All

Every two years we conduct our employee survey in order to obatin feedback from our employees, discover weaknesses, and implement suitable actions to eliminate those weaknesses. The analysis on team level and of other criteria (e.g. function, executives vs. leader vs. employee, gender, age group) support the derivation of fitting concrete improvement actions on all levels. Around 76% of all employees participated in the last employee survey, the share of men and woman - where gender was specified - complies approximately with gender proportion in the group (participation rate man around 67%, women around 32% and for the first time diverse around 1%).

In addition to the employee survey, we also gauge employee satisfaction every six months through a pulse survey. This helps us obtain a current snapshot of the mood at the company and verify whether the introduced actions have been successful. This lets us make quick adjustments if necessary. The pulse survey in November 2020 saw a 77% response rate among the group.

In a joint project Deutsche Telekom Stiftung and German Reading Foundation aim to awaken children´s interest in math and science and improve their language and reading skills by reading aloud to them. Appropriate reading materials (books, apps, e-books) are read aloud by volunteer readers to kids aged three to ten in kindergartens, primary schools and libraries. By late 2020, a total of around 3,300 volunteers engaged as volunteer readers in Germany and abroad– including 110 Deutsche Telekom employees (as of November 2020).

Top-level management plays a key role in the business success of a company. If managers at that level leave the company, their position must be filled in a timely manner, with a qualified candidate. Since 2017, we have a global systematic succession management process, which obligates around 1,700 managers in executive positions to be involved in succession planning. The process helps these managers to decide who could serve as their direct successor and who has the potential to take on their role in the mid-term. A digital platform helps executives with the nomination process.
In 2020, 4,400 potential candidates (DT internal and external, 25 percent of which were female professionals) were evaluated at special succession meetings. Successors get full transparency about the positions they are nominated to and their readiness to take on the role. This nomination and feedbackprocess is a valuable intrument to identify in a timely manner highly qualified successionb candidates in order to minimize the risk of any placement gaps. Furthermore Succession Management supports the internal mobility of executives within Deutsche Telekom.

In 2020 we closed the Global Talent Pool of 2019 and were working on a new concept of talent management, which is launched in the fall of 2020. The new concept focuses on identification, validation and long-term development of talents with the aim of placing them into strategically critical roles. In this new concept we allow leadership to identify employees with potential but also employees can raise their hands to be assessed. Employees go through a validation process of personality assessment and structured interviews, upon which leadership selects the future members of the hub – best matching role requirements. In the hub they will have a personal advisor brokering them to opportunities in line with their potential and targeted critical role. Our Board members are patrons and a broad group of business leaders serve as business sponsors of the hub. They mentor, make talents visible and open doors for them.  In the hub we will work on the development of members on the long-term, over multiple career steps.

There are 5,500 different job descriptions at Deutsche Telekom in Germany alone. As digitalization progresses, many of them no longer match the tasks and skills now required.
The skillsUP! program launched in 2018 aims to cut the number of job profiles to less than 1,000 and adapt them so that they last for the next three to five years. However, skillsUP! involves more than just modernizing job profiles. The new, up-to-date job descriptions are linked to the Group’s skills management so as to ensure holistic, integrated HR planning, make it easier to identify possible gaps in required skills, initiate training measures, or advertise new jobs. Deutsche Telekom is the first large German company to have such a mechanism. skillsUP! is the Group-wide implementation of several pilot projects that have been conducted since 2016.

With the "Everyone needs education – education needs everyone" project, Deutsche Telekom and Deutsche Telekom Stiftung support the corporate volunteering efforts of Telekom employees at day care centers and schools since 2010. Employees who engage as volunteer readers or offer workskhops for programming with microcontrollers in schools can apply for sponsorship with Deutsche Telekom Stiftung.

In 2014 we became the first DAX company to develop a training program to prepare employees for supervisory board positions. The program was developed in collaboration with the European School of Management and Technology (ESMT). We are particularly interested in encouraging women to take a seat on the supervisory board. In addition to information on the traditional activities of supervisory board members, the training also provided insight into practical experiences presented by supervisory board members, case studies from the Group, and a simulated supervisory board meeting.
We also offered additional workshops for former program participants on topics such as “What’s new in corporate governance” and leadership networks.