Professional and Career Development
Committed to providing employees with the opportunities and resources they need to succeed and grow in their career at Leidos.
We recognize the value of having a high-performing, future-ready workforce and are committed to providing opportunities for employees by facilitating development, career growth and movement across the enterprise. We also recognize the importance of having strong leaders and a culture that supports the Leidos values.
Career Development
Our people are truly 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. We view career development as a partnership between employees, managers and the company with a focus on building skills and experiences through internal mobility, experiential learning, specialized development programs, training, feedback and mentoring. We provide a variety of tools, resources and career development education for employees and leaders. People leaders are asked and empowered to conduct ongoing career conversations with their employees and assist with identifying career interests and development opportunities. Leaders 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. Although career development is a continuous practice, we dedicate one month out of the year annually to focus on career development and highlight to our workforce the tools and resources available to support their career growth at Leidos. Attracting, developing and retaining the most qualified and capable workforce is vital to our success and to that of our employees.
People leaders partner directly with employees to understand their career aspirations and help aligning their passions and interests with Leidos’ skill needs through proactive career development and internal mobility. We continuously look for new technology to enable career journeys, and are piloting a new initiative that will afford employees more access to gig and job opportunities across the enterprise, something our employees are looking for based on feedback we received in our last employee engagement survey.
Technical and Professional Development
We offer learning and development programs that focus on enhancing employee skills, knowledge and competencies that improve job performance and prepare employees for future opportunities. We use a mix of a virtual learning platform, instructor-led training, and external training opportunities through negotiated discount programs with vendors to provide all employees access to development and training, regardless of geographic location or schedule demands.
We recognize the importance of technical upskilling and reskilling our employees to support evolving workforce needs and ensure a future-ready workforce. By upskilling employees that are already skilled in related technologies, we are able to utilize our existing workforce to maintain institutional knowledge and remain competitive in supporting our customers. Providing upskilling and reskilling opportunities allows us to develop and retain internal talent while providing employees with the career growth they desire.
Our development programs cover a wide variety of topics and skills including technical, professional, and information technology. We offer formal programs to help employees prepare for certifications including the Project Management Institute and International Council on Systems Engineering as well as resources to prepare for over 95 industry-standard professional and technical certifications. 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. Through our partnership with leading content providers in the industry, Leidos offers more than 3,000 online courses at no cost to employees. Through partnerships with these content providers, 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 these learning resources for continuous learning to help solve job-critical challenges.
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. Additionally, we offer tuition assistance to all U.S. full-time employees at accredited universities.
Although we are still working to capture all of the external training, our total 2020 training and tuition reimbursement spend was in excess of $13M with over 250,000 hours of training provided to employees.
Mentoring
Mentoring is 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 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 launched a comprehensive Leidos Leadership Program (LLP) for people leaders at every stage: new leaders, first-line leaders, mid-level leaders, and senior leaders. The LLP represents our commitment to making Leidos a great place to work by investing in the growth of our people leaders. Strong and inclusive people leaders are critical to achieving our business objectives and providing our customers with innovative solutions, the highest possible levels of service, and enhanced program outcomes. LLP development opportunities are cohort-based and aligned with our Leadership Framework imperatives and competencies to shape a collective leadership mindset. We integrate peer learning, study groups, networking, capstone projects, and simulation experiences with direct application to the Leidos environment. The various offerings for all levels of leaders are intentionally designed to meet the needs of a global organization with dispersed employees working in a variety of environments. We also host an annual two-day Leadership Summit for approximately 350 of our most senior leaders aligning business strategy and transformation initiatives, alongside emphasizing the core values of our organization. We have a variety of other ways to develop leaders including job rotations, stretch assignments, 360 feedback assessments based on our leadership competencies, leadership development guide based on our leadership competencies, individual and group coaching, leadership style and team assessments such as 5 Voices, New Leader Assimilations, mentoring, etc. By increasing leadership capacity, we are better able to execute our corporate strategy, engage our people, and deliver results.
We have an annual succession planning process at Leidos that identifies and develops high-potential employees from all backgrounds at all levels of the organization and ensures that we have ready-now candidates for key roles. Succession plans are created for all executive-level positions as well as for roles throughout the organization considered vital to our success. Development and engagement plans are created for top talent comprised of formal and informal training, mentoring, coaching and experiential learning opportunities.
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 Internal Mobility Program team partners with the Talent Acquisition team and hiring managers to identify potential open internal opportunities and internal talent. Internal Mobility 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 on-line workshops and the ability to be included 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 the Internal Mobility Partners, our internal placement rate for affected employees averaged 57% in 2020 and is trending up to 72% as of mid-2021. With a new focus on creating a culture of internal mobility, Leidos is encouraging a growth mindset by enabling longer-term career planning and proactively identifying skill gaps through an automated Workforce Management Solution. Educating employees on future opportunities and customer needs will enable them to identify development goals and future opportunities to continue their career within Leidos.
Feedback and Listening Strategy
At Leidos we don’t just talk about feedback, we make it part of the way we do business. We have revamped our Performance Management process and rebranded it as Performance Development to specifically address the feedback received from our stakeholders with the goal of more effectively providing feedback to our employees and creating high-performing teams. Performance Development is an ongoing cycle, embedded into the business rhythm, focused on three components: Performance Planning – setting goals that define expectations of performance; Performance Check-Ins – touch points throughout the year to check progress against goals and expectations, provide feedback and coaching and discuss career development; and Performance Assessment – a review of total performance contribution with an assessment. We require an annual formal documented performance review for all non-temporary employees who have been with the company for at least 90 days. At the end of the 2020 performance cycle, 95% of employees received performance reviews. The Leidos Values are part of our performance goals for all employees. Those who manage people also have a People Leader Goal (PLG), outlining expectations for leaders. Throughout the process, leaders and employees are encouraged to use an easy tool to actively solicit feedback about their direct reports and about themselves to provide for richer conversations and higher levels of performance.
To monitor organizational health and to support our employee engagement and retention efforts, we have a comprehensive listening strategy. We conduct a quarterly pulse survey to a statistically significant sample of global employees. Bi-annually, we conduct a formal, global engagement survey to all employees, including subsidiaries. The surveys are confidential and conducted by an independent third party. Results are aggregated by business area, and analyzed via a number of demographic elements. The analysis is shared with our board of directors and executive leadership team. All people leaders with 5 or more responses (for confidentiality) get direct access to the results, and are asked to share those results with their respective teams. Action planning is conducted at all levels of the organization based on enterprise-wide themes that are shared with all employees. A cross-functional, employee-led action planning team identifies recommendations which are implemented enterprise wide. We communicate actions taken in response to the employee feedback through multiple channels, and continually use this information to improve our strategy and practices.
Employee survey results indicate that employee engagement is very strong overall, scoring in the 90th percentile of external benchmarks and improving 3% favorable points above 2019. Leidos also improved 2 to 8% favorable points from our 2019 scores on all survey categories, which include Ethics and Integrity, Manager Relationship, Inclusion and Diversity, Employee Empowerment, Growth and Development, and Recognition and Reward. Our survey average score on our top focus areas was 78% favorable, improving 4 points above 2019.
Learn more about our approach to Career Development