Developing Our People & Their Potential
Starting on day one, we encourage employees to focus on continuous learning so they can develop their skills and grow their career. We offer meaningful work in an inclusive environment with rewarding opportunities, growth and development throughout every phase in an employee’s career.
We provide a variety of opportunities for learning and development because our employees learn in different ways:
- Upskilling via formal classroom/virtual learning to build skills and capabilities so employees can continue to problem solve, innovate and meet the changing needs of our customers.
- Experiential learning to create opportunities for employees to learn by doing, with real-time space to learn, fail and grow.
- Mentoring to accelerate interpersonal and professional development by pairing employees up with someone more experienced.
In 2022, over 5,000 employees participated in professional development sessions on topics ranging from career development to thriving on a global team to inclusive leadership. With over 2.1 million course completions, our learning offerings continued to be an important resource for employees to grow their skills.
We hire high school, college and graduate students into roles that provide in-person or hybrid experiential learning opportunities to enhance their skills and develop hands-on knowledge of our business:
- Hired over 2,000 early-career employees from 150 colleges and universities around the world.
- Hosted nearly 500 U.S.-based interns virtually and in person at the Edwards Demonstration Center in Edwards, Illinois, to grow business acumen and teach them about Caterpillar and the rewarding career opportunities we provide.
- Half of the early career hires at Cat Digital are former interns.
We lay a strong foundation for the employee experience starting with the onboarding process. Our Strategic Procurement and Planning Division created a program to help new employees in the division define what success looks like for them. Through access to learning programs and networking opportunities, these employees have tools to help them perform today and upskill for the future.
We support employee development through our 14 Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), where members have access to personal and professional growth opportunities. Our employees are also active in many external professional partnerships, technical societies and organizations focused on networking and growing skills. We’ve nearly doubled year-over-year hiring in professional affiliations like the Society of Women Engineers, Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, National Society of Black Engineers and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund.
Our goal to grow services was the focus of two development courses. Over 2,000 attendees across the enterprise participated in the Commercial Acumen Program, enhancing our marketing, sales and product support employees’ understanding of our business segments with a focus on services growth. Our CI segment introduced a six-week Services Learning Accelerator program to give employees a deeper understanding of how they can support our growth goals.
The Electric Power Division is helping employees develop a customer-centric mindset. More than 225 employees are building competency in consultative sales and embracing an owner’s mindset through a new sales excellence curriculum. The investment is helping grow services and adapt to a changing energy landscape.
Nearly 10,000 employees completed a new career planning and development course, where they learned how to discover career aspirations, hold meaningful career discussions with their manager and set development goals. We also launched a personalized digital platform, available in 60+ languages to provide enrolled employees with coaching on personal and professional goals.
To ready a new generation of leaders, we refreshed our by-invitation leadership development programs for front-line, mid-level and executive leaders. Our programs focus on helping leaders develop skills like coaching, change management, effective communications, giving feedback, creating psychological safety and building an inclusive culture.
Our front-line leadership program focuses on core skills critical to developing leadership capability. Based on real-life challenges and opportunities, nearly 42% of front-line leaders completed a structured, four-month training that included on-demand and on-the-job exercises to maximize capability building.
Our success depends on having a pipeline of skilled talent at all levels of the organization. Through rigorous selection processes and relevant development, we ensure a deep bench of capable talent now and in the future.
Caterpillar interns gather for orientation at the Edwards Demonstration Center in Illinois
Positive Employee & Labor Relations
At Caterpillar, we respect freedom of association and where we have unions, works councils and other forms of employee representation, we always strive to have respectful, values based labor-management relationships. We also collectively bargain, inform and consult in good faith, fully complying with all country labor-management laws and standards.
Additionally, we understand and respect that there are also employees who may prefer or choose not to be represented, and we have the same direct and positive relationship with them. Most important and through Our Values in Action, regardless of whether represented or non-represented, we foster a positive employee relations environment built on trust, confidence and respect.
