Employee Leadership and Development: Growth Opportunities and 2023 Achievements

Leadership and Development

We support our employees in expanding their knowledge, enhancing skills, and growing professionally through a wide range of opportunities tailored to meet their needs. This includes formal training, hands-on experiences, and professional networking. 

Our Approach

We provide numerous development programs for employees, including onboarding for new hires and role-specific training that incorporates both asynchronous and synchronous learning. These programs involve simulations, role-playing, videos, and e-learning courses. In the U.S., new leaders complete 20 hours of training to develop effective and inclusive leadership skills, with continued opportunities for growth throughout their careers. 

Employees can also pursue learning in diverse areas such as technical skill development, fostering high-performing teams, and advancing career and inclusion capabilities. Additionally, life skills sessions are available through our EAP provider. Short-term projects allow employees to practice new skills outside of their primary roles, and there are further opportunities for job rotations, shadowing, mentoring, and additional education or skill training. We also offer internship programs and rotational opportunities for recent graduates. 

Development Culture 

Our leaders provide employees with feedback, guiding them through annual reflection and development planning. We encourage a culture where individuals assess their performance, give peer feedback, and share growth recommendations with their managers.

New Goals 

We are committed to expanding access to our core development programs and have set ambitious goals for 2025, including:

• Increasing employee participation in learning programs by 15%.
• Centralizing engagement data for 100% of core programs to better analyze outcomes.
• Making 50% of core programs available in Spanish.
• Cross-training facilitators for 50% of core programs.

 
Actions and Performance in 2023

In the past, tracking training across various departments was challenging due to multiple systems. However, in 2023, we implemented a new system to better monitor and report training hours. Last year, employees participated in a total of 58,061 hours of voluntary learning, averaging 2.9 hours per employee. Leaders completed 7,229 hours of voluntary training. 

Additionally, 189 employees benefited from our educational assistance program, which provided over $615,680 for job-related educational pursuits. We hired 244 interns and continued to focus on early to mid-career opportunities while recruiting diverse talent through partnerships with organizations such as Jobs for America’s Graduates (iJAG), Girls Who Invest, Seizing Every Opportunity, and the International Association of Black Actuaries. Finally, 95.6% of our global workforce participated in the annual performance review process in 2023.

Click here to see a breakdown of U.S. employees who received a performance review in 2023 by gender and race/ethnicity

Click here to know more about Principal Financial Group 2023 Sustainability Report.