Professional and Career Development
Committed to providing employees with the opportunities and resources they need to succeed.
Our people are our most valuable assets. To support them, Leidos provides a broad range of development resources and opportunities to all Leidos employees, including those who work part-time. Managers are empowered to conduct ongoing career conversations with their employees and assist with identifying career interests and development opportunities. Managers are required to offer all employees a career conversation at least once each year, and are prompted to do so quarterly as part of the Check-In process. Attracting, developing and retaining the most qualified and capable workforce is vital to our success and to that of our employees.
Leidos partners directly with employees to understand their career aspirations by aligning their passions and interests to an effective skill-set that serves both the organization and the community. We offer a suite of development and training resources to employees to help them acquire desired skills and experiences that improve job performance and prepare them for more advanced professional responsibilities.
We use a virtual learning platform to provide all employees access to development and training, regardless of geographic location or schedule demands. Our program focuses on a variety of topics such as Project Management Certification preparation and System Engineer Certification Training.
Educational partnerships
The Leidos EdAssist partnership leverages an established network of relationships with over 200 colleges and universities that provide discounted degree programs in areas of study that support our business objectives. This partnership enables us to offer a variety of areas of study and delivery options (online and on-campus) that meet the varied and unique needs of employees at all Leidos locations. The discounted tuition rates and structure vary by school and some include discounts for family members as well.
Training alliance
We have also established relationships and alliances with training vendors that offer employees opportunities to advance their proficiency in technical and professional skills through online training or open enrollment programs at vendor locations. These vendors offer employees significant discounts for public, online and virtual offerings.
Through our partnership with leading content providers such as Coursera, O’Reilly, Skillsoft, Udacity, and Udemy, Leidos offers more than 3,000 online courses on topics such as business, management, and information technology at no cost to employees or their organizations. Through Skillsoft's Books24x7® Referenceware® service, all employees also have access to the complete unabridged contents of thousands of the latest and best business and technology books. Professionals across all disciplines can use Referenceware for continuous learning to help solve job-critical challenges.
Mentoring
Mentoring and coaching are important to our workforce development goals. Both informal and formal mentoring programs at Leidos support the company's ability to attract and retain a diverse work force and to foster a more inclusive work environment, as well as a natural "culture of mentoring." Our most powerful mentoring tools are the Executive Mentoring Program and the Leidos Mentoring Tool which assists protégés and mentors in finding a successful match.
The Executive Mentoring Program aligns all of our Executive staff as mentors to one or more diverse, high-potential protégés in year-long cycles. Protégés are given rare opportunities to connect with our Executives to support higher level career development aspirations and reach new heights within the organization. The Program also acts as a conduit to identify potential successors for critical roles from our diverse, high-potential talent pool.
The Leidos Mentoring Tool is a free and open mentoring tool designed to support professional development for all employees within the organization. Protégé participants are informed about interested and best-fit mentors across the global enterprise. Partnerships may continue until both mentor and protégé believe that the protégé has effectively achieved the development goals set forth at the initiation of mentorship. The Program also boasts points of contact across hundreds of metro areas around the world, supporting program participants and facilitating local networking and collaboration events.
Leidos Leadership Program
We have designed and launch a new Leidos Leadership Program (LLP). The LLP represents our commitment to making Leidos a great place to work by investing in the growth of our employees. The effectiveness of our employees is critical to achieving our business objectives and providing our customers with innovative solutions, the highest possible levels of service, and enhanced program outcomes. LLP offerings align with our Leadership Framework to shape a collective leadership mindset for leaders at all levels. We integrate peer learning, networking, and simulation experiences with direct application to the Leidos environment. The various offerings for leaders at all levels are intentionally designed to meet the needs of a global organization with dispersed employees working in a variety of environments. By increasing leadership capacity, we are better able to execute our corporate strategy and meet our growth goals.
Retaining our most critical asset
Engaging, developing and retaining a talented workforce is essential to our success. The dynamic nature of our work means that our employees may be faced with position reductions and reorganizations when a program ends, is re-competed, or otherwise modified. Leidos is keenly aware of the stress this can place on our people, and we are committed to retaining and strengthening our highly skilled professional workforce while communicating clearly and openly at all times.
Established in 2008, our Talent Resource Program partners with Talent Acquisition teams and Hiring Managers to identify potential open internal opportunities and internal talent. Talent Resource Partners provide a variety of services, including one-on-one coaching, interview training, resume building guidance, and information on other internal organizations that need similar skill sets. Various resources are available to employees, including redeployment overview sessions, six different workshops on-line and inclusion in our enterprise redeployment listing aimed at ensuring that our talent seeking opportunities are highly visible to hiring managers and recruiters. Through the efforts of Talent Resource Partners, our internal placement rate for affected employees averaged 50% in 2019.
To ensure that our employee retention efforts are successful, we conduct a quarterly pulse engagement survey to a representative sample of employees. We also participate in periodic formal employee engagement surveys. In 2019, we conducted employee engagement surveys with Leidos employees in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The surveys were anonymous and conducted by an independent third party. Results were aggregated by business area, sand a number of demographic elements, and shared with our board of directors and executive leadership team.
Learn more about our approach to Career Development