Employee Development
Keeping the best and brightest
Retaining great people requires supporting them in their lives outside of work. Sometimes that means teaching them new skills and providing fresh challenges. Other times it’s as simple as organizing a family movie outing or a night at the cricket field. Our comprehensive work-life programs, combined with our broad and deep education and training opportunities, help make Qualcomm a more engaging and satisfying place to work.
Sharpening skills and building careers
Through career coaching and a comprehensive range of resources and trainings, we strive to increase our employees’ job satisfaction by helping them develop skills, find new challenges and advance their careers. Our Learning Center is central to that effort—online and in-person. The Learning Center’s team of experts deliver development opportunities that help employees worldwide keep pace with the rapidly evolving wireless industry. Through training, presentations, resources, referrals and more, the Learning Center supports our employees’ development of engineering technical, professional and leadership skills. The Center’s website is a portal connecting employees with learning opportunities, professional resources and tools for mapping and managing their career development.
Qualcomm Learning Center in 2011
49,400 enrollments
660 instructor-led courses
700 online courses
In 2011, among other initiatives, our Learning Center:
- Worked with Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer Dr. Paul E. Jacobs and the executive team to implement new “leadership dimensions” for all Qualcomm leaders. The new dimensions are an evolution of our leadership philosophy and integrate the values that have been at the core of our management approach since our founding. They provide a touchstone and roadmap for managers as they lead Qualcomm into its next decade of innovation.
- Implemented online learning tools that let our instructors more easily reach employees worldwide.
- Collaborated with our Military Veterans Employee Resource Group, our Global Diversity and Inclusion team and other Qualcomm departments in offering a corporate assimilation program for wounded military veterans. Learning Center staff provided training in communication and corporate management skills to help 10 wounded vets make the transition from military life to a career in a business environment. For 10 weeks, the vets were hired as part-time employees and paired with mentors from our Military Veterans Employee Resource Group. They networked with Qualcomm employees, polished their interview skills, met with members of our executive team over breakfast, took part in community service projects and more. All left the program with practical work experience, a professional résumé and improved skills for navigating their post-military careers. Based on the program’s success, we plan to expand it in 2012.
Training by Employee Group (hours)
“We’re teaching managers that everything they do has an effect on their employees, and we’re helping them develop new ways to make sure that effect is positive.”
Mark Better, Qualcomm Learning Center
Cultivating the next generation of innovators
To help develop the technical talent of the future, we’re engaging middle and high school students in several community programs. Our Workforce Development Labs team works with schools and community organizations to help students begin thinking about their futures as they learn résumé-writing, interview skills, job search strategies and more. Hire a Youth Program is an annual five-week program that pairs 20 at-risk youth with Qualcomm managers who serve as mentors—sometimes long after the program ends. Students explore marketing, human resources, IT and culinary arts, among other fields.
Living the QLIFE
One of the most effective ways we can recruit and keep excellent employees is by offering them programs and opportunities that help them balance work and life. QLife is our comprehensive work-life integration program offering employees opportunities and resources in five areas: family, community, health, leisure and work. The majority of our QLife programs are a direct result of employee suggestions. Many programs are led by employee volunteers with guidance from QLife staff.
There aren’t many areas of life QLife doesn’t address. Here are just some of what we offered employees in 2011:
About 11,000 employees used LifeCare, our online referral service, to find resources for childcare, eldercare, finances, legal guidance, adoption, emotional health and support for mothers at work.- As part of our benefits package, we reimburse employees up to $4,000 per adoption per year to defray expenses.
- We offered a variety of events open to employees’ families, including Take Your Kids to Work Day, Redirecting Children’s Behavior courses, and free movie nights.
Rock-climbing, wakeboarding and woodworking are just some of the 25 QClubs we added in 2011.
- Through pre-tax subsidies, we assist employees in their daily commute to and from work using mass transit. In 2011, U.S. employees purchased 5,300 transit passes through QLife, and more than 450 pedaled to offices on Bike to Work Day.
- Thousands of employees attended over 1,500 QLife fitness classes at our 19 on-site, commercial-grade fitness facilities or at fitness centers nearby. Our on-site QLife fitness centers are open 24 hours, seven days a week and offer personal training, group exercise and state-of-the-art fitness equipment.
- Many of our San Diego employees stay healthy with the help of the Qualcomm Health Center, our on-site clinic offering comprehensive health and wellness services.
- We held our fifth annual Qualcomm Charity Poker Tournament, which attracted approximately 200 employees.
- Badminton and ping-pong lovers competed for bragging rights and glory during tournaments in Shanghai, Beijing, Seoul and the San Francisco Bay area.
- Over 4,000 employees bolstered their immune systems through our annual flu shot program.
A Taste of Their Own Medicine
Our 26-member Qualcomm Life team, which develops and markets wireless connectivity solutions for medical manufacturers, caregivers and patients, challenged each other to a fitness competition designed to improve their health and demonstrate the power of wireless health monitoring. Using feedback from weight scales and activity monitors and combining them with cloud computing, the group was able to fine-tune exercise on the fly to get maximum benefit. Mission accomplished. The group burned a total of 127 pounds—along with 4.3 million calories—in just eight weeks. Learn more about Qualcomm Life here.