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Culture at Intel

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Have you ever wondered what it’s like to work at Intel? Not only in terms of your day to day job roles and responsibilities, but what is it really like! It is fair to say that at Intel we have what could be described as a ‘strong’ culture and Intel has valuesthat every employee is made aware of – they are listed on our name badges!. The key to understanding what is important to us as Intel employees, and also what is important to Intel, is to get to know these values as more than just ‘words on a badge attachment’. Some of the values we might agree with, others we might have some conflict with, but awareness of them helps us bring out the best in ourselves and hopefully helps us do a better job!

I, Becky, joined Intel 10 years ago (time flies when you’re having fun!!), and what I noticed straight away is that there is no hierarchy, unlike in other companies I had worked at before. Everyone sits together, even the most senior employees at Intel don’t sit in an office – it’s very refreshing! We have what is known as an ‘open office environment’, and we are encouraged to ask questions to managers and leaders.

When new employees join Intel everyone goes through a set of mandatory courses which helps them to integrate into the Intel ‘way of life’ and gives them an introduction to our culture. To give you an idea some of these courses include:

Constructive Confrontation:A great problem solving technique which aims to achieve a balance between addressing problems and maintaining effective working relationships. All of us are encouraged to take responsibilities for problems that affect the business, even if they fall outside of normal day to day job duties

Structured Problem Solving:This focuses on a seven step method for solving problems, with an introduction to some basic quality tools. It really helps you to solve problems that might exist in the workplace in a structured and consistent way

Effective Meetings:At Intel, many of the meetings you would attend are with colleagues in other countries, so you need to adapt to working in a virtual world, whilst remaining effective and interactive. This course gives some great hints and tips for helping you to ensure that the meetings you attend or run are efficient and productive

There are several other course’s, one of them is ‘Performing to Values’. I mentioned earlier that Intel has values that every employee is aware of, there are six in total. I won’t cover all of them as this blog might win an award for being the longest one ever, but I will share just a few of them with you which I hope will give you an insight into our culture

Quality:You might think this is an obvious one, but it is critical in producing exceptional products, and there is a strong commitment to quality at Intel at all levels. We recognise the need to constantly analyse and improve processes, and to learn, develop and improve. We do our best to ‘do the right things right’.

Risk Taking:We didn’t reach industry leadership position by playing it safe! We are encouraged to try something new and encourage others to try new things or approaches – informed risks as we like to call them . It's the only way we will continue to improve ourselves as individuals and Intel. Of course some failures are unavoidable, but we learn from our successes and mistakes and it should help us develop

Great Place to Work: Everyone is encouraged to be open, direct, work as a team and have respect and trust. It’s really important in such a global and diverse workplace. There’s not just the work aspect though. We have some great social events, and Intel strives to be an asset to the community, and we do some great volunteer work and charity work too! Just last year the team I work in helped make a pond and clear a very overgrown garden so that the children with learning disabilities in a local school could enjoy the school grounds. It was a great day, and very rewarding (and tiring!). If you’re interested in seeing more about what Intel does in the community take a look at some of the Intel Involved communities we participate in

Our other values focus around customer and results orientation, and discipline, and I can share some more information on these with you in my next blog if you would like! In the meantime there is a great site ‘Life at Intel’which features employees sharing how our values play a part in their daily lives and activities

Our values help us to focus on what is important for our relationships with other employees, the business and customers! I hope for now though that I have helped to ‘open the doors of Intel’ for you and one day you will get to experience this for yourself if you join us!