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 products and services, and by automating and digitalizing processes in a targeted way. At the same time, we are taking steps in all areas to permanently adapt our structures, processes, and ways of working to changing market conditions. 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 – with the aspiration of safeguarding competitive employment conditions for our employees in the long term.
Transformation initiatives. Over the course of the reporting year, we once again implemented essential transformation programs in the Group’s business areas, e.g., at Group Headquarters, within Telekom Deutschland’s business customer segment, as well as at Deutsche Telekom IT, the Group’s internal IT service provider. Care is always taken to implement all restructuring activities in a socially responsible manner. In August 2023, T‑Mobile US shared its plans to make organizational shifts, including reducing some corporate, back-office, and technology roles. These shifts impacted close to 5,000 positions, a little under 7 % of our total employees. Impacted roles were primarily duplicative to other roles or were aligned to systems or processes that are changing or did not fit with the current company priorities. In September 2023, these shifts were completed. In addition to severance payments based on tenure, impacted employees were given 60 days minimum of transition leave, during which time they remain part of our company headcount. Impacted employees were also offered a lifetime T‑Mobile discount for service, up to 2 years of access to tuition assistance, and for long time employees (20 years+) an enhanced tuition payment.
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. In Germany, for instance, global organizational structures and agile workflows in the T‑Systems corporate customer segment were continually refined, and an IT solution was piloted to transparently map agile working structures. 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. We thus not only promote sustainably customer-oriented and agile working methods, but are also able to respond quickly to change.
New employment prospects. Since the start of 2022, the next.JOB unit has been offering 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. In 2023, next.JOB significantly expanded its collaboration with Digitalization HEROES, an initiative of Deutsche Telekom IT (DT IT). The initiative offers employment prospects in the public or private sectors to DT IT employees whose skills are falling out of demand or are no longer needed at Deutsche Telekom due to the technological transition, but which are sought after outside of the Company. Together, next.JOB and Digitalization HEROES have organized numerous events and info calls for interested employees. In 2023, next.JOB enabled 276 successful permanent placements, many of which were with the German Federal Employment Agency.
As a founding member of the initiative Allianz der Chancen, we are actively shaping the transformation of the working world. Member organizations of the alliance offer 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 2023 the relevant companies rolled out numerous internal projects and also formulated common areas of operation and recommendations for action for a new working world.
2. Top tech and digital skills
According to a Korn Ferry Institute study, there will be 4.3 million vacant technical positions in the technology, media, and telecommunications industries by 2030. 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 have a strong demand for technical and digital skills. We respond to this challenge by ramping up our investments in recruiting, developing, and retaining talents with the requisite skills. In the reporting year we increased the percentage of digital experts within our workforce at the Group to 22 %, up from 19.7 % in the prior year. Thereby, we have already significantly exceeded our promise we made to the capital markets of reaching 17 % by 2024.
Employer brand. Competition on the labor market remains intense, especially in the IT and tech field. The employer market is increasingly turning into an employee market. Employers are now in a 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 models, international mobile working, innovative projects, and new technologies remain front and center.
Our employer value proposition (EVP) is aligned with the goal of strengthening our position as an international, attractive employer for top tech and digital talents. The EVP describes what current and prospective employees can expect from working at Deutsche Telekom. Building on this, 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, we help IT experts to discover career opportunities at Deutsche Telekom on various social media channels. The campaign was launched in 18 of our national companies in 2022, with further national companies added in the first half of 2023 (Slovakia, Greece, Romania, Czech Republic, and Hungary).
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. University partnerships and cooperation with strategic partners have been bundled under the Magenta Campus team with the aim of connecting with students directly. This team has initiated target group-specific measures at selected universities in Germany, and is set to scale up the campus portfolio throughout Europe. A Magenta Campus tour designed to strengthen our on-campus contact was held at seven locations, generating over 2,400 contacts and more than 150 recommendations for the Telekom Talent Pool. 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: in the reporting year, Deutsche Telekom once again won the Institute of Research & Data Aggregation’s Leading Employer Award. Our efforts to tailor our communication to specific target audiences are also bearing fruit: we were ranked #1 in Potentialpark’s Social Media Communication 2023 and Talent Communication studies, and took the top spot in the NetFed HR Benchmark. Our national companies also received accolades for their appeal as employers: for example, T‑Mobile Austria received the Kurier seal of quality “Favorite Employer 2023,” PwC named Magyar Telekom the most attractive employer in the telecommunications and media industries in Hungary, while T‑Mobile Czech Republic won the prize for top employer in the telecommunications sector.
Talent attraction. In the reporting year, despite the challenging situation on the global labor market, we attracted 10,725 new employees (excluding T‑Mobile US). Germany accounted for the largest share of these new hires, with 2,472 new team members. A sizable portion, namely 797 new technicians and 1,174 experts, were recruited for the fiber-optic build-out in Germany. A further 1,168 new employees were hired in India, primarily with the job profiles software developer, tester, technical product manager, and project management, making India one of the most important locations for attracting tech and digital talents. We also welcomed 1,916 new apprentices and dual students, a high percentage of whom with technical, digital, and IT profiles. 
For further information on training at Deutsche Telekom, please refer to the section “Investing in young talents.”
T‑Mobile US also made significant advances in recruitment and retention over the course of the reporting year. The company invested in programs intended to enable different routes to employment, since people often choose to press pause on their careers due to important life events or professional shifts. The Returnship program allows them to hit the start button again. Participants are provided with a dedicated career development and support system in order to build specific skills, take advantage of coaching and mentoring opportunities, and put together their own résumé over the course of the six-month program.
Our comprehensive recruitment strategy unites digitalization with personal commitment. We highly value direct exchange, so we attend careers fairs, networking sessions, and other events. Personal contact plays a key role, and we reward the successful recommendation by employees through our ExpertsHireExperts program with a EUR 2,500 bonus. This approach resulted in 788 new employees in 2023. We also rely on innovative recruitment measures such as events in the metaverse, and make use of artificial intelligence (AI). Our sourcing team placed 348 potential candidates onto the recruitment pathway using tools such as the AI-powered recruiting platform Eightfold. Assessment centers are integral to our recruitment strategy and serve as a powerful tool for selecting skilled employees and leaders. We also offer our employees seamless onboarding through our dedicated onboarding app (6,451 users in 2023), alongside innovative onboarding events, where we welcomed 772 people. Not only are these measures essential for integrating new employees rapidly, they also help us retain our talents long term. This combination of initiatives is a reflection of our forward-looking approach and empowers us to attract talents effectively.
We use a blend of traditional and innovative approaches to recruitment to strengthen our position as a global employer. Our T‑Hub strategy in Europe aims to unlock new labor markets using a cross-segment structure with attractive locations. These hubs offer a home for top tech and digital talents. Our goal is to offer these talents an inspiring work environment, challenging projects, and cross-segment training and career opportunities. The existing hubs are being optimally networked to effectively serve future demand for tech and digital skills. By strategically linking our locations, we are creating an optimized talent attraction strategy that strengthens our global presence and ensures that we can continue to satisfy the growing demand for tech and digital skills.
In 2023, T‑Mobile US’ Being Un-carrier onboarding program provided support for over 1,558 new hires and their managers in the form of streamlined communication, online resources, live orientation sessions, and special offerings on benefits as well as diversity, equity, and inclusion. Furthermore, a new leader onboarding program was developed in October 2022 for new hires joining in leadership roles as well as internal employees that are promoted into leadership roles. The program supported 159 new leaders in 2023 with targeted communication, online resources, and live orientation sessions.
Investing in young talents. Investing in our own young employees is key to safeguarding the skills we need as a company. We welcomed 1,916 new apprentices and dual students in Germany, a high percentage of whom with technical and IT profiles. We believe the key to attracting the younger generation is to understand what they want and need from their work, and systematically act in alignment with this. To this end, we worked with leading social and educational research scientist Prof. Klaus Hurrelmann and the FiBS Research Institute for the Economics of Education and Social Affairs to survey all young professionals at Deutsche Telekom. Our representative study, Be A Future Maker, gives us valuable insights into what Gen Zers expect from their future employers. As a training provider, we addressed both the study findings and the fact that a large portion of the younger generation is worried when it comes to choosing their professional training by incorporating the following changes and offerings in the reporting year: Under the motto “new recruiting,” we integrate career guidance directly into the recruitment process. Applicants can now apply to work for us without having decided for a specific career. Together with the applicant, we find the best fit for them in our training and study portfolio. This approach puts applicants at the center of the process, removes the need for a cover letter, for example, and expedites our selection process. New Recruiting is also receiving industry accolades: our paradigm shift won us first place in the Trendence Award in the category Best Candidate Experience. Thanks to our DiscoverMINT@Telekom orientation program offering internships in the STEM field, we won the Personalwirtschaftspreis in the category Training and Studies. For the fourth time in succession, 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” in 2023. We were also ranked Germany’s best training provider by Focus Money magazine, and received the seal of quality Top IT training provider from Chip magazine. We additionally won accolades for our marketing to school students: in March 2023, we came top in Potentialpark’s Talent Communication Study, with awards for our career website, online application, and social media platforms.
Our Start up! trainee program has been championing young talents since 2008, with a focus on university graduates in the STEM fields as well as business and economics. A total of 622 graduates have already joined Deutsche Telekom via this program, which has a current cohort of 83 trainees. We plan to hire 77 new Start up! trainees each year over the coming years as a further long-term investment in young talents. The 18-month program starts on a rolling 3-month basis and offers plenty of scope for trainees to develop in their own direction and flexibly shape their own learning path. As part of an elective focus subject – including public and regulatory affairs, technology and innovation, Group Development/M&A, finance, in-house consulting, Human Resources, and more – our trainees go through five core phases. An intensive onboarding bootcamp is followed by various project assignments, work with customers, exploratory work in new business areas, and a project phase at one of our national companies. Trainees are encouraged to grow and develop continually through access to a variety of modern learning formats. Their professional and intercultural skills are nurtured in domestic and international projects and experiences abroad. In 2023, we placed 56 % of program graduates in positions in the future-relevant fields of technology and digitalization.
Investing in young talents is also of particular importance for our Europe operating segment, and remains a key priority in our commitment to promoting growth and innovation. The diversity of our initiatives reflects the diversity of our national companies: Since 2006, T‑Mobile Austria has provided 590 young people with training as customer experts/retail sales specialists with a focus on telecommunications. The goal of the vocational training program Magenta Lehre is to safeguard the best retail employees both now and in the future. Around 800 people applied for the 40 positions across Austria in 2023. The IT INCUBATOR trainee program at T‑Mobile Czech Republic and Slovak Telekom aims to secure young talents for the future. 29 people were hired in key positions across all areas of the company in 2023, including IT and tech. Bridging the gap between academia and the business world has always been a priority for the OTE group. Every year, it takes part in over 50 careers events organized by local universities, offers scholarships to 30 students each year (with over 750 scholarships provided to date in the context of a program), organizes company visits to leading Greek and U.S. universities, and provides placements for more than 620 interns. The OTE group’s project “Strong links with Academic & Tech Communities” developed targeted strategies for recruiting and acquiring talents with IT and digital profiles, for which it won bronze at the 2023 HR Awards in Greece. Magyar Telekom in Hungary launched the fourth edition of its Kickstart trainee program in September 2023. University graduates meeting specific profiles (focus on tech and digital) can apply for the 12-month learning journey, at the end of which the goal is to win them long term for the company. Crnogorski Telekom works closely with local universities, including the University of Montenegro and Cortex Academy, to attract young tech talents by offering students internship opportunities, project experience, mentoring, and participation in trade fairs. Crnogorski Telekom is also a partner of the Erasmus+ program, which aims to strengthen the dual study model in Montenegro. T‑Mobile Polska is driving innovation with the introduction of a year-long program for high-potential university graduates, called Magenta Talents Squad. The first cohort graduated in March 2023 and 6 talents were taken on as permanent employees in various different functions. The second cohort began in September 2023. Of the 282 candidates who applied, 7 were selected. With the goal of building up a broad-based pipeline of leadership talents with a focus on covering a wider age spectrum, our Europe operating segment offers the “30 under 30” program for young talents with leadership potential from all national companies. The 9 first-wave participants set out on their full-time learning journey in September 2022 and will finish in March 2024. The selection process for the second wave began in 2023.
Against the background of the tense market for skilled professionals, the Graduate program at T‑Systems is a talent initiative designed to attract and retain employees. Participants of the five-month program for STEM graduates can elect to pursue one of two paths: tech or digital. During both learning journeys, participants obtain relevant certifications and gain initial professional experience through project assignments in which they train to become our future IT consultants or IT architects. The Graduate program launched in 2023 with 34 participants. T‑Systems also supports STEM skills prior to joining the company. T‑Systems is a founding partner to “42 Berlin,” a coding academy that opened in Berlin in early December 2022. The academy follows an innovative concept that does not involve professors, exams, or lectures. Instead, it creates a framework in which students can develop their own projects, individually and in groups. Age, origin, and previous education are explicitly ignored; everyone gets a chance to start programming. T‑Systems hired eight interns from “42 Berlin” in the reporting year, two of whom started in March and have since been taken on permanently. We have eight expert fellows who represent T‑Systems in schools, support the interns, and provide mentoring.
T‑Mobile US’ Apprenticeship program helps individuals who may not have a degree from a university or meaningful work experience gain relevant skills through classroom instruction and hands-on experience by working at the company. T‑Mobile US gained a total of 16 employees in 2023 thanks to this program. The Explorer Prep high school program, completed by 36 students during the reporting year, enables high-performing high school students to participate in a certificate program with local community colleges to earn college credits and a certificate in a technology-related focus.
Employee development and skilling. We have laid the foundation for the necessary skill transformation in our Company by creating central HR 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 enables us to identify reskilling needs early on and, taking changing market conditions into account, 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. This offered skill transparency and guidance for some 68,000 employees in the Group in 2023. The central HR instruments thus form the basis Group-wide for comprehensive training tailored to specific business requirements. The majority of our employees’ development takes place in the respective segments of Deutsche Telekom. Targeted skilling initiatives in these areas in the reporting year resulted in 8,600 new- and upskilling measures, such as in academies run by our Technology and Innovation Board of Management department, or in the Systems Solutions and Germany operating segments. A key focus was on developing and enhancing technical and digital skills (top tech and digital skills) of our employees. Of particular relevance are the following job profiles: DevOps, software and cloud engineers; solution architects and designers; and data scientists.
With a view to building towards these future profiles, another massive push was made at Group level in 2023 to promote basic understanding in these areas. The internationally available Explorer Journeys deliver initial insights and knowledge in the areas of software development, AI, data analytics, digital market, and user experience. The program has attracted over 21,000 employees since it was launched in 2021. A major focus in 2023 was on generative AI. Almost immediately following the market launch of AI chatbot ChatGPT, initial learning sessions were offered to all employees starting June 2023. A total of over 66,000 employees took part in training courses on AI in 2023. In pursuit of strategically important job profiles, further skilling measures that build on the Group-wide offerings are being implemented in special programs at segment level.
In other words, Deutsche Telekom invests a great deal in making learning as attractive as possible for employees. In the reporting year, employees in Germany and our national companies in Europe invested a total of 3.8 million learning hours, of which 52 % were specifically devoted to technical and digital skills. With a learning rate of around 73 %, digital learning is firmly established as a learning tool at Deutsche Telekom. Over 164,000 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 2023, experts shared their knowledge with other colleagues in over 5,650 online LEX sessions.
T‑Mobile US also offers a wide range of learning and development opportunities and thus encourages each and every employee to keep learning and developing their skills over the course of their whole career. Through strategic investments in key areas of their professional development and learning, employees are well-equipped for their current tasks and growth opportunities at T‑Mobile US. T‑Mobile US offers a line-up of development programs and resources to build diverse talent and empower employees to succeed through every step of their career. This includes access to thousands of topics, trainings, resources, and learning paths, primarily through two learning platforms Percipio and FranklinCovey. The “new! Magenta U” learning experience platform allows learners to choose from a range of popular topics such as developing emotional intelligence, inspiring innovation and creativity, expert insights on mentoring, and much more. Employees invested a total of 4.4 million hours in training and upskilling in 2023.
T‑Mobile US also offers its employees the chance to take part in a Day of Learning, which a large number of learners took advantage of in the reporting year. Employees have the opportunity to hear from external experts about relevant, timely topics which were chosen to strengthen their skills. The day is not only inspiring but gives employees tools and ideas that can be used right away, regardless of their role in the company. 32 people took part in 2023, CareerTraX, a nine-month cross-functional rotational program that gives employees the opportunity to get to know another part of the business and gain new skills. This development program, which focuses on skills and strengths, drives career mobility within the company, while also allowing employees to make career shifts and apply their skillset to tackle new challenges. This strengthens the workforce and also helps the company retain talent over the long term. T‑Mobile US’ Career Ride-Along program offers a similar opportunity, giving employees the chance to spend multiple days job shadowing, with networking, coaching, and one-on-one time with employees and leaders from the team they aspire to work in. 34 employees took advantage of this opportunity during the reporting year. The Early-in-Career Experience program is a two-year, full-time experience that prepares participants to transition into an associate role within T‑Mobile US’ technology team. Within the framework of this program, which over 220 participants completed in 2023, employees receive ongoing career development through technical boot camps, workshops, and training certifications.
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 – Connections,” this year’s Living Culture Day took place at a location outside Germany again, this time in Košice. More than 6,500 teams and participants watched the live stream of the event. There was a strong social media presence on external networks, with around 47,500 posts, as well as comments and likes. Our internal communication platform YAM registered 82,000 views. The Telekom Team Award is an international award which is based on our Guiding Principles and aims to recognize outstanding performance as a team. In 2023, a total of 10 winning teams were chosen from among 199 entries from 15 countries. The winners will receive their awards at a special ceremony in February 2024.
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 45 % (December 31, 2022: 50 %) of positions on the Supervisory Board and 37.5 % (December 31, 2022: 37.5 %) of positions on the Board of Management of Deutsche Telekom AG at the end of 2023, 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 27.9 % at the end of 2023 (December 31, 2022: 28.1 %). To ensure we 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. These measures are also particularly relevant in the context of our succession planning and recruitment activities. We strive to achieve balanced, diverse management teams, especially in respect of age, gender, and (inter)national origin.
T‑Mobile US, too, strives to safeguard and further build on the diversity within its workforce in respect of gender, age, and national origin. As part of its Equity in Action approach, T‑Mobile US continues to extend its employee reach and development programs targeting women and under-represented talent. This approach supports the inclusive values inherent in T‑Mobile US’ culture and creates a company environment of belonging. T‑Mobile US has launched customized diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) strategic plans for business functions that are aligned to the pillars of Equity in Action – talent, culture, brand, and digital equity. The DE&I strategic plans for the business functions include objectives, key results, measurements, and tactics to help close potential gaps. T‑Mobile US’ success measures include diverse talent slates (applicants, interviews, and hires), participation in development programs, internal career movement, employee engagement, supplier diversity, and investments in the community through Volun‑T Grants and Project 10Million.
Furthermore, T‑Mobile US has embedded the topic of DE&I into the learning opportunities offered to employees as well as intentionally integrated it into the promotion process: the One Team Together Learning Journey is a company-wide learning journey designed to strengthen the habits and behaviors needed to empower each other, build connections and belonging, and inspire one another to win together. With Lead Magenta Next, T‑Mobile US has also initiated a program aimed at putting under-represented talent at the intersection of sponsorship, readiness, and opportunity. It is designed to help develop under-represented talents and strengthen diversity at leadership level. T‑Mobile US also offers the McKinsey Executive Leadership program to support ethnic minorities, focusing on the development of executive leadership capabilities, while driving transformative personal and professional growth. Additionally, T‑Mobile US demonstrates its commitment to diversity by supporting numerous employee networks which aim to celebrate the employees’ diversity and backgrounds.
Germany, too, has many employee networks. Since 2023, these networks have been addressing all seven diversity dimensions. Our commitment is further underscored by international and segment-specific initiatives, such as our women’s networks in the countries and segments. In 2023, the latter came together for a first-ever joint global network meeting.
We employ numerous measures and products to create an inclusive workplace for all. In 2021, we implemented a revised Group Policy on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion internationally. We developed this further in 2022 by way of our Group Inclusion Agreement and the Action Plan 2.0, and thereby laid the foundation for a shared framework of values, which continues to apply for all employees. In this way, we help to support and safeguard compliance with our diversity values in all decision-making activities and actions at all Group levels.
We raise employee awareness through training courses on topics such as unconscious bias, anti-racism, and gender diversity. Additionally, we worked with our employees in the reporting year to develop and pilot accessible e-learning to deliver a basic understanding of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Global rollout in ten languages is planned for 2024. We sent a further signal of our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion with the publication of the Transgender Handbook in 2022, which was available to all employees in the reporting year. It aims not only to increase transgender visibility and awareness, but also to offer practical support. We are also taking action to improve inclusion in the workplace, for instance, by establishing gender-neutral restrooms, quiet zones, and prayer rooms, and by incorporating inclusion into our IT systems. Likewise, we actively support the career aspirations of women, for example, with the FOM/DTAG Women’s Forum, or our women’s network meeting with Deutsche Bahn, where we are promoting dialog and mutual learning in respect of the advancement of women under the motto “together for the future.” We also offer general support through services such as mentoring programs (“Karriere mit Kind”, child and career), flexible working models, child care services, and advisory services for those caring for family members.
Since 2022, we have included questions on employees’ perception of equal opportunities and inclusion in our employee survey with the goal of making the effectiveness of our measures transparent and traceable. In the last survey from November 2023, the value for No Discrimination was 91 % and for Equal Opportunities 86 %. In the reporting year, we successfully piloted a voluntary, anonymous survey on self-identification in three countries to support data-driven decisions and measures. Over 50 % of employees took part. Implementation of this survey at global level is planned for 2025.
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 2023. In the reporting year, Deutsche Telekom AG ran the Shares2You program in Germany for a third 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 is gradually being rolled out internationally, and in the reporting year was offered in a total of ten national companies in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania. 38,637 employees invested a total of EUR 36.4 million under Shares2You in 2023. The shares were transferred in October 2023.
New work & hybrid working. Actively shaping an attractive, hybrid working world and providing our employees with comprehensive support during this journey remain one of our strategic goals. 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. At the same time, we continue to invest in transforming our offices into places of encounter, identification, and innovation. We took another step towards greater workplace flexibility with the Group works agreement on Magenta Office, which was signed in October 2023. The booking zones within the office buildings have been removed, and a large portion of our office spaces converted into shared spaces. Employees can now book workplaces and rooms via a standardized booking tool available to everyone. And with all Magenta Office buildings in Germany gradually being made available to employees, they will be able to work remotely at an office close to their home. Employees additionally have the option to work from other European countries for up to 20 working days a year.
Employee satisfaction. Our engagement score, which is our measure of employee satisfaction, is calculated from the data collected by the employee survey, which as of late is conducted every two years, and the pulse surveys (both excluding T‑Mobile US). The employee survey was not carried out in the reporting year on account of a change in service provider, and has instead been rescheduled for 2024. The pulse survey is carried out twice a year, or once a year in years when the employee survey is carried out. The most recent pulse survey from November 2023 returned a high engagement score of 76 points (2022: 78 points). With employee participation of 77 % (2022: 76 %) and top values in areas such as Goals (92 %; 2022: 93 %), Code of Conduct (92 %; 2022: 91 %), No Discrimination & Safe Space (91 %; 2022: 92 %), Strengths (90 %; 2022: 90 %), Purpose (86 %; 2022: 86 %), and Failure Culture (86 %; 2022: 84 %), our results were outstanding. The question on Mood or Satisfaction remains at the high level of 78 % (2022: 81 %) and is above comparable benchmarks. 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. Three further free-text boxes were added in 2023 which employees can use to give feedback on the topics of Career Development, Culture of Trust, and Team Attractiveness. We continue to pursue a range of initiatives to further increase employee satisfaction.
T‑Mobile US conducted an employee survey in April 2023 covering a wide range of topics which helped to gage employee engagement and the prevailing corporate culture. 60 % of employees participated in this survey (2022: 54 %). The results show a high level of employee satisfaction: 86 % (2022: 86 %) said that their own team offers an inclusive working environment which is accepted by all colleagues, 82 % (2022: 79 %) are proud to work for their company, and 80 % (2022: 76 %) would recommend T‑Mobile US to others as an attractive employer. This has also been confirmed by the many prizes T‑Mobile US has scooped up in the past few years as an employer of choice: T‑Mobile US took first place out of the 400 companies included in USA Today’s very first America’s Climate Leaders list, reflecting the company’s commitment to reducing its ecological footprint. T‑Mobile US was also included in CDP’s Supplier Engagement Leaderboard and counts among the top 8 % of companies assessed for supplier engagement around climate change. In the Axios Harris Poll on the most visible brands in the United States in 2023, T‑Mobile US was ranked as best telecommunications service provider with regards to the company’s reputation. Furthermore, T‑Mobile US is one of 545 companies which received a score of 100 in the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index 2023/2024. T‑Mobile US has once again been designated a Military Friendly Employer and received a score of 100 % in the Disability:IN Disability Equality Index.
Employee health and well-being. 
Our company health management strategy is designed to maintain and promote our employees’ health and performance. We view occupational health and safety legislation as minimum requirements. We foster a corporate culture that encourages our employees to take responsibility for their own health, and offer services and other measures to help improve their well-being.
The health rate in 2023 was 94.3 % (including long-term illnesses). Since 2023, following the end of the coronavirus pandemic, our employees began returning in greater numbers to the office, while continuing to work partly remotely. In response to the greater flexibility of our employees in the face of changed conditions, we made changes that included adapting the fire safety assistant concept, and developed and introduced an app for our employees to call first aiders. We won a business award for this app: the German Stevie Award.
We continue to support our employees and managers by providing them with classroom and increasingly with online formats covering topics such as leadership, hybrid collaboration, and preserving and enhancing resilience, and by offering confidential, anonymous advice on psychosocial problems via a dedicated helpline. The advisory service set up in 2022 for international employees affected by the war in Ukraine was expanded in 2023 to include, for example, support for employees or their relatives affected by the catastrophic earthquakes in Turkey and Syria.
For further information on emergency aid provided in the Group, please refer to the section “Combined non-financial statement.”
Our portfolio also includes courses on nutrition, exercise, and relaxation (stress prevention, mindfulness) to support employees’ mental and physical well-being. In 2023, we implemented organizational well-being initiatives to support our culture, transformation, and leadership, including action to promote emotional intelligence. Teams were guided through incorporating mindfulness habits and emotional intelligence skills, with the goal of improving commitment. We also use mini-interventions as organizational development techniques designed to have a positive impact on the workday. The One Minute to Arrive initiative won the Merits Award. On an international level, for example, our OTE group in Greece received ten awards relating to health, safety, and well-being. These included accolades for its health and safety culture in the workplace, and the development of individual measures to improve employees’ physical and mental health and well-being. Awards were also received for initiatives on health and well-being, behavioral risks, and crisis management.
In July 2021, T‑Mobile US was the first mobile provider to receive the WELL Health-Safety seal, which it has maintained ever since. The seal is awarded based on a global rating for ensuring spaces and sites adhere to science-backed health and safety standards.
4. Leadership in digital tomorrow
Further developing the digital and tech skills of our managers makes a crucial contribution to 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 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 also on our success as a company. This is further borne out by the findings from the most recent pulse 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 the interpersonal interactions of managers and employees. The cultural guidelines for our managers are contained in our Leadership Anchors, which were implemented Group-wide in the reporting year, and serve to translate our Guiding Principles into leadership action. As role models, our managers must meet high cultural expectations within the organization in line with their role and responsibility.
Our six Leadership Anchors
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, and Leadership Presence – are specifically designed to enable our top-level managers to unlock their full leadership potential. The digital format series, De-Mystifying Digital, which addresses digital innovation topics and provides a platform for discussion, also continued in 2023.
Under the motto “out of the comfort zone,” the Board of Management and the BLT visited Finland at the start of the reporting year to gain ideas and inspiration – for the journey to become Leading Digital Telco – from the nation’s innovation ecosystem and vibrant start-up scene, its advanced digitalization and training, as well as from its culture and nature.
T‑Mobile US’ approach to leadership, “How we lead,” ensures that every leader is operating from the same playbook, creating consistent, positive experiences for employees. It is grounded in T‑Mobile US’ corporate values and focused on helping leaders meet both their teams’ and customers’ expectations as well as expectations concerning their own personal development in order to guarantee the company’s continued success.
Performance management. WeGrow, our modern performance management system that enables ongoing development dialog between managers and employees, focuses on our employees’ personal development. Annual talent conferences, or People Days, additionally provide a dedicated platform for dialog on talents and candidates who are ready for the next development step. This enables management teams to take targeted action to promote employee skilling in their areas in line with future challenges, and ensure the right people are placed in the right jobs. Close integration with the skill management system rolled out in many areas further helps WeGrow to position the future skilling of employees front and center. Following the first rollouts in 2022, WeGrow was implemented in 2023 for the around 70,000 employees covered by collective agreements and active civil servants in Germany, and is now used for around 133,000 employees in over 20 countries. In other words, Deutsche Telekom has its first-ever consistent and standardized performance development system. Internal customer satisfaction is once again up year-on-year to 7.1, putting it slightly above the target value of 7.0.
Since 2023, a team has additionally been working to deliver methods for the structured development of team performance, e.g., for analyzing and improving team dynamics. The plan for 2024 is to further integrate these approaches in the existing HR product portfolio and ensure customer-centric availability. Managers and employees will thus have access to a systematic approach to promoting and developing the performance of both individuals and teams at Deutsche Telekom through targeted action.
Leadership skilling. As technology advances and digitalization continues apace, managers must possess skills and methods that differ greatly from those needed in the analog world. To this end, we continued to support all managers in the reporting year with a wide range of services through levelUP!. The number of leaders registered on the platform grew to over 8,500 in 2023. A key focus in the reporting year was on teaching more about AI. Our leaders were able to access a wide variety of training courses on a dedicated AI hub page. We also offered the speedUP! format once again in 2023, this time with the spotlight on AI: at this two-day learning and networking event, participants had the opportunity to attend workshops and speak directly with AI experts to extend their digital skills, hone their thought processes, and learn new methodologies. The AI Explorer Summit presented a range of work- and customer-related AI topics, and described the associated concepts and development processes involved. More than 500 leaders at Deutsche Telekom took part in this virtual event.
Alongside AI-specific training courses, the levelUP! platform offered training on further digital hard skills in the reporting year: these 60- to 90-minute sessions were held online and in-person, and offered leaders the opportunity to learn about data science, critical and computational thinking, cloud computing, cybersecurity, and more. The new virtual long-term learning format Accelerate Yourself is designed to help leaders further strengthen their digital skills. The program customizes to the needs of the individual leader in line with their role.
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 immersive and needs-based learning experiences across a portfolio ecosystem that covers everything from onboarding and in-role development, to transition/top talent programs, coaching, assessments, and mentorships. The goal is to offer programs which champion courageous, inspiring, purpose-driven leaders who can bring out the best in themselves and others. BetterUp provides leaders with an opportunity to select and work with an external coach in order to set goals for themselves and create plans to meet those goals. 140 leaders took advantage of this offer in 2023. During the reporting year, a total of 131 leaders took part in the LeaderShift to People Manager training, a comprehensive career development program intended to help participants grow people leader skills. The monthly Manager Mastery deep dive session on advanced leadership topics such as team development, business acumen, and leadership communications was attended by 332 leaders in 2023. In addition to this, 199 leaders completed the ExecOnline program in 2023. This program supports leaders who are transitioning roles, readying for the next level, or are ready to increase leadership competencies.
Talent development. On our journey to becoming the Leading Digital Telco, a key priority for us are the talents in our Global TalentHub (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 “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, 190 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 2023, 35 Global TalentHub participants signed an executive contract, i.e., 22 % of executive positions were filled with GTH talents in the reporting year (excluding T‑Mobile US). We are also intensifying the connection between talent development and succession planning to identify career paths early on. In 2023, more than 79 % of our active talents are already on executive succession planning pathways.
After the successful launch of levelUP!NextGeneration in 2019, we not only offered the program again in the reporting year in digital format, but went one step further and substantially expanded the scope. While still a program for talents, including (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 900 employees from across the globe, including around 594 (prospective) managers and just under 260 tech and digital experts from 18 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.
Alongside the central initiatives, our Germany, Europe, and Systems Solutions operating segments, plus the Technology and Innovation Board department, 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. In our Germany operating segment, the OSD Talent Reise springboard program is preparing 1,025 participants for the next phase of their career journey. This program teaches leadership skills in addition to focusing on expert careers.
5. HR IT & data-driven HR
Technology has proved to be instrumental in driving improvements in the efficiency, agility, and competitiveness of our organization. In Human Resources, powerful HR systems are essential for implementing our strategic priorities. Yet today’s HR IT landscape within the Group is shaped by heterogeneous legacy structures and disparate data models. In the reporting year, we defined a simplified HR IT target architecture. We have also seen AI emerge this year as a force to be reckoned with in the technology world. From selecting applicants to developing employees, AI is capable of improving HR process efficiency across the board. We began looking at the opportunities and risks of AI early on and have already integrated initial elements into the blueprint for our future HR IT. Several of the elements of this IT architecture are described below for illustrative purposes.
Implementation of AI applications. We introduced Eightfold in selected companies in the reporting year. Eightfold is a talent intelligence platform that enables us to make recruitment and skill management more dynamic and personalized through the use of AI. In the solution’s marketplace, AI matches requirements profiles from advertised positions and projects with the profiles of employees and applicants in a pre-selection phase. The tool identifies individual training recommendations based on skill profiles to support employees’ individual and personal development. Another example of how we use generative AI in HR is the pilot of a chat-based employee concierge, which can answer general questions relating to HR products and services. This is yet another example of how Deutsche Telekom uses AI responsibly. While we leverage the benefits offered by a large language model available on the market for text generation, the database is subject to strict data privacy requirements.
T‑Mobile US, too, is concentrating on the transition to an AI-enabled, data-driven future. AI and data are used within HR to improve the employee experience, reshape the way we work, and elevate the corporate culture. AI is currently being leveraged in all kinds of ways, e.g., to enhance the search functionality on various platforms, to provide customized and personalized experiences, for in-depth data analysis, to automate predictable tasks using bots, or to write complex code. One example of this is the Mentor Match platform, which uses machine learning to review user profile information and suggest strong mentoring matches based on user needs and requests. This allows for the most profound and meaningful mentoring experience for employees.
Data-driven HR work. In addition to integrating AI, we also use extended analytical models to analyze large data volumes with greater precision and gain the necessary insights for sound decision-making in HR management and development. One outcome in the reporting year was the introduction in some companies of a system for analyzing employee departures and making predictions about, e.g., unwanted staff churn. This also involves developing a standardized data catalog as the basis for a uniform data pool within the Group. The next step is to implement and establish further reporting and analytics capabilities in 2024.
People experience. As all areas of life become digitalized, what employees need and expect from HR products and services is changing significantly. We respond to this by explicitly focusing on the people experience as integral to the further development of our HR products and services. Through specifically promoting the people experience in the HR portfolio, employees and managers are able to complete their HR tasks with greater productivity and efficiency. A positive people experience helps us to strengthen the employer brand, enhance employee loyalty, and improve the attractiveness of the workplace. We have introduced apps in several international units to give our employees quick and easy access to our HR products and services. With 33 services, the most extensive of these apps is currently available in Germany and is used regularly by more than 52,000 employees – a real success story.