AT&T's John Palmer spells out the company's plans to upgrade the skills of nearly all its 280,000 employees as AT&T undergoes one of the most significant transformations in its 137-year history.

Alan Breznick, Cable/Video Practice Leader, Light Reading

August 2, 2016

4 Min Read
AT&T Boosts Training for New IP World

Aiming to keep up with the ever-changing demands of the volatile communications business, AT&T has quietly built one of the world's largest and most extensive corporate universities over much of the last decade.

With an annual investment of $250 million in workforce training, AT&T University provided more than 23 million hours of learning in 2015 alone, according to John Palmer, senior vice president and chief learning officer for AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T). AT&T University has handed out 120,000 course completion badges to its employees over just the last 18 months.

"We're really pleased with the culture we're creating at AT&T, a culture of continuous learning," Palmer said. "But we're not done yet. We've just taken the initial steps."

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Palmer -- a veteran AT&T executive who took over the new chief learning officer post in February after previously running the operational side of AT&T University and working in the investor relations and consumer divisions -- said the US telecom giant boosted its emphasis on training and re-training employees a year and a half ago as part of its shift from a hardware-oriented focus to software-defined IP networks. In an acknowledgement that they couldn't possibly recruit enough workers with the required skills to tackle the technical and operational challenges ahead, company executives decided to concentrate on giving existing employees the opportunity to upgrade their skills for the necessary tasks.

"We drew a line in the sand in 2014," said Palmer, crediting the leadership of AT&T Chairman & CEO Randall Stephenson. With the volume of talented people needed, "we realized that we can't find that scale externally and have to do it in large part internally." He elaborates in the following video clips from AT&T.

AT&T University's education and training courses run the gamut from customer service to computer science to SDN/NFV to cybersecurity to IP networking, to name a few examples.

Most of the classes, which range in length from less than an hour to several weeks or months, are taught in-house. AT&T University boasts a staff of about 700 to 800 instructors, based in the company's Dallas headquarters and every other major city where it does business across the globe.

Increasingly, AT&T University is focusing on training its employee students for the retail, technical, operational and customer service jobs of tomorrow, not just today. "We are mapping training to specific roles of the future," Palmer said. "Our business strategy drives our learning strategy."

Besides running shorter skills training courses, AT&T has collaborated with Georgia Tech and Udacity to create the first-ever Online Master of Science in Computer Science degree. The company has also teamed up with Udacity on an online university, to craft self-paced, fast-track technical credentials called nano-degrees. These degrees span key disciplines of strategic interest, like web and mobile development, data analytics and tech entrepreneurship, with more to come.

In addition to the Georgia Tech and Udacity programs, AT&T collaborates with the University of Oklahoma, Pace University, Champlain College and others, with more school partnerships on the way. Plus, tuition discounts are available to AT&T employees from 35 institutions, including Stanford University, Boston University, NYU-Poly and others. AT&T also offers a tuition reimbursement program to help defray a portion of tuition costs for its employees.

"We're really looking to continually differentiate ourselves," Palmer said. "The days of going out and getting a four-year degree and riding out a 30-year career without continuing your education are over."

Although many, if not most, of AT&T's 280,000 employees are participating or have participated in the skills upgrade campaign, Palmer still worries that AT&T University is not reaching every willing staffer. He wants to make sure that no employee is left behind.

"It's just such a massive effort of scale," he said. "We just want to reach everyone who wants to be a part of it."

This blog is sponsored by AT&T. It is the sixth part of a ten-part series titled "Behind the Speeds," examining next-generation broadband technologies and what it takes to keep customers connected.

— Alan Breznick, Cable/Video Practice Leader, Light Reading

About the Author(s)

Alan Breznick

Cable/Video Practice Leader, Light Reading

Alan Breznick is a business editor and research analyst who has tracked the cable, broadband and video markets like an over-bred bloodhound for more than 20 years.

As a senior analyst at Light Reading's research arm, Heavy Reading, for six years, Alan authored numerous reports, columns, white papers and case studies, moderated dozens of webinars, and organized and hosted more than 15 -- count 'em --regional conferences on cable, broadband and IPTV technology topics. And all this while maintaining a summer job as an ostrich wrangler.

Before that, he was the founding editor of Light Reading Cable, transforming a monthly newsletter into a daily website. Prior to joining Light Reading, Alan was a broadband analyst for Kinetic Strategies and a contributing analyst for One Touch Intelligence.

He is based in the Toronto area, though is New York born and bred. Just ask, and he will take you on a power-walking tour of Manhattan, pointing out the tourist hotspots and the places that make up his personal timeline: The bench where he smoked his first pipe; the alley where he won his first fist fight. That kind of thing.

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