Psychosocial counseling as part of change management
We attach great importance to the psychosocial support that the Employee and Executive Advisory Service (MFB) provides for various transformation processes across the Group. The goal is to help affected employees, managers, and teams deal with professional and private changes, and to prevent psychosocial crises. In the event of an acute crisis, our crisis intervention takes action: The party concerned, along with family members when needed, can make use of professional counseling from an experienced team of experts.
In Germany, we also offer free and anonymous personal counseling and consultation hours. Employees can obtain personal counseling from experts. Immediate phone counseling is available through the “TALK TIME” hotline from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., Monday through Friday. If necessary, employees seeking help are referred directly to local experts or specialist agencies. The counselors have a duty to maintain confidentiality and are familiar with the specifics of the company.
During the coronavirus pandemic, they counseled our employees on problems resulting from reduced social contacts, as well as coping with burdens caused by closed schools and care facilities, among other subjects. A selected team of occupational health specialists also offered immediate counseling for health issues from March 2020 through the end of December 2022, for instance, on pandemic-related processes and rules. The percentage of COVID-19-related concerns declined from 10 percent in the previous year to 3.8 percent in the reporting year, however. Overall, a total of 2 755 queries from Deutsche Telekom employees were processed. Compared to 2021, call volumes declined by around 36 percent (as of December 2022), nearly matching the pre-pandemic level between 2016 and 2019.
With this in mind, and in the face of new crises, we defined new focuses for our “TALK TIME” hotline in the reporting year. For example, we offered special psychosocial counseling to our international employees and helpers who were exposed to the extreme events of Russia’s war of aggression on Ukraine.
Also, for many years now we have provided special additional support to managers, in the form of presentations and workshops on healthy leadership, conflict management, mindfulness, and self-leadership, as well as on strategies for dealing with changes and mental stress. Courses on virtual leadership are also part of these offerings. Working in hybrid or distributed teams has long been part of everyday life for some parts of Deutsche Telekom. Nevertheless, the increasing shift of workplaces to home offices poses an additional challenge: executives have to be sensitive to changes in teams and individuals and provide enough time for personal exchange, for instance, by planning regular video conferences.
We attach great importance to the psychosocial support that the Employee and Executive Advisory Service (MFB) provides for various transformation processes across the Group. The goal is to help affected employees, managers, and teams deal with professional and private changes, and to prevent psychosocial crises. In the event of an acute crisis, our crisis intervention takes action: The party concerned, along with family members when needed, can make use of professional counseling from an experienced team of experts.
In Germany, we also offer free and anonymous personal counseling and consultation hours. Employees can obtain personal counseling from experts. Immediate phone counseling is available through the “TALK TIME” hotline from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., Monday through Friday. If necessary, employees seeking help are referred directly to local experts or specialist agencies. The counselors have a duty to maintain confidentiality and are familiar with the specifics of the company.
During the coronavirus pandemic, they counseled our employees on problems resulting from reduced social contacts, as well as coping with burdens caused by closed schools and care facilities, among other subjects. A selected team of occupational health specialists also offered immediate counseling for health issues from March 2020 through the end of December 2022, for instance, on pandemic-related processes and rules. The percentage of COVID-19-related concerns declined from 10 percent in the previous year to 3.8 percent in the reporting year, however. Overall, a total of 2 755 queries from Deutsche Telekom employees were processed. Compared to 2021, call volumes declined by around 36 percent (as of December 2022), nearly matching the pre-pandemic level between 2016 and 2019.
With this in mind, and in the face of new crises, we defined new focuses for our “TALK TIME” hotline in the reporting year. For example, we offered special psychosocial counseling to our international employees and helpers who were exposed to the extreme events of Russia’s war of aggression on Ukraine.
Also, for many years now we have provided special additional support to managers, in the form of presentations and workshops on healthy leadership, conflict management, mindfulness, and self-leadership, as well as on strategies for dealing with changes and mental stress.
Reporting against standardsCourses on virtual leadership are also part of these offerings. Working in hybrid or distributed teams has long been part of everyday life for some parts of Deutsche Telekom. Nevertheless, the increasing shift of workplaces to home offices poses an additional challenge: executives have to be sensitive to changes in teams and individuals and provide enough time for personal exchange, for instance, by planning regular video conferences.
Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)