support throughout a series of several career steps. In the reporting year, 22 percent of the company’s executive positions (excluding positions at T-Mobile US) were filled with talents from the Global Talent Hub.
Also in the reporting year, our work in the area of training and development was honored with a number of awards.
1 Due to a system and methodology adjustment in 2023, the figure is only comparable with the figures from previous years to a limited extent.