Approach

As part of our pep+ (PepsiCo Positive) strategy, we’re working to provide meaningful job and growth opportunities so that our workforce is better-positioned to make positive impacts at work, both now and in the future. We aim to increase the employability of our people with meaningful growth opportunities through skill development, education programs and internal assignments designed to challenge and broaden experiences. 

Skill development

PepsiCo’s Global Learning Center of Excellence (COE) aims to embed a culture of continuous learning and development. In consultation with PepsiCo leaders, the COE sets priorities for the company’s learning needs, both virtual and in-person.

Our curriculum is organized by topic across three categories, enabling employees to combine online and face-to-face content to suit their learning styles and objectives:

• Global leadership and management programs are rich, hands-on experiences in which participants solve real business problems alongside global peers. Our learners emerge empowered to work in new ways, engaged in our global strategy and better connected to other leaders across the business. Our leaders are actively engaged in the teaching process, supporting learning in both formal and informal settings.
• The Future-Ready Workforce portfolio includes resources for participants to build skills and literacy in digital topics like cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and more.
• Our functional skills programming includes self-paced and instructor-led learning on state-of-the-art functional capabilities across sales, supply chain, marketing, finance, HR, R&D, sustainability and more.

Our programs balance depth of learning with time commitment to help employees fit education into their busy lives. For example, seeking an outside thought-leader perspective might be the best way to provide insight into a company strategy challenge, while a simple document might provide the necessary answer to a process question. For this reason, we do not set targets for the number of hours employees spend in trainings a year; more significant is the quality of the programs and their ability to glean important new knowledge and skills.

Our online learning experience platform, PEP U Degreed, leverages AI and machine learning to suggest personalized learning resources across our three learning categories based on a learner’s skill level, interests, colleague connections and learning habits. Through PEP U Degreed, we offer creative learning solutions that go beyond the typical eLearning and instructor-led training options by providing access to wider resources such as industry articles, TED talks, podcasts and more. 

Higher education

Beyond PepsiCo business-related training, we also offer many U.S.-based employees a training and education program: myeducation. The program, launched in 2022, gives employees access to 80+ fully-funded, flexible upskilling programs from highly reputable schools and universities. PepsiCo covers costs for eligible employees for programs within the myeducation catalog, in addition to PepsiCo’s established tuition reimbursement program.

Education paths offered within the myeducation catalog include:

• Foundational learning opportunities, such as high school completion, college prep courses and English language learning classes;
• Undergraduate degrees in high-growth areas like business, operations and supply chain, data analytics, technology and more;
• Trade upskilling programs to gain new skills, such as obtaining a Commercial Driver's License for in-demand roles; and
• Boot camps and certificates in business-aligned areas that can be completed with a smaller time investment.

Under the traditional tuition reimbursement program, U.S. employees may receive up to $5,250 in yearly funding for certain programs and undergraduate degrees not included in the fully-funded catalog. Up to $8,000 in tuition assistance for graduate degrees is available per year, as well.

Broadening experiences

As part of our pep+ ambitions, we aim to help prepare employees for new roles with access to education, skill development and internal experiences. We recognize that access to new roles can require additional experience — a potential barrier for full-time workers. With this in mind, we launched myDevelopment in 2022. Through myDevelopment, employees can apply for broadening assignments — projects that build new skills outside of their typical roles — to develop new competencies. Short-term myDevelopment assignments help employees to try out positions in new functional skill areas before deciding on a potential new career path. myDevelopment uses AI to make personalized opportunity suggestions based on an employee’s individual, self-input profile that covers existing skills, career goals and desired learning areas. PepsiCo employees can post a project or apply to work on a project, allowing for broadening experiences across functions and geographies at scale. 

Progress

In 2024, we expanded the reach of our online learning experience platform, PEP U Degreed. Courses cover areas including data and analytics, cloud computing, AI, automation, software development and project management. Additionally, we continued encouraging employees to utilize myeducation, which promotes upskilling and re-skilling, and myDevelopment, which provides additional insight into internal jobs and stretch assignments. Across the globe, our employees spent over 1.8 million hours learning through our digital platforms in 2024. 

What's next?

Creating development interventions that focus on individual skills — and connecting those with other HR tools — will enable PepsiCo employees to find countless opportunities for growth. Those future opportunities may include projects, mentorship relationships or new full-time roles. 

We are working to enable employees to see links across our talent initiatives and platforms. For example, graduates of myeducation are encouraged to seek opportunities to apply their new skills via myDevelopment. 

We will continue to promote these programs to reinforce the importance of career growth and learning and development to the business and its employees. 

¹Huang, W. (2019). Job Training Satisfaction, Job Satisfaction, and Job Performance. Career Development and Job Satisfaction​