• Education and Training
• Career Management
• Informal Learning
• R&D Expertise

What does "career" mean to you? Is your work a way to make a living, or is it part of who you are? Do you want to follow a career path mapped by others, map your own path... or even leave the path for something different?

Nortel believes in providing employees with the support and opportunities they need to help build their own career paths. We know that everyone has a different perspective on what "career" means. Therefore our employees are offered a variety of career management resources such as assessment instruments, as well as personal stories and guidelines to help them develop their own career paths.

Nortel supports a host of Education and Training Programs designed to meet the needs of specific businesses across the company and to ensure that employees at all levels have the skills required to do their jobs as effectively as possible.

Available training includes:

• Leadership Development - Nortel pays close attention to leadership development through formalized programs such as New Grad Leadership Program (NGLP), Leadership Edge Development Program (LEDP) (a program that accelerates the development of high potential employees), Manager Excellence, and Executive Edge.
• Career Academies - A series of career development modules aligned to business needs and targeted to specific segments of the Nortel employee population.
• Training by Function - Employee training for specific business units such as Human Resources and Information Services.
• Product Training & Certification - Provides employees and customers access to all product training, certification and technical documents.
• Nortel University - An on-line resource to help employees find all the latest sales training programs and materials to gain market momentum.
• On-Demand Professional Training - Nortel offers a suite of training and development programs targeted to develop specific skill sets, such as leadership, technology, and sales & business acumen.
• New Grad Onboarding and Development Program - a detailed plan with suggested courses and learning opportunities for all new grads in R&D to participate in during their first few weeks and months at Nortel.

Continuing to learn and develop may involve taking on new roles that present greater challenges and responsibilities or even moving outside of a given field and developing new skills. Through JobShop, Nortel's internal on-line job board, employees can see which opportunities are opening up globally. Even if not actively considering a move out of their current positions, browsing JobShop provides employees with ideas for continued development.

Nortel has launched a program called Open Collaboration and Learning (OLC) that is designed to let our employees "Learn By Doing." Employees are encouraged to participate in on-going projects as well as come up with ideas for new ones. Participants on these projects get a chance to learn new skills while applying them to a project that needs some horsepower, and just might turn into a new Nortel product.

Nortel's annual continuous performance management process can also be used by employees, to work with their managers in identifying their specific development needs, taking into account their skills, motivation and areas of interest. With these requirements in mind, employees can build their own action/development plans consisting of specific courses and learning programs geared to help maximize their contribution in their current roles, manage their careers, and increase the value of their resumes.

Nortel is a learning organization that provides continuous informal learning. Our employees have an opportunity to learn every day from some of the best and brightest people in the industry... each other!

We encourage employees to take charge of their careers, and initiate creative approaches to finding their personalized career path. Here are just a few of the ways we encourage networking and informal development:

• Mentors -- Sometimes these are formally assigned within an organization, but there is also a Mentor tool that you can use to choose someone on a more informal basis.
• Nortel New Grad Wiki -- A global information resource for our New Grads.
• Job swapping program -- Currently used in our Global Operations organization, it enables employees to literally swap jobs.
• Job Shadowing website -- This tool allows employees to learn what's involved in a particular job by accompanying - or "shadowing" - another employee as they go about their day-to-day work activities.
• General Information Sessions & special speaker events -- Delivered by Business Unit leaders, our Business Councils or other internal organizations, these events build general business knowledge.
• Technical Conference held annually for invited members of the R&D population - a great opportunity to network and learn from the brightest and the best in the industry.
• Diversity councils
• Employee Engagement Teams

R&D Career Website
Nortel has created an R&D Career Website for technical staff. Nortel has a clear view of the technology skills that are fundamental to the company's leadership and growth, both now and in the future, as well as a comprehensive inventory of current R&D roles, responsibilities and career paths. We also have identified skills clusters for employees to clearly understand which skills are required in Nortel moving forward and how they can develop these if needed.

Distinguished Member of Technical Staff (DMTS) and Nortel Technical Fellow
Nortel also has both a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff (DMTS) Program and a Nortel Technical Fellow Program for R&D employees. Both programs are designed to build a network of esteemed technical experts who are recognized for their technical excellence and for the significant influence they have on Nortel's technology vision and strategy.