Training and Development

Assignment

Submitted To: Dr. Arunachal Khusla

By: Mahbobullah Rahmani

 Learning and Career Development programs at
AT&T
Over the last decade, AT&T’s business has been changing at warp speed. Beginning in 2008,
when the executives started examining what kind of workforce skill AT&T would need to thrive
in this new Technology era, they faced a stark reality: that only about half of AT&T's 250000
employees had the necessary science, technology, engineering, and math skills the company
required.
Instead of laying down the current employees, the company comes up with a new strategy to
retrain their existing employees. According to AT&T, retrained employees are two times more
likely to be hired into one of their newer, mission-critical jobs and four times more likely to
make a career advancement.
We’ve evolved from a telephone company to a mobility company and now to an integrated
media and communications company. We’re committed to helping our employees develop the
skills that both they – and the company – need today and in the future. Our efforts focus on 4
main areas:
 Equipping and skilling employees
 Attracting critical talent
 Fostering high engagement
 Evolving compensation plans
These focus areas encompass a wide range of initiatives, including personalized training,
mentoring, and career development programs offered through our award-winning internal
training organization, AT&T University.
In 2019, they invested about $200 million in direct employee training and professional
development programs and delivered 16 million hours of training. The company works to inspire
a culture of continuous learning for all employees throughout their careers both new and old
ones.
The company culture promotes open feedback through the AT&T Performance Development
process, where employees and supervisors are encouraged to have regular conversations
throughout the year and all employees are encouraged to give and request feedback.

Some examples of our training and development programs and resources include:
AT&T University: Our internal training organization, AT&T University, works across our
business to create and deliver best-in-class training solutions that positively impact our
workforce – from frontline employees to senior executives.
AT&T University Leadership includes training in leadership skills, health and wellness, and
other corporate initiatives. Through multiple innovative delivery media, we offer more than 200
leadership and career courses, including partnerships with esteemed learning institutions.
Personalized Learning Experience (PLE): The PLE is a one-stop training resource that is
tailored to the needs and goals of each employee. It supports a continuous learning process,
giving employees an easy, personalized way to keep their skills relevant. This resource includes
job-title-specific training for either an employee’s current position or a desired position.
Virtual Studios Leader-Led Training: Virtual Studios enables live leader-led training to be
broadcast to learners across the globe. The Studios first opened in 2013 and now consists of 10
control rooms and 12 stages that are capable of running approximately 90 hours of live content
each day.
Real-Time Training: Real-Time Training, a dynamic methodology that uses machine learning,
delivers small-bite training content to individual employees to improve role-specific key
performance indicators (KPIs). We identify who needs training and when, as well as which
training solution is most likely to drive the greatest performance improvements for the
employee’s respective KPIs.
Advanced Learning Collaborations: AT&T continues to expand our internal employee
offerings by collaborating with external learning partners and top universities. For example,
more than 550 employees have earned either Fundamental and/or Advanced Cybersecurity
badges from Champlain College.
Tuition Reimbursement Program: Financial assistance is provided to management and non-
management employees pursuing academic degrees that benefit both the employee and the
company. In 2019, $18 million was invested in tuition assistance for both management and non-
management employees.3 More than 4,500 employees participated in the tuition reimbursement
program.4
Other Efforts: Warner Media offers leadership development programs and learning
opportunities to employees across levels of the company through a combination of internal and
external nomination-based programs. Tuition reimbursement programs are also in place. The
single most important measure of success – and the one AT&T leaders follow closely – is the
number of employees who take advantage of these resources to gain new skills and then move
into critical roles. Our internal applicants who have completed training as part of our continuous
learning and skilling efforts are much more likely to get a new job within the company than
internal applicants who have not done so, and they’re much more likely to make a career
advancement.
What I suggest:
According to the journals and news, AT&T one of the American’s largest telecommunication
companies has invested a huge amount of money in the training and development of their
employees. The decision was taken when the executives of the companies realize that their
employees are much under skilled and have less knowledge of current trends in the IT sector.

So, according to my viewpoint, the training and development programs should be continuously
done in any organization not in a situation when you realize that you're far behind the current
market trends. In such a situation getting back, your employees on track are very difficult and
you can’t expect a good result at once, though the company is currently coping up with the
challenges, Most companies can’t survive the same situation for instance Nokia Inc.
Based on AT&T training policies I suggest that the company should follow continuous learning
theory and social learning theory.
Because the continuous learning process as Micheal Mullan described in his book
"organizations address their core goals and tasks with relentless consistency, while at the same
time learning continuously how to get better at what they are doing”. Every organization must be
productive to survive, however, without identifying the need for change or change opportunities,
they run the risk of becoming obsolete, and therefore, non-existent. Following the theory helps
the company:
 To keep their employees updated with current market trends and skills
 Developing employees less expensive than hiring and retraining new employees
 Improves the image of the company as they value their employees' career development.

Social learning help organization’s your organization keep up with the pace at which your
business moves, nowadays more and more organization are turning to social learning to deliver
an exciting learning experience to employees. If AT&T incorporates social training in their
training programs then it will help the company to avoid huge expenses on training programs.
 Coaching and mentoring
 On job training
 Working with co-worker
 Discussion in social media
Employees can be engaged in discussion on social media with a different group of people and an
idea about recent trends. Thus, it will help the company in getting free suggestions from its
employees. Also by mentorship programs employees can easily learn from each other, and they
can easily apply their learning in their jobs and also it help to bring self-organization and
collaboration among employees.
The former is suggested for technological skill development of AT&T employees and the latter
one is suggested for better social interaction of employees. That helps to observe, learn and
incorporate good qualities in our employees.