Human Capital Management

We are proud to be an employer that deeply values our employees, and we strive to recognize that value by investing in our people. That includes offering well-paying jobs, competitive benefits and skills development programs that open up advancement opportunities. Every day, across all 50 U.S. states and 52 countries, our employees justify that investment by delivering technology and telecommunications services to millions of consumers and businesses.

We work hard to be an employer of choice and appreciate that our company’s success is linked to our employees’ success.

In 2023, our human capital management efforts spanned multiple areas, all of them focused on delivering the best employee experience. Among the highlights:

• We leveraged data-driven marketing techniques to identify and engage talent, driving more than 8.4 million users to our careers website and attracting nearly 630,000 applicants. We optimized the candidate experience by creating a frictionless process, leading to our hiring 27,000 people in 2023.
• We negotiated three collective bargaining agreements with unions representing 7,200 employees.³ These negotiations improve and preserve wages, work rules and benefits of union careers.
• We launched Ask AT&T, a new generative artificial intelligence (genAI) tool for employees. Ask AT&T aims to provide personalized employee support to make work more efficient, effective and creative.
• We implemented a new support benefit from Empathy for all beneficiaries of MetLife group life insurance. This platform helps families navigate grief and loss through support such as counseling and practical help with administrative tasks.

Governance

The Human Resources Committee (HRC) of our Board of Directors (Board) oversees human resources matters for all employees. Our Global Marketing Officer and Senior Executive Vice President HR and International leads our global HR efforts. This position communicates directly with the HRC and Board. Additional engagement includes:

• Compensation & Benefits Oversight: The authority for benefits decisions may be delegated to the Chief Executive Officer or other human resources senior leaders depending on the magnitude of the financial impact. Delegation of compensation decisions depends on an individual’s management level and compensation.
• Meetings & Updates: The HRC meets several times per year to discuss compensation matters. The full Board receives annual reports on compensation for top executives as well as periodic updates on other human capital issues.

Talent Attraction & Recruitment 

We are focused on creating a collaborative, customer-oriented and inclusive workforce, starting with talent attraction and recruitment. Our approach includes:

• Talent Acquisition: In 2023, we applied data-driven marketing techniques to identify and engage job-seeking audiences, driving more than 8.4 million users to our careers website and attracting nearly 630,000 applicants. We optimized the candidate experience by making it simpler for candidates to apply, and we made 27,000 hires in 2023.
• Inclusive Recruitment: We place great value on having an inclusive workforce. We make a continuous effort to create a culture in which employees from all backgrounds are treated with fairness and provided equal opportunities for career advancement. For more information, please visit our Inclusion issue brief.
• People Analytics Capabilities: In 2023, we launched executive insights, robust compensation views, return on investment (ROI) metrics and office presence reporting, while enhancing our existing suite of standard dashboards, which include workforce, attrition, and movement data, among other information. This analysis provides better insight into trends and drives strategic, data-driven decisions related to talent attraction, hiring and retention.
• Onboarding: We focus on providing best-in-class new-hire experiences for all candidates to ensure job readiness and continued engagement. Guided automation of necessary onboarding tasks via the new ServiceNow experience allows hiring managers to more efficiently complete standard tasks, freeing their time to focus on creating a welcoming environment for their new team members. The platform provides new employees a curriculum crafted to provide a solid understanding of essential employee resources.

Employee Listening & Development

An intentional strategy for listening to employees is essential to understanding their needs, concerns and priorities. The information we gather from them directly shapes our employee development strategy and helps us establish a culture of support and engagement.

Employee Listening

Our listening practice is centered around collecting and analyzing employee feedback using census, lifecycle and on-demand surveys to measure what employees think over time. Our surveys include core questions to create consistency, make comparisons and identify trends, as well as custom questions to provide some flexibility. Many of our surveys are conducted using the same platform, automating and simplifying near-real-time reporting for end-users and capturing common data over time. Here are some key components of our listening efforts:

• The Annual Employee Census Survey is our most comprehensive survey, designed to provide an outlet for all employees to share their thoughts once a year. The 2023 survey captured employee responses to questions in a variety of categories including Employee Engagement, Life@AT&T, How We Connect culture, My Experience, Supervisor, Taking Action and Intent to Stay. Results from the annual census survey are shared throughout the organization, providing all leaders who receive at least five responses with the ability to create and drive targeted initiatives based on employee feedback. Leaders are encouraged to complete and track action plans based on their team’s feedback and are provided with resources to do so. Our Chief Human Resources Officer provides periodic updates to the Board on our survey results. The 2023 survey recorded a strong employee engagement score of 82%. The feedback behind this score made clear that employees are proud to be associated with AT&T and feel a sense of personal accomplishment from their work, among other factors. 
• Lifecycle Surveys and On-demand Surveys are also key aspects of our employee listening strategy. Lifecycle surveys are designed to assess what our employees think at key career journey milestones, such as with seven-day and 30-day new hire/new-to-role surveys and exit surveys. These surveys allow us to get a sense of how employees respond to similar questions at different points in their careers. On-demand surveys are often created in partnership with different business units across the organization and are designed to gather employee feedback about a specific event or topic.
• The Biennial Compliance Survey enables us to gather employee feedback on ethics, honesty and integrity. The survey is hosted and administered by the Chief Compliance Office, and employee responses are confidential. Results are aggregated to protect employee identities, making the survey a safe forum to raise key issues. We use the survey results to understand employee perspectives and improve programs throughout AT&T. 

Employee Development

We focus on creating a culture of continuous growth and development by setting clear work expectations and providing regular feedback, coaching and performance evaluations.

Our review process includes peer, manager and direct report feedback to identify areas of high performance and areas for further improvement. Employees can also make use of a 360-degree feedback survey directly aligned to our How We Connect culture behaviors to provide more well-rounded insight and help them grow in their careers. In 2023, almost 74,000 management employees engaged in the feedback process in connection with formal midyear and end-of-year check-ins.  

Compensation & Benefits  ⁷

We work to provide competitive compensation and benefits for our employees.

Pay Equity

AT&T is committed to pay equity, and we regularly review and adapt compensation when needed to ensure fair and equitable pay practices across our business. While we monitor pay equity for all employees, we publicly report a portion of our operations in our AT&T UK Pay Gap Report. 

Employee Total Well-Being

We prioritize holistic well-being by encouraging healthy behaviors and creating opportunities for employees to dedicate time to their social, physical, emotional and financial wellness. Our comprehensive benefits aim to support our employees in their unique circumstances. Highlights from 2023 include:

• Enhanced Bereavement Support: We rolled out a new bereavement support benefit from Empathy for all beneficiaries of MetLife group life insurance. Empathy provides holistic support, including both virtual resources and human support, to navigate the aftermath of a loss.
• Expanded Emotional Well-Being: We increased the number of emotional well-being visits available to our employees, as well as expanded access to high-quality coaching and therapy providers.

Social Well-Being: Time Off & Family Support

Our benefits have a strong focus on family planning, family building and caregiving. Our benefits cover fertility, including egg freezing services, surrogacy and adoption, as well as subsidized backup dependent and elder care, and more. Offerings include:

• Paid Parental Time Off: As part of our suite of family benefits, paid parental time off (PPTO), including for adoptive parents, provides parents up to 12 weeks of paid time off to bond with the new addition to their family. This time may be extended for birthing parents when paired with applicable short-term disability benefits. Over 2.5% of our management employees are utilizing PPTO and use 44% of their allotted time. Paid parental time off benefits are also available to a portion of union employees.
• Caregiver Leave: We provide management employees up to three weeks of paid caregiver leave to be there for a child, grandchild, parent or certain other loved ones for qualified situations.
• Family Planning & Support: Through our family planning and support services, all employees have access to 24/7 virtual support for pregnancy, postpartum, loss, adoption/surrogacy and return to work. Management employees also have access to five consecutive business days off for pregnancy loss/miscarriage. We offer maternity rooms for nursing mothers and breastmilk benefits, including shipping breastmilk for nursing mothers in the event of work travel. In 2024, we are expanding this benefit to provide preconception and fertility support. Additionally, we are extending the support for new mothers to a full year after delivery or adoption of a child.
• Paid Time Off: Management employees receive established paid time off (PTO) of either 23 days or 28 days based on service. Employees also receive sick time, incrementally, as needed, for up to seven consecutive business days. Bargained employees also receive PTO, holidays and sick time that have been negotiated with unions across multiple collective bargaining agreements.

Physical Well-Being: Medical Condition Management

Our medical programs offer employees and their families various ways to care for their health, including:

• On-Site Health & Well-Being: We offer an on-site health and well-being center at our Dallas, Texas, headquarters so that our employees can see a doctor, physical therapist, chiropractor, psychologist or condition-management nurse with minimal disruption to their workday.
• Specialized Care: We offer specialized pre-diabetes, diabetes, hypertension, weight management, digital physical therapy and sleep programs. These programs allow participating employees and partners to manage conditions from their homes through access to specialized virtual care teams and connected devices, including glucose monitors, blood pressure cuffs, scales, wearable sensors and continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machines.
• Medical Travel: In certain circumstances, if an employee does not have access to a needed medical service virtually or in person near their home, we provide reimbursement for medical travel to obtain the service in another geographical area.
• Supplemental Benefits: Our CarePlus supplemental benefit program covers many experimental and expanded services rarely covered through traditional health plans. Our members have access to experimental treatments for cancer and other less common conditions; expanded coverage for speech, occupational and physical therapy; and services such as augmented reality/virtual reality gaming digital therapy for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, childbirth classes, doula support and service animals.

Emotional Well-Being: Employee Assistance Program & Mental Health Services

We offer services and opportunities for all employees to take care of their mental health, including:

• Employee Assistance Program: Our newly expanded Employee Assistance Program (EAP) provides professional and confidential assistance to employees and their families who experience work-related or personal challenges. We have increased the number of visits offered to our employees and their household to up to 16 visits. These therapy and coaching visits are focused on getting our employees quicker access to high-quality, outcomes-based support.
• Resilience & Mindfulness Service: We offer a digital resilience-building and mindfulness service to help employees focus on their emotional needs, including stress and anxiety management and resilience-building exercises.
• Stamp Out Stigma: Launched in 2013, our annual Stamp Out Stigma campaign encourages employees to pledge to help reduce the stigma surrounding mental illness. Stamp Out Stigma has been recognized by the Business Group on Health's Best Employers for Healthy Lifestyles^® awards program, which recognizes the best workforce well-being initiatives in the U.S. The campaign received a Special Recognition in the Emotional Health category.

Financial Well-Being: Savings Plans & Professional Advice

We support our employees’ financial well-being through the following initiatives and programs:

• Health-Related Finances: We offer designated employee groups flexible spending accounts, health reimbursement accounts and/or payroll deductions, and company contributions to health savings accounts, allowing paying for out-of-pocket healthcare and dependent care costs with tax-advantaged funds.
• Retirement Plans: We offer an array of retirement vehicles for employees, including defined-benefit and/or defined-contribution plans. All full-time U.S. employees are eligible for a 401(k) savings plan with a generous company match. As participants in AT&T savings plans, employees can choose from a wide range of investment options with varying risk tolerance levels to assist in their retirement needs. Savings plan participants have access to an investment advisory service with two levels of service: free online tools or fee-based professional account management with an adviser.
• AT&T Employee Relief Fund: The AT&T Employee Relief Fund—a 501(c)(3) public charity supported by employee donations and matching grants from the AT&T Foundation—is available for employees to request financial assistance for disaster relief and personal hardships.
• Engagement Opportunities: In addition to our financial programs and services, we offer opportunities for employees to participate in educational workshops, events, videos and discussion forums regarding financial well-being.

Flexible Work

Flexible work is an important component of an inclusive culture. Some aspects of our approach to flexible work:

• As part of AT&T’s new approach, U.S.-based management employees will receive one of two designations: office or virtual. These designations will be determined based on an employee’s work and the outcomes their team is driving.
  • Office workers are expected to join their colleagues in the office three to five days per week. This policy allows employees to maintain reasonable flexibility regarding hours and personal commitments outside the office.
  • Virtual workers are expected to join their colleagues in the office one to five days per month. We anticipate less than 10% of our roles will be virtual. Virtual work will be specific to roles that do not require high levels of collaboration.
• We believe there is great value in people connecting, collaborating and innovating together in an office setting. This change will help us foster innovation for our customers, unlock the agility needed to win in markets, and build a workplace that supports closer collaboration among employees.
• Virtual Call Centers: Union-represented call center employees can apply to work in virtual centers, which allow them to work from home.

Training & Career Development

Providing resources and opportunities to support dynamic and fulfilling careers is a core aspect of our employee value proposition. In 2023, AT&T invested $132 million in employee training, comprising compliance, contingency, continuation, new hire, and skills transformation training. This training reached 167,000⁸ full-time employees with 5.8 million hours of training—an average of 35 hours per employee.⁵ Our approach includes:

• Performance Reviews & Career Development Discussions: In 2023, 97% of salaried employees, entry level through vice presidents, with at least three months of service, received a formal performance appraisal.⁴ While we do not track the frequency of career development discussions, our supervisors are encouraged to provide feedback at least once per month to their direct reports and to hold a career discussion once per year, which may or may not occur during a formal review. Career discussions with employees may focus on short- and/or long-term career planning. We also provide career guidance through Career Intelligence, an online platform powered by machine learning that pre-populates skills on employees’ skill profiles. The skill profile is a digital asset that provides training and development recommendations and suggests internal jobs that provide a good fit for an employee.
• Employee Training: Our award-winning internal training organization, AT&T Learning & Development, offers new hire training, continuation training for a current role, advanced learning for a potential future role, mentoring and career development programs. Our professional development content focuses on a variety of topics such as leadership skills, health and wellness, along with other corporate initiatives. We partner with learning institutions such as Harvard Business and LinkedIn Learning to offer leadership and career courses. We also deliver content year-round through our custom-built app. Employee online training sessions are booked, completed and logged through our Personal Learning Experience platform, helping us measure our training programs’ performance and identify trends. In 2023, our employees completed an average of 40 courses per employee through AT&T Learning & Development.⁴ Some additional details on our training resources: 
  
  • In 2023, we delivered 2 million hours of new hire training to help incoming employees learn about the company and their department-specific roles and responsibilities.
  • Our advanced learning programs help employees identify the most impactful path to grow their skills. In 2023, 1.9 million training hours were recorded for our advanced learning programs, with 270,000 hours registered toward employee upskilling for a future role.⁴ Also in 2023, 48% of AT&T management employees engaged in advanced learning programs provided or subsidized by the company.⁵
  • We work with external organizations, including public and private universities, to help create educational opportunities for our employees. For example, we are collaborating with Georgia Tech on offering a Master of Science in Computers, Analytics and Cybersecurity. AT&T has also partnered with LinkedIn Learning to offer its entire catalog as a learning resource for employees, including courses in business, technology and creative subjects.
  • Internal research shows that employees who have completed training are more likely to obtain a new job within the company than employees who have not done so.
  • To support career advancement and maintain a competitive edge in the telecommunications industry, we evaluate our training programs using a variety of methods and data sources to identify areas for improvement and make necessary adjustments. We measure learner feedback, knowledge transfer, behavior change and performance results, among other considerations, to determine which improvements will have the most impact.
• Career Development Programs:
  • The Management Development Program comprises five months of continued development for selected high-achieving, high-potential frontline through Level 2 employees. Designed for career movement, it includes experiences such as job shadowing, group collaboration, monthly keynote sessions and an in-person three-day training. Topics center around executive presence, financial acumen, agile thinking, project management, succession planning, networking, inclusive leadership and more. As part of the program, our Level 2 participants were offered the opportunity to earn an Agile Leadership Certificate from Cornell.
  • The Technology Development Program (TDP) spans 24 to 36 months with the aim of transforming science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) graduates into highly skilled professionals in the field of technology. At the end of 2023, there were 522 active program participants. We allow our TDP participants to work on high-priority projects in 5G/Fiber technology, big data, and full stack application development, among other areas. Most participants enter as first-level managers and are promoted to next-level roles within the company upon completion of the program. Notably, on average the TDP team contributes 2,500 volunteer hours toward community outreach events. The TDP takes pride in its network of over 1,500 alumni, including 98 in current leadership roles, who are contributing significantly to the company's key objectives.
• Tuition Assistance: In 2023, we invested $10.3 million in tuition assistance for both management and nonmanagement employees. A total of 2,354 employees participated in the tuition reimbursement program. ⁴
• Ask AT&T: In 2023, we launched Ask AT&T, an internal generative AI tool built off of ChatGPT to help our employees work more efficiently and effectively. Since the launch of this platform, its utility has expanded to areas such as coding, network engineering, customer support and human resources.

Union Relationships

With approximately 42% union-represented employees, we have one of the largest full-time, union-represented workforces in the U.S. ^{3 5} Recent agreements are proof that even during challenging economic times, the company and unions can work together to create competitive contracts that provide and protect high-quality middle-class careers, based on jobs with competitive wages and benefits that are among the best in the country. We’ve built cooperative relationships with our unions, and primarily with the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. We have reached 19 collective bargaining agreements with unions since 2020, and in 2023, we negotiated three collective bargaining agreements with unions. Please see the AT&T Bargaining website for additional details.

In 2024, we will continue our efforts to be an employer of choice. We plan to enhance employee benefits, advance professional development for our workforce and recruit talent through a number of initiatives. Among them:

• We are rolling out a new no-cost mental and emotional healthcare benefit option for employees.
• In early 2024, we launched the Workday HR platform for all employees. With Workday, employees have one mobile-friendly place to perform most HR- and payroll-related tasks whether they are at their desks or in the field. Replacing multiple legacy systems, Workday is part of our bigger effort to simplify our systems as we work to better serve our employees.
• Our HR Technology team will focus on expanding internal use of our generative AI tool, Ask AT&T. Among the more than 500 Ask AT&T use cases we are pursuing to benefit employees:
  • HR Policy: Employees will be able to get answers to questions about internal policies, which we expect will generate administrative and other cost savings.
  • Benefits: We’ll provide employees personalized plans to assist them with their family planning and other healthcare decisions, reducing vendor and call center costs.
  • FMLA: Employees will also be able to get guidance on their options for family and medical leave, and supervisors will be able to receive counsel in supporting impacted employees.
  • Learning & Development: We’ll use Ask AT&T to provide course summaries, monitor course feedback and help employees with troubleshooting broken courses.
• To support our goal of cultivating a strong pipeline of talent and fostering interest for careers in telecommunications, we are exploring a partnership with the Communications Workers of America to create an apprenticeship program for broadband technicians.
• We are working to streamline the tuition aid process through partnerships with community colleges. The goal is to design and deliver training programs for internal candidates to develop the skills required for broadband technician jobs, without having to leave their existing positions.