Sustainability > Employees

Talent Management

To ensure the sustainability of its workforce and to drive a high-performing organization, Baxter focuses on the following areas related to talent management:

Goal Alignment

At Baxter, employees and teams align individual and organizational objectives to ensure that everyone is working to achieve company goals. Individuals and teams across the company establish work plans and set their own specific, measurable targets to help Baxter achieve its overall strategy.

Baxter's global goals focus on six categories: Customer, Financial, Innovation, Operational Excellence, People/Team and Quality/Regulatory/Compliance.

Human Capital Planning

To ensure organizational effectiveness, workforce capabilities and a robust pipeline of leadership talent for the company, Baxter is enhancing its human capital strategy. This strategy is focused on the assessment of current talent needs and plans for those in the future. It is designed to help the company identify the organizational implications of business strategies and plans, and also guides Baxter's succession planning process.

Talent Assessment and Development

To drive and sustain high performance, Baxter continuously improves its global processes for assessing individual employee performance. While a performance review occurs annually for employees where individual performance is evaluated against goals, ongoing coaching and feedback is encouraged throughout the year. Individual performance contributes to differentiated awards.

Effective management and leadership skills improve business performance and contribute to achieving Baxter's vision of being a rewarding place to work and develop. Training and developing employees is critical to the company's success since it provides employees with the skills and technical competence required in a demanding, competitive and highly regulated marketplace.

Baxterlearning.com is the company's global learning management system. Available to employees in eight languages, it contains 450 eLearning programs on subjects including essentials of Six Sigma, PC skills, project management, quality and many more. In 2006, 11,588 employees completed Baxterlearning.com courses. Employees take courses both for professional development and to meet regulatory requirements. Baxter documents and tracks training at 45 of Baxter's global facilities using ISOtrain software. This system reports training requirements by course, curriculum and employee.

In 2007, Baxter will introduce a new in-classroom training program for managers and supervisors, which will help develop and refine skills related to accountability, change management, coaching and feedback, communication, decision-making, facilitation, interview skills, and managing conflict and performance.