Staff development

Swisscom’s market environment is constantly changing. The company thus invests accordingly in targeted professional training for employees and managers in order to improve their employability and the company’s competitiveness in the long term. Employees are supported in their development by a wide range of on- and off-the-job training options as well as internal programmes and courses covering specialist, management and project management topics. As part of talent management, around 10% of the top performers from the target groups have completed a corresponding internal programme. In 2013, Swisscom also further developed the language skills of its employees in the country’s national languages as part of an initiative implemented throughout Switzerland. Swisscom welcomes employees who want to take advantage of individual, advanced external training opportunities and supports such efforts financially and with respect to working hours. In the year under review, staff spent 72,136 days on training and development in Switzerland.

The Swisscom “management compass” serves as an orientation tool for management and, among other things, defines employee development as a management task. Swisscom has also created an orientation tool at Group level for training and development within the company, which heightens the general commitment towards training and development in the digital world. It promotes regular dialogue between employees and management, which facilitates the agreement and realisation of medium-term development measures. In this context, Swisscom has standardised the training offerings of Swisscom IT Services Ltd for the various target groups at Group level.

Swisscom continues to develop its Performance Management System in line with requirements with a view to assessing and promoting employee achievements. At the start of 2013, Swisscom launched “My Performance” across the Group as part of which fair and broad-based performance evaluations based on mandatory objectives are conducted thereby helping to implement occupational development projects. On the basis of coordinated agreements on objectives, all managers systematically discussed the performance and potential development steps for the employees entrusted to them in so-called “calibration rounds”. These rounds support both succession planning for key functions as well as the placement of talents beyond individual divisions, consistent with Swisscom’s strategic positioning as a trustworthy partner in a digital world and the concrete requirements that all employees have to fulfil.

A mentoring programme encourages professional and personal discussions between talents and the members of the Group Executive Board, while the Leadership Forum offers an important platform for management issues.

Employee training in general and in the area of corporate responsibility

Swisscom trains its employees continuously. In 2013, employees attended an average of 4.2 days (33 hours) of training and/or further occupational development. Swisscom also regularly trains employees on a wide range of corporate responsibility issues. For example, Swisscom raises awareness of ecological and social issues among new hires at its Welcome Days, Swisscom held a corporate responsibility (CR) training course for the first time in 2013. This training programme for employees from the Residential Customer segment has been newly developed for Swisscom. Pilot sessions were conducted with 14 employees.

Corporate volunteering

Corporate volunteering is the term used to describe voluntary work carried out by employees for charitable causes. Swisscom encourages this commitment by allowing its employees to do this during paid working hours and offering them the chance to help out with various projects in the fields of nature (Nature Days), social responsibility (Social Days) and economy (Economy Days). Swisscom employees can now dedicate up to two days of their working time to voluntary work each year. A total of 1,330 volunteer days were clocked up in 2013.