Social
Distribution of women in the Deutsche Telekom Group
In addition to the published proportions of women in the Annual Report, CR Report and HR Factbook, the following table shows the proportion of women in upper and middle management separately. Both figures are approaching the 30% target, with a combined share of women of 27.9% (see above-mentioned reports). All other shares are already above our set target for year end 2025 which is 30%.
Gender distribution of digital experts
The so-called "digital experts", employees, many with technical, digital and IT skills, are the focus of our recruitment and retention measures. The total share has been increased from 19.7% to 22%, whereby we have already exceeded the capital market promise of 17% by 2024. The target for female digital experts is 17% and was nearly reached with 16%. The following table shows how the proportion is distributed between women and men.
Supply Chain Management
Deutsche Telekom is committed to respecting and promoting human rights and environmental concerns across its operations, including its supply chain. This commitment is reflected in the company's comprehensive human rights and environmental due diligence processes, which are applied globally across all companies of Deutsche Telekom AG.
Deutsche Telekom's Code of Human Rights underscores the company's dedication to upholding human rights and environmental standards in all areas of operation, including its supply chain. Suppliers are expected to adhere to Deutsche Telekom’s human rights and environmental standards by accepting our Supplier Code of Conduct. We established robust review processes to ensure compliance, emphasizing responsible procurement of raw materials, particularly metals and conflict minerals.
Deutsche Telekom's group-wide risk management system is designed to identify, minimize, and prevent human rights and environmental risks. Each year, Deutsche Telekom conducts a comprehensive risk analysis to identify potential human rights and environmental risks within its operations and those of its direct, and therefore significant, suppliers. This analysis considers internal and external information, country-specific conditions, and group-specific risks. For more information on the results of our yearly analysis, including identified risks and measures taken, please see our 2023 Report requested by the German Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Control (BAFA) in accordance with the German Act on Corporate Due Diligence in Supply Chains (LkSG)”.
Upon identifying high-risk areas, Deutsche Telekom takes immediate preventive measures including implementing policies, conducting training, and establishing risk-based control measures. The company ensures contractual guarantees with suppliers to enforce adherence to human rights and environmental standards, supported by regular audits and effectiveness reviews.
When violations are identified, Deutsche Telekom promptly engages with the relevant parties to address and rectify the issues. If a supplier fails to address violations adequately, the company may temporarily suspend or terminate the business relationship to uphold its standards.
Through these structured and comprehensive due diligence processes, Deutsche Telekom demonstrates its commitment to sustainable business practices, ensuring that human rights and environmental concerns are systematically addressed throughout its operations and supply chain.
Sustainability training for all employees: The “Sustainability Campus” helps to achieve Telekom's sustainability goals
In an effort to live up to our responsibility to society as a Group, we must embed sustainability in all areas, functions and processes. This is a paradigma of Deutsche Telekom's sustainability strategy: Sustainability is a responsibility for everyone in the Group!
However, special knowledge and skills are required to enable our employees to implement this strategy on a day-to-day basis.
Deutsche Telekom has therefore restructured and significantly expanded its training program in this area. The "Deutsche Telekom Sustainability Campus" offers a broad curriculum of web-based training courses that identify the need for action and then explain the goals Deutsche Telekom has set itself and how it intends to achieve them in line with the Group's sustainability strategy.
"In future, employees will also have to be familiar with ecological and social aspects, need an ethical compass of values and the ability to act responsibly in line with the company's ESG criteria," says Melanie Kubin-Hardewig, Vice President Group Corporate Responsibility at Telekom.
The new training program offers the necessary support: Short, concise video content explains the importance and implementation of sustainability in an easy-to-understand and interactive way - always with close relevance to the core business.
The Campus starts with the basics and goes deep into the various facets of ecological and social sustainability as well as good corporate governance.
The fight against climate change (incl. energy efficiency), the transition to a circular economy (incl. waste & reduction awareness) and the challenges of the water crisis are the first ecological focus areas. In the field of social engagement, the initial offer includes training on digital civil courage and standing up for democracy in the digital space, as well as comprehensive training on diversity, equal treatment, and inclusion. In the field of corporate Governance, the initial focus is on human rights training.
The current training program is just the beginning. In the next steps, further topics and specific training courses for certain functions will be added. The campus was created in collaboration with AXA Climate School, a leading international provider of webinars on sustainability, among others.
Declaration of Luxemburg for Deutsche Telekom
In 1997 the Supervisory Board of Deutsche Telekom signed the Luxembourg Declaration on Workplace Health Promotion (WHP) in the European Union.
Workplace Health Promotion is the combined efforts of employers, employees and society to improve the health and well-being of people at work. This can be achieved through a combination of
- improving the work organisation and the working environment
- promoting active participation
- encouraging personal development.
We thereby committed to a problem-solving cycle within our Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Approach which includes needs analysis, setting priorities, planning, implementation, continuous control and evaluation. This manifests our approach of prioritizing and setting action plans.
In addition, we committed to an approach of actively engaging our employees in the OHS Approach. As a signatory to the Luxembourg Declaration, Deutsche Telekom is committed to participation of workers in OHS, which can only be successful if it is guided by the following guidelines: 1. the entire workforce must be involved (participation). And 2. health promotion must be considered in all important decisions and in all areas of the company.
More details are explained in the Luxembourg Declaration (see links). In the German version you can find the signatory companies on page 6 (including Deutsche Telekom). We have actively worked on its implementation and further development of our OHS approach since 1997 (see our 2023 CR Report for more information).
German version of Luxembourg Declaration
English version of Luxembourg Declaration
Occupational Health & safety in 2023 CR Report
Future Skills
According to a study by the Korn Ferry Institute, 4.3 million technical positions in the technology, media and telecommunications industry will remain unfilled worldwide in 2030. However, the implementation of our Group strategy requires highly trained employees,
many with technical, digital and IT skills. In times of skills shortages, we are therefore not only competing with companies in our industry, but especially with companies from the tech and software sector as well as the automotive industry, which have a strong demand for technical and digital skills. In response, we are investing more in recruiting, developing and retaining talent with these skills. The results of these efforts are proving successful:
We were able to increase the share of digital experts in our Group to 22% in 2023. This means that the originally planned value of 17 % by 2024 has been significantly exceeded
As a basis for the necessary skills transformation, we have created instruments such as the Global Job Architecture (GJA), strategic personnel planning and strategic skills management.
In terms of future skills, the skill management system makes existing and missing skills visible at the individual level with the support of a digital tool,
development plans can be continuously adapted by means of targeted, individual qualification measures. One focus is on the topics of artificial intelligence, cloud computing, data science and analytics as well as software development and cyber security. To this end, the skills management process was successfully carried out for nearly 43,000 employees in the Group in 2023, which is around 31% of the workforce.
Increasing contact and process quality
We want to offer every customer the best service experience! To achieve this goal millions of customer feedbacks are collected and evaluated each year by quality management. Customer satisfaction and solving the customer's problem in the first contact are our top priorities.
Our surveys are carried out either directly after a contact (for example in the hotline, in a store, during a field service call or after online inquiry by mail or chat) or after a completed process (for example, after a deployment).
If the customer tells us in a survey that his or her concern has not yet been solved, a callback offer is made to the customer in order to clarify his or her concern. The results of the customer surveys are also used to continually increase the competence of our consultants.
Regular test wins in comparative tests conducted by leading trade journals are proof of the excellent quality of our customer service.
Our goal is to constantly improve customer satisfaction (KPI`s):
Fair Pay - Equal remuneration
We offer our employees competitive, performance-based pay oriented to the relevant local markets. Our remuneration policies are structured to guarantee equal pay for men and women and do not discriminate.
Executive compensation at Deutsche Telekom is based on our Group-wide Global Compensation Guideline. We also offer our employees additional benefits such as our company pension scheme.
As part of our Group-wide employee survey, we regularly ascertain how satisfied our employees are with their pay and also conduct other surveys on specific topics and in specific units.
Employee Level |
Average Women Salary |
Average Men Salary |
Executive level (base salary only) | 1,090,000 | 1,130,000 |
Executive level (base level + other cash incentives) | 2,190,000 | 2,210,000 |
Management level (base salary only) | 105,600 | 108,200 |
Management level (base salary + other cash incentives) | 134,700 | 139,600 |
Non-management level | 63,800 | 67,000 |
Detailed information:
- Note for value "Executive Level" (Board Remuneration) Public Source: DT Remuneration Report 2023 => page 21
- Further employee levels
- Calculation is only for Germany
- Management level: MG 2 and MG 3 and high exempt levels AT3 and AT4
- Non-Management level: Tarif employee's Group 1-10
Bologna@Telekom
Description of the program
Bologna@Telekom is the part time study program of Deutsche Telekom and offers to employees in parallel to their regular work a scholarship of 50% of tuition fees for selected Bachelor and Master-degree-courses. Bologna@Telekom is running for more than 15 years and over 2310 about employees have started in business-related part-time courses. Some facts underline the meaning of the program for the emplyees. With a graduation rate of 70% the program is very successful.
Participants can be of any age. 20% of participants started Bologna@Telekom after 9+ years working at Deutsche Telekom. –The program overall is an important example on group level and delivers an impact in refer to diversity, career development, business related content, lifelong learning and employee retention. 31 % of the graduates are female, 15% of the graduates are managers and 59% of the Bologna@Telekom graduates changed job family. That means the alumni tend to move to the job family that fit their field of study. More and more Bologna@Telekom students are interested in subjects with digital focused content. The share of STEM students in Bologna@Telekom is increasing. The study time of 3.7 years in average shows the high motivation of the Bologna@Telekom students.
Benefits of the program:
All selected academic courses are following the business and skill demand of Deutsche Telekom (e.g. Software Development, Business informatics, Digital Transformation, Sales). On the other hand, the programs ensure a huge impact on the personal development of each student in fostering self- organization, digital collaboration, teamwork and work-life- and learn balance. So, the company benefits from graduates with future oriented knowledge, strong self-management and learning competencies and a high retention rate.
Quantitave impact of business benefits:
As major results we can point out, that since start of Bologna@Telekom:
- 59 % of the graduates changed their job role so Bologna@Telekom is an excellent example for upskilling (in a current position) and reskilling (on a new position)
- 2,9 % of FTEs participating in the program
- Evaluations have shown, that graduates valued the development of personal experience very high
- The program contributes to our employer attractiveness and employee retention as only 9% of the participants left the company.
- With a product consumer index of 8.92 customer satisfaction in 2023 was excellent.
Percentage of open positions filled by internal candidates
Training & Development
The development of future-proof skills for our employees and the strengthening of an increasingly digital learning culture are top priorities for us. In the reporting year, employees in Germany and the European subsidiaries invested an average of 4.6 working days per employee in their continuing education. In 2023, we advanced our "welearn" (formerly known as “youlearn”) learning culture initiative, which had been established since 2019, aligning it more closely with the Group's strategic objectives. With the theme "Time to Focus on Tech & Digital Skills," welearn specifically targeted the acquisition of technical and digital proficiencies, yielding significant results: 52% of the 3.8 million learning hours invested by employees in Germany and European national companies were dedicated to technical and digital skill development.
Deutsche Telekom has solidified its digital learning framework, boasting a robust digital learning utilization rate of approximately 73%. Leveraging the intelligent "Percipio" learning platform, often likened to the "Netflix of learning," and integrating providers like "Coursera" with content from esteemed universities, over 164,000 employees access a diverse array of digital and contemporary learning resources.
Additionally, the employee-driven "Learning from Experts" (LEX) initiative, launched in 2018, has emerged as the company's largest peer-to-peer learning community, fostering informal learning channels. In 2023, more than 5,650 online sessions were conducted, facilitating the exchange of expertise among colleagues.
Learning: Costs/FTE | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
Group (total) | € 644 | € 651 | € 582 | € 539 | € 534 | € 572 |
Actionplan to promote inclusion
Inclusion thrives on partnership. Barriers in the work environment and in people´s minds can only be removed together. Following this thought, Telekom has updated its Actionplan of 2016. The new Actionplan 2.0 is aligned with the challenges of our current time. It helps to fill the framework of the new Group Inclusion Agreement with participation of all employees.
DT AG Health, Safety and Environment Management System and for Quality Management System
As a large corporation, Telekom assumes responsibility for environmental protection. Uniform environmental standards ensure that resource-saving behavior is anchored in all processes and in the daily behavior of employees. To this end, the Group has implemented an HSE (Health, Safety and Environment) management system in all fully consolidated companies.
There are internationally recognized standards for environmental protection in companies, such as the ISO standards (standards of the International Organization for Standardization, ISO for short). These form the basis for environmental management at Telekom. This ensures that environmental policy is implemented uniformly throughout the Group.
Telekom in Germany has been working in accordance with the international standard ISO 14001 for environmental management systems since 1998. Compliance with the ISO standard enables, among other things, resources to be used more efficiently, energy to be saved and waste to be avoided. Employees help to further increase environmental friendliness with their own suggestions.
Telekom's commitment goes far beyond the issue of climate protection: Since 2010, a uniform Group-wide HSE management system has been in place. HSE stands for the three main topics of health, safety and environment. The international standards for occupational health and safety, environmental management and quality management serve as the basis for this.
Employees and experts from all Deutsche Telekom national companies regularly exchange information and jointly develop a comprehensive management system. Internal and external audits are conducted regularly to verify that the requirements of the HSE management system are consistently implemented in the company's day-to-day operations.
Here you can find the manual for our central Health, Safety and Environment Management System (HSE MS) of Deutsche Telekom Group. This means that it covers 100% of all Deutsche Telekom units.
“Child and Career” mentoring program
After three very successful runs, the kick-off event of our next “Child and Career” mentoring program took place in October 2019. For a period of 21 months, this program provides for potential junior staff in expert and managerial functions from various business units of the Group in Germany to be mentored by an experienced manager. The mentees who will soon start parental leave, are in parental leave or are planning their re-entrance in the job gain new professional and methodical competences “in the tandem” and benefit from shared experiences with others in the program network. In the fourth “Child and Career” session, 26 tandem teams went to the start. The program is supplemented by web-based tutorials on focus topics and self-organized network meetings. In addition, supplementary coaching services such as parental coaching and professional support coaching will be provided, as required. This was very well appreciated by the last run. More than 80 percent of participating junior employees and almost 70 percent of the managers are female.
The next mentoring program will start in the 2nd half of 2022.
Start up!: Our trainee program for young technology enthusiasts and new thinkers
Our Start up! Trainee Program primarily targets graduates with an interest in Technology and IT who are willing to leverage their talent as innovator, technophile or revolutionary every single day. With the aim to reach talented candidates outside of Germany, the application process has been held in English since 2017. As a result, we have been able to maintain the share of international participants in 2022: 27 percent of trainees come from different countries around the globe. In the reporting period, a total of 38 BA/MA graduates embarked on the trainee program, 53 percent of whom were women.
During a period lasting around 18 months, trainees familiarize themselves with different areas of the company in Germany and abroad. They take on challenging project assignments in various business areas. The trainees are supported by experienced managers. The program is supplemented by innovative learning elements and events. In addition, our Start up! Trainees also pursue their own initiatives including social & sustainability projects within the context of the Magenta Friday (project day).
Partner for BAGSO
We work with BAGSO (the German National Association of Senior Citizens’ Organizations) to promote media literacy among seniors. As a partner, we sponsor the Goldener Internetpreis (Golden Internet Award). The award recognizes people over the age of 60 who use the internet skillfully and help others to get started in the online world. The next award ceremony is planned for November 2019.
In 2018, we once again took part in Deutscher Seniorentag (Germany’s Day for Seniors), showcasing products and services aimed at people aged 65 years and over. These included mobile telecommunications, fixed-line and MagentaEINS offerings, apps for seniors, and security products by Magenta SmartHome. Visitors to our booth had the chance to use a variety of services. For example, we had two technicians available to set up mobile devices and answer technical questions. As an advisory board member, we are also involved in Digital-Kompass (Digital Compass), a joint project by BAGSO and DsiN. Digital-Kompass uses materials and regular meetings on digital issues to support internet guides who help seniors get online and explore the internet. A total of 75 Digital-Kompass locations are also being set up across Germany.