Reflections on a Wonderful First Year at Intel

It’s hard to believe that just one year ago, I announced that I had joined Intel, one of the most iconic companies on the planet, during one of the most transformative times in its 54-year history. And the journey so far has been nothing short of epic! As I look back on the past year, some of the highlights that come to mind include:?

• Meeting with many of our team members (from Intel interns to Intel Fellows) and seeing firsthand the world-changing technology that Intel creates in our fabs.?
• Kicking off expansion plans in Arizona, Oregon, Ohio, and Europe and making substantial educational investments in the communities where we operate.?
• Watching President Biden sign the CHIPS & Science Act into law, which, as Pat Gelsinger says, allows us to “go bigger and better.”?
• Raising the profile of Intel’s environmental, social, and governance (ESG) work through critical engagements at Intel’s 2022 Investor Meeting, the World Economic Forum, and Intel Vision.?
• Releasing our 2021-2022 corporate social responsibility report, where we shared our progress and bold plans around our 2030 RISE strategy.?
• Moving Intel into our hybrid-first approach to the future of work.?
• Joining JUST Capital at Nasdaq to explore industry strategies for building a more equitable and inclusive culture.?
• The list goes on!

I feel fortunate to work at the company that put the silicon in Silicon Valley. Of course, a lot has happened in the background—things I don’t always write about on social media. As I reflect on my first year at Intel, I thought I’d share what my team and I have been working on behind the scenes—and what we hope to accomplish going forward.

Recruiting top-notch talent to the leadership team?

Intel’s business model depends upon attracting and retaining the world’s top talent. Our competitive edge comes down to our remarkable people and our drive to improve the lives of every person on the planet.??

These efforts hinge upon strong leadership. I’m proud of our work with Pat Gelsinger to build a world-class executive leadership team (ELT). We have recruited some outstanding executive talent, including April Miller Boise, Christoph Schell, Matt Poirier, and David Zinsner.

Each leader brings a stellar track record, deep experience, and diverse expertise to their role. It’s a whip-smart group of change makers united in a steadfast belief in our mission, our employees, and our technology—as well as a determination to achieve some massive goals.?

One of the things I love about Intel is our commitment to investing in our people and promoting from within. Many of the leaders on our team have a long history of success at Intel. We’ve been able to maximize that experience by moving leaders such as Michelle Johnston Holthaus, Sandra Rivera, and Keyvan Esfarjani into expanded roles and then helping them build their organizations’ leadership teams.?

Since January 2021, we have recruited more than 80 key executives and Intel Fellows. Furthermore, both the ELT and our board embody Intel’s commitment to diversity and gender equity. While we still have work to do, it’s encouraging to serve on a team that is increasingly representative.

Reigniting the Intel culture

Intel’s culture has evolved significantly since 2019 when we embarked on a multi-year journey to drive better business outcomes for our customers. In some respects, we are returning to our “Groveian” roots, resurrecting the disciplined execution practices that defined Intel’s storied history as a global semiconductor manufacturing powerhouse while maintaining our focus on a vibrant, inclusive, and open culture.??

Refreshing our values?

As we reclaim semiconductor leadership and execute IDM 2.0, we must ensure our values align closely with our mission—and that our employees fully connect with these values. That’s why, with inputs from the ELT and employee focus groups at every level, we have refined our values to bring back some of the disciplines upon which Intel was founded.??

The most significant change is our renewed focus on being results-driven. We’re also taking a customer-first approach, committing to team success, and acting with uncompromising integrity. These updated, modern values weave together disciplines for direct, transparent, and data-driven decision making and holding ourselves accountable while prioritizing a vibrant, inclusive, and open culture. This powerful combination positions us to usher in Intel’s best days ahead.?

Bringing back a tried-and-true methodology?

Companies like Google and Twitter use the objectives and key results (OKR) methodology to set goals and track results. But did you know that Intel’s Andy Grove first introduced the OKR framework, later refined by John Doerr, author of Measure What Matters? The OKR methodology prioritizes goals, execution, and results and helps organizations achieve new heights of innovation.??

We reignited the OKR methodology across Intel this year and are making behavior shifts centered on driving results aligned to our biggest priorities and encouraging fearless innovation. These behavior shifts, along with our refined values and a significant investment in innovation and capacity, play a crucial role in accelerating our transformation and supporting the next generation of chip development for our customers.

Increasing inclusion through technology??

We know that hybrid-first and remote work options cast a wider recruitment net, but it brings up the challenge of ensuring such options are inclusive and support everyone long term. Everyone deserves to feel included, whether they’re in the room or not. I firmly believe that increased inclusivity will strengthen Intel. ?

Our HR team has made excellent strides in creating collaborative workplaces for employees, no matter where they’re working from. Here are three examples of how we’re leveraging HR technology to capture employee voices and improve the employee experience at Intel.?

Understanding employee sentiment ?

We use quarterly and annual surveys, focus groups, and advanced social listening tools on our intranet and external channels to capture employee feedback and sentiment. We leverage the data and insights generated to respond in real time to our employees, amplifying what’s going well and addressing issues quickly. For example, in a 2021 survey, 90% of our employees shared that they would prefer a hybrid workplace once sites reopened, so we crafted our future-of-work models around hybrid-first. ?

Through social listening tools, we also learned that our employees opposed the idea of a mandated number of days in the office. This insight led us to leave decision-making to managers and their employees to determine the ideal model for their teams.?

Increasing talent retention and culture?

Understanding turnover helps us identify and address risks and issues so that we can improve retention. We implemented a turnover predictor model that uses machine learning to identify employees at risk of leaving and turnover “hot spots” so that we can understand and address contributing factors. The predictor model allows us to drive culture and employee experience solutions that foster deeper engagement in a targeted and meaningful way.??

We also continued to enhance our virtual agent, “AskHR,” which answers more than 85% of employee questions. Employees get fast responses, and the virtual agent frees up our HR service team to focus on more complex challenges and better support employees.?

Upleveling the employee experience ?

In addition to transforming our office spaces with integrated and secure technology solutions for collaboration, we’ve made substantial investments this past year to improve how we connect with employees, implementing multiple tools that allow employees to collaborate from anywhere. We’ve invested in our corporate intranet site, Circuit+, which is now also accessible through a phone app, keeping employees informed on corporate and department-level news.

Building a world-class HR organization?

I’d be remiss if I didn’t give a massive shout-out to the amazing Intel HR organization. None of this would be possible without their hard work, creativity, and innovative approach to employees’ needs.??

Day in and day out, our HR team has delivered leading talent and organizational capability for business groups across the company in support of Intel’s long-range plan. Since January 2021, our HR team has recruited thousands of talented engineers from across the technology industry—an impressive feat, especially in the competitive talent environment we’re experiencing. Our team rolled out the refreshed values and delivered creative, immersive experiences to activate our culture transformation with Intel leaders. The team also played a crucial role in reintroducing OKRs and overhauled Intel’s compensation system to accelerate our results-driven culture.??

Of course, we’ve had great fun along the way. From graffiti art team-building sessions to fierce Kahoot! competitions, we’ve forged steadfast relationships while building positive memories over the past year. I’m honored to work with such a talented and dedicated HR team and couldn’t be more thrilled about our journey ahead.

Looking ahead to the next year?

This next year, we’ll be heads down, going “bigger and better” as we build on the momentum of this past year and continue the critical work in support of IDM 2.0 and long-range planning. We’ll be focused on expansion projects in Arizona, Oregon, Ohio, and Europe and building a pipeline of qualified workers through our talent strategy and the many investments we’re making in education.?

We’ll also continue our work in driving culture transformation and getting to the next phases of our IDM 2.0 strategy. In support of these efforts, we’ll update our job architecture to help employees create a custom learning curriculum for building skills and taking control of their careers at Intel.??

As I close out this first year, I’m grateful for the opportunity to make a difference here at Intel. I look forward to continuing to serve our extraordinary employees as we innovate and deliver world-changing technology.