Staff development
Swisscom perceives it as a vital part of an inspirational learning culture to give employees the freedom and self-management opportunities they need to grow and develop. As a pioneer in the field of digitalisation in Switzerland, Swisscom is dedicated to getting to grips with the working and learning models of the future so as to provide employees and managers with an environment in which they can develop and test these new skills. These include cross-functional squads and tribes – mixed teams which bring together all the skills and disciplines needed for execution and take the initiative in dividing their products with agile Employee-to-Employee (E2E) methods. Swisscom has also introduced the social operating system Holacracy in individual divisions which, by applying standardised rules, strengthens employees’ authority and self-organisation in their roles and circles and, at the same time, paves the way for particularly efficient decision-making processes.
Goal 8
DECENT WORK AND ECONOMIC GROWTH
All employees have access to a range of e-learning models in the Learning Centre and in various academies. These modules offer different types of courses ranging from leadership topics and specialist subjects (for example, IT, the cloud and business economics) all the way to overarching issues such as security, digitalisation and governance. More and more employees are developing their own learning packages and sharing their knowledge with their colleagues on platforms. Swisscom offers its employees a learning environment that incorporates digitalisation in the way the educational offering is structured and disseminated as well as in terms of its content. Besides basic ICT knowledge, Swisscom has also developed a wide range of role-specific learning content, including social media for sales and data centre strategies, which it has incorporated into the Learning Centre. In agreement with line managers, all employees have the opportunity to attend internal and external training programmes. Swisscom supports the efforts of its staff to develop their skills and talents as part of the development dialogue. At the same time, it relies on the personal initiative of individual employees to acquire and increase employability by taking suitable measures. It is the same with talent management: employees use their initiative and put themselves forward for talent programmes. They are not selected for the programme by their line managers, although they are certainly supported in their application by them. This process has proven successful, and Swisscom now manages to fill most vacant positions with internal staff.
Through all these measures, Swisscom makes a valuable contribution to promoting the employability of its staff and improving the competitiveness of the company itself. It also ensures that the individual organisations within the company adapt dynamically to the changes within their fields of activity. The number of further education and training days in 2017 amounted to 3.1 days per employee.