Principal Financial Group 2023 Sustainability Report: Leadership and Development

Originally published in Principal Financial Group 2023 Sustainability Report

Leadership and development

We encourage employees to expand their knowledge, build new skills, and continuously develop by providing a variety of opportunities that best suit their needs. This includes formal development opportunities, experiential and on-the-go education, and professional relationship building.

Our approach 

We offer employees a variety of development opportunities including new hire onboarding and ongoing role-specific training that includes asynchronous and synchronous learning opportunities, simulation and role-play, videos, and e-learning courses.

New leaders in the U.S. experience 20 hours of onboarding related to being an effective and inclusive leader and we offer numerous ways for leaders to continue to refine their leadership skills over the course of their career.

Employees can additionally engage in learning within a broad range of topics, such as growing technical skills, enabling high-performing teams, and building inclusion and career development capabilities. Employees have access to sessions focused on life skills through our EAP provider.

Short-term growth assignments are available to learn and apply skills outside their formal role. Additional opportunities exist for role rotations, job shadowing, mentoring, and pursuing further education or skills training.

We also offer a collegiate internship program and a variety of rotational programs for recent graduates.

Learn more on our careers site

Leaders provide feedback to employees and engage them in reflection and development planning annually. We promote a culture that encourages employees to reflect on their performance, provide feedback to their peers, and share development recommendations to their managers.

Our new goals 

We continue to find ways to expand access to and engagement in the core development programs we offer. This year, we’ve set new goals to strive to increase our performance in these areas.

By 2025, we aim to: 

• Increase overall employee participation in core enterprise learning and development programs by 15%.
• Capture and centrally manage engagement data for 100% of our core enterprise learning and development programs in a common location, positioning us to better analyze key business outcomes based on our findings.
• Make 50% of core enterprise learning and development programming available in Spanish.
• Cross-train facilitators on 50% of core enterprise learning and development programming.

Our actions and performance in 2023 

Historically, it was challenging for us to collect and aggregate data for training across our organization as different parts of the business utilized different systems. This past year, we implemented a new process to allow us to better track and report training hours.

In 2023, our employees participated in 58,061 hours of voluntary learning and development, which is equal to about 2.9 hours per employee. Leaders specifically engaged in 7,229 hours of voluntary learning and development in 2023.

In 2023, approximately 189 employees participated in our educational assistance program that offers employees financial assistance with their job-related educational pursuits. In 2023, this totaled over $615,680 in investment by the organization.

We hired 244 interns in 2023 and continued our focus on early and mid-level career opportunities and recruiting diverse and underrepresented talent through partnerships like Jobs for America’s Graduates (iJAG), Girls Who Invest, Seizing Every Opportunity, and the International Association of Black Actuaries.

In 2023, 95.6% of global employees received a rating as part of an annual performance review process.

For the breakdown of U.S. employees who received a performance review in 2023 by gender and race/ethnicity, see our appendix to the report.

To learn more, read the Principal Financial Group 2023 Sustainability Report.

Additional information on our commitments to advance inclusion, representation, accessibility, and equity within our workplace, business practices, and communities can be found in the 2023 Global Inclusion Report.

Insurance products issued by Principal National Life Insurance Co (except in NY) and Principal Life Insurance Company®. Plan administrative services offered by Principal Life. Principal Funds, Inc. is distributed by Principal Funds Distributor, Inc. Securities offered through Principal Securities, Inc., member SIPC and/or independent broker/dealers. Referenced companies are members of the Principal Financial Group®, Des Moines, IA 50392.​

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