Our HR work based on the priorities
1. Future-proof organization
Our ambition for a future-proof organization is to build competitive structures which serve both our corporate targets and our workforce. That means aligning employment conditions with the market while systematically tapping efficiency potential by improving the quality of our HR products and services, and by automating and digitalizing processes in a targeted way. At the same time, we are taking steps to permanently adapt our structures, processes, and ways of working to changing market conditions.
Collective bargaining. 
In the course of 2022, a total of 90 collective agreements were concluded with the trade unions for the Group entities in Germany covered by collective agreements. The “big” collective bargaining round for nine entities was successfully concluded in May 2022, despite the difficulties posed by rising inflation. Salary increases were negotiated for a total of 55,000 employees, ranging from 2.7 % in the higher pay groups to 3.1 % in the lower pay groups. Additionally, to cushion some of the effects wrought by high inflation, one-time payments of EUR 1,000 per employee were agreed for the lower and middle pay groups. The Group also promised to continue to provide training at a high level, and agreed to increase the number of planned hires for apprentices and students on dual study programs in the coming years to at least 1,900 in 2023 and 1,800 in 2024. We also successfully paved the way for combining units from the large B2B entities into a single company. We achieved this by harmonizing the collectively agreed pay and benefits across the B2B entities. In our national companies in Europe, too, we successfully concluded viable collective agreements in spite of the unusually high inflationary pressure. In addition to the collective pay increases, which were generally below the inflation rate, in some entities we agreed to make one-time payments to further cushion the impact, especially for employees in lower pay groups.
Transformation initiatives. It is our responsibility to place employees with the right skills in the right jobs and continue to support their development in line with future needs. In addition to the technology-induced transformation initiatives, the crisis-induced need to adapt, and the competition-induced staff restructuring, the decisive tools in achieving this goal are proactive total workforce management, the ongoing digitalization of our core processes, and investments in skilling.
In the reporting year we once again implemented essential transformation programs in the Group’s business areas, for instance, in the B2B and B2C segments at Telekom Deutschland and the corporate customer segment at T‑Systems International, as well as at Deutsche Telekom IT, the Group’s internal IT service provider, and at Deutsche Telekom Services Europe, the Group’s internal HR and financial service provider. Care was taken to implement all restructuring activities in a socially responsible manner.
The Group continued its efforts in the reporting year to build towards modern, fit-for-purpose organizational models, such as agile or flexible organizational structures to meet the different needs of business. Some 43,000 employees were working in agile or flexible structures as of 2022. For example, at Deutsche Telekom IT, global organizational structures such as chapters and agile workflows were continuously evolved with the goal of transforming internal IT into cross-border teams. A number of our national companies in Europe, too, including Magyar Telekom in Hungary, Slovak Telekom, and T‑Mobile Polska, have already implemented agile working across broad swaths of the organization. Magyar Telekom extended its agile structures in the reporting year to include customer-facing employee groups. We thus not only promote customer-oriented and agile working methods, but are also able to respond quickly to change.
New employment prospects. The newly created unit next.JOB began its work in early 2022. next.JOB offers employees in Germany who are seeking a new professional challenge outside of the Group opportunities to enter the public sector. The placement service is available to both civil servants and non-civil servants and coordinates closely with the Group segments. Within just one year of launch, next.JOB has already facilitated 69 permanent placements, and continued to amplify and strengthen the extensive network of public-sector partners.
As a founding member of the initiative Allianz der Chancen in 2021, we are committed to actively shaping the transformation of the working world. Member organizations of the alliance are aligned with the goal of offering their employees economically and socially sustainable employment prospects across many different industries. The aim is to make people aware of new opportunities and lower the threshold for change: from one job to another. To this end, in the reporting year the companies rolled out their own internal projects and also formulated common areas of operation and recommendations for action for a new working world. One such measure is to support and reward employees who are willing to change jobs.
2. Top tech and digital skills
According to a Korn Ferry Institute study, by 2030 there will be 4.3 million vacant technical positions in the technology, media, and telecommunications industries. Yet we need highly skilled employees, many of whom with technical, digital, and IT profiles, to help us achieve our Group strategy. In times of shortages of skilled labor, this not only puts us in direct competition with our industry peers, but in particular with tech and software companies, as well as the automotive sector, all of which are desperately in need of technical and digital skills. We respond to this challenge by ramping up our investments in recruiting, developing, and retaining talents with the requisite skills. Our efforts are bearing fruit: in 2022 we increased the percentage of digital experts within our workforce at the Group to 19.7 %. This figure is significantly in excess of our original target of 17 % by 2024.
Employer brand. Competition on the labor market continues to intensify, especially in the IT and tech field. The employer market is turning into an employee market, as employers are now in a tug-of-war for talent on a global stage and across multiple industries. In parallel, the needs and expectations of this sought-after target group have changed – a development that was further heightened by the experiences from the coronavirus pandemic. Not only are these talents becoming more and more demanding, but other topics like flexible working, innovation, and new technologies are also gaining in importance.
We have realigned our employer branding strategy and employer value proposition (EVP) with the goal of further strengthening our position as an international, attractive employer for top tech and digital talents. Working together with tech talents as part of an iterative process, we carefully developed the content to ensure that the new employer branding strategy reflects their needs and expectations as well as our Group strategy. Our international employer branding campaign “Question today, create tomorrow.” profiles current employees and invites talents to join us in questioning the status quo and to find the answers for the future together. Using messages tailored to specific audiences, an eye-catching look and feel, and a strong content strategy, all of which build on the strategic pillars of the new EVP, we help IT experts to discover career opportunities at Deutsche Telekom on various social media channels. The campaign is gradually being rolled out to the national companies through the first quarter of 2023.
Further targeted recruitment drives are also being implemented alongside the international employer branding campaign. We deploy a broad spectrum of HR marketing measures oriented to specific target groups with the goal of filling vacancies with the ideal candidates as rapidly as possible. Above and beyond this, we developed a new strategy focusing on university partnerships, and expanded existing cooperations with strategic partners in order to generate attention among a young target audience. We also remain committed to existing partnerships, including with Femtec, with the goal of attracting women into STEM professions at Deutsche Telekom.
A strong employer brand pays off: following its win in the previous year, Deutsche Telekom has once again won the Institute of Research & Data Aggregation’s Leading Employer Award 2023. Our efforts to tailor our communication to specific target audiences are also bearing fruit: we were ranked #1 in Potentialpark’s 2022 Azubi Communication Study and #2 in its Talent Communication study. Deutsche Telekom AG took the top spot in the NetFed HR Benchmark study. Our national companies also received accolades for their appeal as employers: for example, T‑Mobile Austria received the Kurier seal of quality “Favorite Employer 2022,” PwC named our Hungarian subsidiary Magyar Telekom the most attractive employer in the telecommunications and media industries, while our national company in the Czech Republic, T‑Mobile Czech Republic, won the prize for top employer in the telecommunications sector.
Talent attraction. In 2022, despite the tense situation on the labor market, we attracted around 12,000 new employees (outside of the United States). Germany accounted for the largest share of these new hires, with around 2,700, followed by India, with around 2,000. In Germany, we won over 190 new employees in the fourth quarter of 2022 alone, most of whom are technicians working on the fiber-optic build-out. T‑Mobile US recruited over 22,000 new employees in the reporting year. We welcomed 1,671 new apprentices and dual students in Germany, a high percentage of whom with technical, digital, and IT profiles. 53 young employees took us up on the opportunity to join one of our year-long orientation programs. We won the HR Excellence Award in 2022 for our Discover MINT program, which gives young people the option to try out a dual study course in the STEM field. In 2022, Capital magazine validated our keen efforts to advance young employees working at our company and offer them opportunities for success by ranking us “Germany’s best training provider” in the categories “Vocational training” and “Dual studies.” 
Our digital and at the same time personal approach shapes our entire recruiting strategy. We value direct and personal contact, so we attend careers fairs, networking sessions, and other events. Our employees are crucial to attracting talents on a personal level, and in recognition of this in 2022 we launched #ExpertsHireExperts, a program which rewards the successful recommendation of employees with a EUR 2,500 bonus. This new program has already resulted in over 200 new employees for our Company. We also utilize new and innovative recruitment activities to target specific platforms, such as events in the metaverse, and use artificial intelligence. Our international active sourcing team uses targeted searches to find and directly approach highly experienced individuals. In 2022, the team inspired around 500 IT/tech candidates to apply for roles within the Group.
In addition to using a blend of traditional and innovative approaches to recruitment, our goal is to further strengthen our position as a global employer. With this in mind, in 2022 we began to build further T‑Hubs in Europe, which combine a cross-segment concept with an attractive location strategy to unlock access to additional employee markets. We have created a cross-segment home for top tech and digital talents at new sites in Spain and Greece, and are currently also piloting the T‑Hub approach in Poland. We offer these talents an attractive work environment, inspiring projects and leaders, and cross-segment training and career opportunities.
In 2022, T‑Mobile US’ onboarding program Being Un-carrier provided support for over 1,800 new employees and their managers in the form of optimized communication, online resources, live orientation sessions, and special benefit offerings, as well as in respect of diversity, equity, and inclusion. In the third quarter of 2022, T‑Mobile US launched its New Leader Onboarding program developed especially for employees taking on leadership roles, whether as new hires or as a result of internal promotions. Since its launch, the program has already supported almost 190 new managers by providing targeted communication, online resources, and live orientation sessions.
Learning initiatives and offerings. A central focus of our HR activities is on establishing and designing learning initiatives and offerings. We provide comprehensive training programs tailored to the business needs of the individual segments and complemented by focused horizontal Group offerings. Here, too, there is a clear emphasis on providing targeted support for employees undergoing technical and digital skilling and upskilling. Of particular relevance for us are the following profiles: DevOps, software and cloud engineers; solution architects and designers; and data scientists. We provide learning initiatives, guided learning journeys, and phased training programs for these profiles to facilitate reskilling and upskilling. In the first stage of this “learning ecosystem,” the foundation is laid for the acquisition of digital skills: internationally available Explorer Journeys provide employees with initial insights into and knowledge in the fields of software development, artificial intelligence, data analytics, digital marketing, and user experience (UX). The program has attracted over 11,000 employees since it was launched in 2020. The second stage, known as Career Shifter, focuses on the software developer profile and allows us to address employees coming from minimal or zero IT backgrounds and reskill them into one of the most sought-after technical profiles. In the third stage, specialists with expertise in specific fields take center stage: here, the aim is to expand their expertise and strengthen their existing knowledge through the “good to great” pillar of their learning system. In 2022, following championing by the local HR teams and business areas in the segments, three learning journeys were incorporated in this stage and made available to all employees globally. Over 1,200 employees have already taken part in the first global version of the program.
In 2022, we took our “youlearn” learning culture initiative, introduced in 2019, to the next level and dovetailed it more effectively with our Group strategy. With the theme “Time to focus on tech & digital skills,” youlearn was closely oriented to the acquisition of technical and digital skills – successfully so: in the reporting year, employees in Germany and our national companies in Europe invested a total of 3.8 million learning hours under this program, of which 46.6 % were specifically devoted to technical and digital skills.
With a digital learning rate of around 79 %, digital learning is firmly established as a learning tool at Deutsche Telekom. Over 178,000 employees can take advantage of a whole range of digital and state-of-the-art learning offerings provided on the intelligent learning platform Percipio, dubbed the “Netflix of learning,” and through the integration of education platforms such as Coursera, a provider of digital further-training courses offered by top-ranking universities. The 2018 employee initiative Learning from Experts (LEX) has since become the largest peer-to-peer learning community at Deutsche Telekom and contributes immensely to informal learning. In 2022, experts shared their knowledge with other colleagues in over 5,390 online LEX sessions. Technical and digital skills were also the focus of the 2022 youlearn days, a global and digital learning event at Deutsche Telekom. With more than 5,400 registered participants from 29 countries, event participation was up by 10 % against last year, putting it yet again at an all-time high.
Due to the successful launch of levelUP!NextGeneration in 2019, we not only offered the program again in 2022 in digital format, but went one step further and substantially expanded the scope. While still a program for (future) leaders, it is now also suitable for tech and digital experts who have no ambitions to solid-line leadership. This move has transformed this former dedicated leadership skilling program into a program which supports a variety of career paths within the Group. A total of almost 750 employees from across the globe, including around 400 (prospective) managers and just under 350 tech and digital experts from 22 countries, completed the four-month skilling program. Its primary focus is on teaching innovative, inspirational, and tangible leadership topics and skills relating to digitalization and technology. Example topics include ambidextrous leadership, which places equal emphasis on innovation and efficiency; leading in an agile work environment; and managing complexity. Complementary elective modules aim to meet personal development needs. levelUP!NextGeneration also helps us strengthen and encourage intragroup and cross-segment collaboration.
Our T‑Mobile US employees devoted a total of 5.7 million hours of their time to learning through a learning management tool. In addition, the Magenta University at T‑Mobile US acts as a central support hub, empowering employees to make the most of their abilities, take advantage of career opportunities, expand their leadership skills, and strengthen their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Employee development and skilling. We have laid the foundation for the necessary skill transformation by creating instruments including the Global Job Architecture (GJA), strategic HR planning, and strategic skill management. The GJA simplifies existing function structures and consolidates them in future-proof job profiles. Our strategic HR planning takes changing market conditions into account to plot the right course for targeted investment in the skills that will be needed going forward. Skill management is supported by a digital tool to pinpoint where personal skills are present or lacking, and development plans are continuously adapted by means of tailored training programs. Over 31,000 employees in the Group successfully went through the skill management process in 2022.
WeGrow, our modern performance management system that enables ongoing development dialog between managers and employees, also focuses on our employees’ personal development. This blend of strategic HR tools establishes a systemic basis for providing our employees with targeted upskilling and reskilling.
T‑Mobile US has identified nine core development skills and underlying behaviors which it calls “values in action.” These values in action are crucial to achieving the mission, vision, and strategy of our U.S. subsidiary, and in the United States we offer evaluations, development, and resources tailored to each of these values. T‑Mobile US also offers access to learning platforms like Percipio and Franklin Covey, empowering thousands of learners to acquire skills to meet their exact needs. In certain business areas, such as Digital, Enterprise Technology Solutions, and T‑Mobile for Business and Consumer, T‑Mobile US is developing role-based training to support strategic outcomes within its organization.
As part of “values in action,” T‑Mobile US offered targeted upskilling opportunities focusing on digital-first approaches and digital fluency, including a live discussion with the Chief Digital Officer of T‑Mobile US, podcasts, resources, and other curated learning content and offerings. The security-first culture at T‑Mobile US allows us to create an environment in which employees can acquire and strengthen security-related knowledge together. All employees also receive training on the basics of cybersecurity. The Be Cyber Smart program collates and teaches content ranging from digital literacy to topics including physical security, phishing, malware, password management, data privacy, and much more besides.
3. Best place to work
It is our strategic goal to create a motivating work environment where all employees can live up to their full potential. We strive not only to drive forward technical solutions to shape the new, hybrid working worlds, but also to create an inclusive environment and a culture of trust and responsibility that unites all employees in pursuit of a common corporate purpose. In the reporting year, we once again aligned various initiatives with this goal.
Culture. We believe that our culture is Deutsche Telekom’s DNA and an essential factor in safeguarding our long-term success. Building on the strong foundation of our Guiding Principles, corporate culture must also reflect the changing needs of customers and employees. For this reason, we understand culture to be a constantly evolving process. At Deutsche Telekom, we therefore also talk about our “living culture.” Our Guiding Principles act as our compass, leading us to reflect on our behavior on a daily basis and helping us to make the right decisions. We use the Living Culture day and the Telekom Team Award each year to devote attention to this subject in a special setting. Under the theme “The Power of We,” this year’s Living Culture day took place for the first time at a central location outside Germany, namely Vienna. More than 30 countries took part, with over 5,000 teams and participants watching the live stream of the event. There was a strong social media presence on external networks, with 64,000 posts, as well as comments and likes. Our internal communication platform YAM registered 60,000 views. The Telekom Team Award is an international award with six categories, one for each of our Guiding Principles, aimed at recognizing outstanding performance as a team. In 2022, a total of 18 winning teams were chosen from among 261 entries from 20 countries. Between October and December, some 13,000 employees around the world used an online tool to vote on the final order of the winners.
Our six Guiding Principles
Diversity, equity, and inclusion. 
Fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion is an integral part of who we are and how we see ourselves. We support the different diversity dimensions such as age, national and ethnic origin, gender and gender identity, physical and mental abilities, religion and beliefs, sexual orientation, or social background. We firmly believe that this also increases our corporate success, because we consider diverse teams to be a driver of innovation. In respect of gender diversity, our goal of increasing the percentage of women in management positions to 30 % across the Group (excluding T‑Mobile US) by 2025 still applies. With women occupying 50 % (December 31, 2021: 45 %) of positions on the Supervisory Board and 37.5 % (December 31, 2021: 37.5 %) of positions on the Board of Management of Deutsche Telekom AG at the end of 2022, we have already exceeded this target in these boards. Across the Group (including T‑Mobile US), the proportion of women in middle and upper management stood at 28.1 % at the end of 2022 (December 31, 2021: 27.3 %). To ensure we also reach our target in these management levels, we have worked with the different business segments to draw up concrete implementation plans. Specific measures are to be agreed aimed at increasing diversity in management teams depending on the situation in the respective segment, to be discussed by management on a regular basis. Diversity is particularly relevant in the context of our succession planning and recruitment activities.
T‑Mobile US, too, strives to safeguard and further build on the diversity within its workforce in respect of gender, age, and national origin. Our U.S. subsidiary demonstrates its commitment to diversity through a whole range of initiatives, such as Next Tech Diversity, Women in Tech, the Returnship Program, Accessibility Initiatives, and the McKinsey Executive Leadership Program to name a few. T‑Mobile US also founded six Employee Resource Groups celebrating its employees’ rich diversity and heritage: Women & Allies Network, Veterans & Allies Network, Pride, Multigenerational Network, Multicultural Alliance, and the Accessibility Community.
Numerous additional actions and products further support our efforts to achieve greater diversity within the Company to make it an inclusive workplace for all. The international implementation of a revised Group policy on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I) in 2021 laid the foundation for a shared framework of values which we continued to actively develop in the reporting year by way of our Group Inclusion Agreement and the Action Plan 2.0. This framework helps to support and safeguard compliance with our diversity values in all decision-making activities and actions at all Group levels. We sent a further signal, including externally, of our commitment to diversity and inclusion with the publication of the Transgender Handbook which contains information for all employees. It aims not only to increase transgender visibility and awareness, but also to offer practical support and guidance. Various international and segment-specific initiatives, too, show how we stand together for diversity, including #strongerTogether at T‑Systems International in 14 countries, or employee-led communities such as the Women’s Hub at Magyar Telekom. For the first time ever in the reporting year, in order to make the impact of our actions measurable and transparent, we added questions on employees’ perception of equity and participation.
The successful implementation of the Global Talent Hub promotes the targeted placing of talents within our succession management process in all dimensions of diversity, e.g., gender, age, and nationality. Likewise, we actively support the career aspirations of women with the successful implementation of programs for the advancement of women including Action For Leadership with Nokia and UN Women in 2022. We also raise employee awareness through tailored training courses on topics such as unconscious bias, racism, and transgender issues, and we encourage employees to reflect on these.
For further information on the Global Talent Hub, please refer to the section “Talent development.”
Shares2You. We strive to give all employees the opportunity to participate in the success of our business while also fostering an entrepreneurial culture, and to this end we once again offered our Shares2You share program for employees in 2022. In the reporting year, Deutsche Telekom AG ran the Shares2You program for a second time under which employees can acquire shares in Deutsche Telekom AG up to an amount of EUR 1,000. For every two shares they purchase, they receive another share at no cost. All shares received in this way must be held for a minimum of four years. The program was also rolled out internationally in the reporting year to three national companies in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. A total of 1,263 employees of these three companies took part, investing an aggregate amount of just under EUR 1.2 million. In Germany, the second wave of the program began in October 2022 in participating German Group entities: 36,648 employees registered for the program, requesting to invest a total of over EUR 34.6 million. The shares are set to be issued in early 2023.
New work & hybrid working. Once the pandemic is over, we will continue to actively shape the transition to a hybrid working world and to provide our employees with comprehensive support as they make this journey. We have provided Group-wide collaboration tools to give our employees greater flexibility to structure their daily work schedules and to choose their physical workplace, and to collaborate even better across units and borders. We believe that a nuanced approach both for and within the segments provides the best basis for taking the variety of different business needs into account. Not only that, but it gives managers the opportunity to draw up hybrid working models with their teams giving equal consideration to the diverse employee groups and team structures. In the reporting year we thus prioritized the idea of combining “the best of both worlds”: greater flexibility and autonomy through mobile working in combination with personal encounters in the office as the basis for identification and innovation. For example, we invested in transforming our offices into places of encounter and supported and motivated our employees to see each other in person again with measures like the T for Togetherness campaign. We also held the employee festival AWAK3 in June 2022 with this particular goal in mind. AWAK3 was an international festival at which employees could meet up with colleagues to see live concerts, play sports, and participate in workshops on innovative business topics and sustainability. The success of our activities is reflected, once again, in extremely high employee satisfaction and a consistently high level of employer attractiveness.
Employee satisfaction. Our engagement score, which is our measure of employee satisfaction, is calculated from data collected by the employee survey conducted every two years (excluding T‑Mobile US). We also conduct pulse surveys twice per year – or once in employee survey years – to obtain feedback from our employees. The most recent pulse survey, conducted in November 2022, returned a high engagement score of 78 points (2021: 77 points). With employee participation of 76 % (2021: 80 %), the results in many areas, such as Goals (93 %; 2021: 92 %), Strengths (90 %; 2021: 88 %), Purpose (86 %; 2021: 86 %), and Information (86 %; 2021: 86 %), were among the highest ever. The question on Mood or Satisfaction remains at the very high level of 81 % (2021: 80 %) following a significant increase to around this level during the coronavirus pandemic. To allow for qualitative answers, the survey included a free-text box in which employees could suggest things that would reinforce their commitment to their work. Questions were also asked on the Group. The highest values were recorded for the new topic added in 2022: No Discrimination & Safe Space (92 %); as well as for the topics Guiding Principles (91 %; 2021: 90 %) and Digital Collaboration (86 %; 2021: 86 %). Several initiatives are in place to further enhance employee satisfaction.
T‑Mobile US held separate employee surveys in March, June, and September 2022. The survey covers a broad spectrum of subjects designed to measure employee commitment and the corporate culture. Of the employees who were invited to take part in the most recent survey in September 2022, 54 % responded. The results show a high level of employee satisfaction: 86 % (2021: 86 %) said that their own team offers an inclusive working environment which is accepted by all colleagues, 79 % (2021: 83 %) are proud to work for their company, and 76 % (2021: 80 %) would recommend T‑Mobile US to others as an attractive employer. This is further borne out by the numerous accolades awarded to T‑Mobile US over the last few years for its status as a preferred employer. Like in 2021, the U.S. subsidiary was included on the Forbes list of America’s Best Employers. T‑Mobile US made it onto the Fortune 100 list of best employers for the fifth time. And for the tenth time in succession, T‑Mobile US achieved a top score of 100 in the Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index for its commitment to building an inclusive workplace for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer employees.
Employee health. 
Our health management strategy is designed to maintain and promote our employees’ health and performance. We view occupational health and safety legislation as minimum requirements. Our corporate culture encourages our employees to take responsibility for their own health. When the Covid-induced restrictions were lifted in 2022, the health rate in Germany declined to 93.8 % (including long-term illnesses), i.e., it returned to the pre-pandemic level. The Group applies a coordinated hygiene concept based on the recommendations of the Robert Koch Institute. Employees are regularly provided with information on dealing with the coronavirus. Since fall 2022, the focus of our vaccination offerings has shifted back to flu shots.
We continue to support our employees and managers by providing them with classroom and online formats covering topics such as leadership, remote collaboration, and preserving and enhancing resilience, and by offering confidential, anonymous advice on psychosocial problems via a dedicated helpline. In the 2022 financial year, a support service was set up for international employees affected by the war in Ukraine.
For further information on emergency aid for Ukraine provided in the Group, please refer to the section “Combined non-financial statement.”
The health promotion program also includes courses on nutrition, exercise, and relaxation (stress prevention, mindfulness). In 2022, the Federal Occupational Health Association (Bundesverband Betriebliches Gesundheitsmanagement – BBGM) awarded us a Best Practice Award in Germany for our #ausruhezeichen campaign to promote healthy sleep and recovery. On an international level, our OTE group in Greece received six awards relating to health and safety. These included accolades for promoting a culture of health and safety in areas of daily life for our employees through the long-running action program “Living better.” Awards were also received for initiatives, for example, on health and well-being, behavioral risks, and best crisis management.
In July 2021, T‑Mobile US was the first mobile provider to receive the WELL Health-Safety seal, which it also received in 2022. The seal is awarded based on a global assessment which ensures that spaces and sites comply with science-backed health and safety standards.
4. Leadership in digital tomorrow
Further developing the digital and tech skills of our managers is a crucial step towards successfully implementing our Group strategy. Not only that, but a modern leadership culture based on diversity and humanity is essential both for our Company’s long-term commercial success and for attracting and retaining talents. We therefore continued to pursue this strategic priority during the reporting year through the continual evolution of our leadership culture and through a range of leadership skilling programs.
Leadership culture. We believe that the ongoing development of our leadership culture within the Group has a positive effect on our employees and thus a direct impact on our success as a company. This is further borne out by the findings from the most recent survey, which identifies team attractiveness and a culture of trust as key factors driving employee satisfaction. Essentially, this culture must also be directly palpable in interpersonal interactions between managers and employees. In particular after a period with a lack of social interaction and contact during the coronavirus pandemic, we invested more in enabling personal encounters and in strengthening communities. One example of our efforts to facilitate dialog and networking, and to jointly drive forward the digital transformation, is the SpeedUP! days, which we held for the first time in 2022. This two-day event offered managers and top talents the opportunity to attend workshops and speak directly with experts to extend their digital skills, hone their thought processes, and learn new methodologies.
We value highly an environment in which our managers feel part of a leadership team. This drives us to invest not only in the transfer of skills and the teaching of methodologies, but also in strengthening our leadership communities, such as the Telekom Transformation Team (T3). T3 is a group of around 250 top-level managers from the Board of Management and the business leader team, as well as top talents from across all functions and segments of Deutsche Telekom. Its role, alongside members’ regular line responsibilities, is to drive forward the transformation of the organization. We support this community year-round with a combination of broad-based leadership programs and individual measures. Our current range of programs – EQ Master, Mountain Wisdom, Limitless, and Leadership Presence – are specifically designed to enable our top-level managers to unlock their full leadership potential. The T3 community also meets up once a year for an event dedicated to enhancing leadership skills and the understanding of the organization. This year, the event theme was “Trailblazers” to reflect qualities such as frontier spirit and the courage to take on pioneering roles within change processes. Another initiative in 2022 was the first digital format for the T3 community, called De-Mystifying Digital. A series of sessions of 60 to 90 minutes were offered covering data science, cloud computing, digital talent magnets, Web3, metaverse, and cybersecurity. A recording was made available on the internal leadership skilling platform levelUP!.
Leadership skilling. In the age of digitalization, managers must possess skills and methods that differ greatly from those needed in the analog world. That is why, since the start of the reporting year, we have been supporting not just our executives with levelUP!, our innovative digital further-training service; but we have extended the offering of training for successful leadership in the digital age to all managers. As a result, the number of managers registered on the platform grew to over 5,000 in 2022. levelUP! comprises modules that can be combined individually as required. Knowledge is shared primarily via interactive, digital learning formats in combination with classroom training and self-study materials. In 2022, our levelUP! offerings focused on the Leading Digital program. Eight skills were identified as the most important digital leadership skills at Deutsche Telekom: 1. Artificial intelligence, 2. Data science and analysis, 3. Cloud computing, 4. Computer hardware and networking, 5. Cyber and application security, 6. Computational thinking, 7. Software and programming languages, and 8. Collaboration and productivity software. levelUP! aims to teach these specific skills in a way that ensures all managers have a basic understanding of these key digital topics. The program comprises three phases: 1. Understanding the digital mindset, 2. Learning the eight key digital skills (beginner and advanced level), and 3. Applying and transferring the newly acquired skills and knowledge into practice.
T‑Mobile US offers a range of leadership skilling programs to promote a variety of talents and empower employees to achieve success at every stage of their career. Leadership development is supported by way of intensive and needs-based learning experiences in a portfolio that covers everything from onboarding and development within the role, to transition/top talent programs, coaching, assessments, and mentoring. Our goal is to offer programs which champion courageous, inspirational, target-oriented leaders who are capable of getting the best out of themselves and others.
Talent development. On our journey to becoming the Leading Digital Telco, a key priority for us are the talents in our Global Talent Hub (GTH). These talents are future managers and executives, and we help prepare them for the challenges ahead. The GTH consists of two pipelines: the “executive-ready pipeline” with no more than 200 talents at any one time who are immediately ready for and seeking an executive position within the company, and the new “raw diamond pipeline” with a maximum of 100 talents who have demonstrated leadership potential early on in their careers and are being guided under the talent program towards an executive position by way of a relevant career stepping stone. At present, 237 talents are being actively supported as part of this process. In both talent pools, we focus on employees in all positions who are striving to pursue a global, cross-segment, cross-border career within Deutsche Telekom. We also evaluate these talents with respect to their digital skills and mindset. Our talents are developed with an equal focus on their personal career advancement and on our ability to fill key positions within the Group with GTH talents faster. Specially trained talent brokers are invaluable in this context: they draw up personal development plans together with the talents, discuss career paths, facilitate networking among talents, raise their visibility, and actively recommend them for executive positions when a vacancy arises. In 2022, 57 Global Talent Hub participants signed an executive contract, i.e., 20 % of executive positions were filled with GTH talents in the reporting year (excluding T‑Mobile US).
Alongside the central initiatives, our operating segments also offer their own talent programs which specifically prepare employees to take on their first leadership duties within the segment. For example, the Europe operating segment runs a “30 under 30” program offering targeted support for very young leadership talents. The Germany segment offers a springboard program called OSD Talent Reise to prepare talents for the next phase of their career journey. This program teaches leadership skills in addition to focusing on expert careers.