Work Culture Excerpt: Career Development – NBCU Telemundo

At Telemundo, it’s all about helping an employee grow to the best of their ability through initiatives such as Career Week, employee resource groups and health and wellness challenges.

Its annual Career Week is five days dedicated to offering career development opportunities for employees, including anything from resume writing to negotiation skills to keynote speakers. This past year, Talent Lab, a broad career development offering for “high potentials” from NBCU Corporate, came to Career Week. “They’re course offerings you get nominated towards, so they’re typically geared towards high potentials. This was more accessible, and it was a hit,” says Ashaki Rucker, SVP of HR. “Career Week is something that we’re really proud of, because you don’t necessarily have companies that dedicate a whole week to career learning.”

In 2019, interns at Telemundo also contributed, pitching a session centered around the workforce of the future, allowing older generations to hear from younger Millennials and Gen Z. Telemundo’s employee resource groups help promote a culture of inclusion, awareness and respect within the workplace, and also provide opportunities for leadership. “Essentially what the ERGs do is allow employees with some initial similarities and objectives to come together and think about as a collective how they want to use this internal network to further develop and advance their careers,” explains Rucker.

Groups include Unidos NBCU, dedicated to uniting, educating and empowering Hispanic professionals, the Black Employee Network, OUT, the LGBT & ally group (also one of corporate America’s oldest LGBTQ+ employee groups) and the Veteran’s Network. NBCU and Telemundo also have a multitude of programs to support women, such as the Women’s Network group and the company-wide initiative Unstoppable Women.

“They often allow for employees to shape what their needs are at that time. And the leadership opportunity sits there as well,” says Rucker. “The leadership of the ERG actually rotates, and it gives them another leadership opportunity to step into the role of sponsoring or leading some of the events and coordinating and organizing the efforts of the group, and that’s another part of the development that comes.” Telemundo also partnered with the University of Miami’s business school in an offering for female executives. “Some of the faculty in the business school come to Telemundo to do three-day sessions covering topics across a myriad of areas like negotiation skills, emotional intelligence, leadership and innovation,” says Rucker. “Again, just one more avenue we’re headed down to meet some of the unique needs of our organization.”

Externally, Telemundo invests in future talent through initiatives such as Telemundo Academy and the TGS Fellowship. Now in its second year, Telemundo Academy is an academic program for students interested in pursuing careers in the media industry. The first year was primarily focused on high school students, but this past year Telemundo offered courses at the college level in partnership with Miami Dade College.

“Telemundo takes the impact we have on the communities we engage with very seriously. This is our way of giving back to the community from the standpoint of giving back to the communities who have real up-and-coming talent in the industry,” says Rucker. “It ultimately ends up being a great talent pipeline to the organization, because we absolutely do see the students coming out of it as great candidates for our entry level roles.”

(Excerpt from the 2020 Work Culture List Magazine)