Qualcomm's DEI Training Initiatives Support Inclusive, Respectful Work Environments

NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / August 24, 2023 / Qualcomm

As published in Qualcomm's 2022 Corporate Responsibility Report

Our far-reaching DEI efforts have earned our Company prestigious external recognitions. Qualcomm is regularly named on many "best places to work" lists. In 2022, these awards included Forbes' America's Best Employers for Women and Best Employers for New Grads, Top 50 Employers for STEM Workforce Diversity Magazine, Disability: IN's Best Places to Work for Disability Inclusion, Glassdoor's Best Place to Work, America's Best Large Employers and Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index.

Every employee at our Company is responsible for supporting an inclusive, respectful and harassment-free, discrimination-free and retaliation-free work environment. We have a variety of initiatives and trainings to uphold these values as well as workplace DEI:

All U.S.-based employees are required to complete harassment prevention training at their time of hire and every two years thereafter. While harassment prevention training is a legal obligation, we have elected to create a live training session that goes above and beyond the minimum legal requirements and includes sections on the importance of civility and empathy in the workplace, subtle acts of exclusion and the impacts that they can have on minority groups.
We also conduct mandatory training for new hires on DEI as part of the employee onboarding process and provide company-wide access to a library of online and in-person trainings on interpersonal topics, such as soliciting feedback, articulating your value, reducing team burnout, becoming an ally at work, building a diverse professional network and more.
We continue to empower managers by providing training on topics such as unconscious bias and creating inclusive teams to help positively influence decision-making and people management. These concepts, which are woven into the foundation of our processes - including those related to promotion and annual reviews - support inclusive and equitable treatment amongst employees at all levels.
We offer dynamic leadership development programs such as the Leadhership1® Program, BetterUp Coaching, Women Unlimited, Inc., Qualcomm's SMART Mentorship and Qualcomm's Mentoring Matters. These programs provide effective coaching and mentoring and, for optimal personal development, are often tailored specifically for the employee's job level and reporting organization. They are highly sought after by employees who wish to participate in regular sessions, cohort group meetings and/or networking opportunities. Through participation in these programs, our employees can increase self-awareness and career ownership, and access tools to achieve their personal goals.

Collaborations with External Organizations

Our collaboration with organizations that champion diversity, equity and inclusion are vital to our success in providing additional resources, support and capacity-building to our employees. Highlights in 2022 include:

We continued to work with the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) as an investment-level collaborator to promote opportunities for gender diversity in technology and computing. As part of this, we continued to participate in Technolochicas, a national initiative of NCWIT, and we announced our very own Technolochica. Technolochicas uses the powerful stories of Latinas from diverse backgrounds in technology fields to raise awareness among young Latinas and their families about opportunities and careers in technology. Our Technolochica will contribute to the initiative by helping to promote our Company's commitment to hiring diverse candidates and will also serve as a role model for future generations of Latina technologists.
We celebrated our fourth year of membership with Reboot Representation Tech Coalition, including our continued support for Reboot's mission to close the gender gap for underrepresented women of color in tech. Reboot and its coalition company members seek to design solutions to include the most underrepresented communities to increase Black, LatinX and Native American women's participation in technology and STEM. These solutions involve developing a pipeline from K-12 schools to colleges and graduate institutions, and to develop skills to prepare these young women for professions in tech. We also participated in Reboot's inaugural mentorship program, which aimed to introduce Black, Latina and Native American women undergraduates in computing to role models who look like them.
We continued to be an Inclusion Works Partner with Disability:IN, the leading nonprofit resource for business disability inclusion worldwide. Our collaboration includes participating in speaking engagements for global audiences and implementing recommended best practices across our workplace. In 2022, our CEO signed Disability:IN's CEO Letter on Disability Inclusion, to continue advancing equality and inclusion and to serve as a positive example for disability inclusion for CEOs and organizations globally. We were also recognized as a Disability Equality Index® Top Scorer and Best Place to Work for Disability Inclusion for the eighth consecutive year.
We held the Racial Justice Giving Initiative (RJGI) as part of our ongoing effort to collaborate with our employees to support racial justice in the United States. Through the RJGI, employees nominate nonprofit organizations that are working to drive systemic change in racial justice and equity. The RJGI Committee then evaluates the nominations based on pre-determined criteria and selects organizations to participate. Beyond awarding funding from the Qualcomm Foundation and the DEI team, the initiative culminates in a TED Talk-style event for all employees during which the selected organizations share presentations about their work. In 2022, the recipients of the RJGI were ACLU Foundation of San Diego & Imperial Counties; Center for Effective Public Policy; Creating Coding Careers; Friends in Need Children's Center, Inc.; Front Porch Arts Collective of Boston; Girls Inc. of San Diego County; Greater Than Tech; La Maestra Family Clinic, Inc.; Motus Theatre; and RISE San Diego.

Learn more in Qualcomm's 2022 Corporate Responsibility Report