Extensive training opportunities, mentoring and coaching programs, and formal evaluations help employees manage their careers and enhance their leadership skills in every discipline from the factory floor to the corporate headquarters.

Leadership development, a priority, is provided at all leadership levels. Leadership training is provided internally to supervisors and managers around the world.

John Deere advisors help employees manage their careers. Coaching and mentoring services are offered to salaried employees interested in enhancing work performance and their careers. John Deere also helps employees continue their formal educations through tuition reimbursement.

John Deere's career-development process helps employees manage their careers. The process identifies the paths that can build the skills, experience, knowledge, and competencies needed for career development and advancement.

John Deere Learning, an online learning tool built around the concept of learning colleges, offers employees more than 4,500 classroom and online courses. The 14 colleges offer courses from technical engineering and factory operations to leadership and performance skills.

Employees develop learning action plans and monitor their progress toward accomplishing their goals.

Employees make good use of the system. Last year, 35,400 students attended more than 2,000 classes and completed more than 205,000 on-line courses.

Available globally in English, John Deere Learning continues to expand. A regional campus was launched India in 2008, and the tool is being expanded to make it available in other countries.

John Deere's Public Affairs Worldwide group seeks to build a greater understanding among John Deere employees of the value of active public policy engagement. The group also provides avenues to engage employees in public policy affecting business objectives. The John Deere Political Action Committee (JDPAC) is a voluntary employee political contributions program in the U.S. and the John Deere Government Action Information Network (JDGAIN) encourages employees to contact elected officials about pending legislation important to the company.

Employees attending Deere's global environmental conference in October, 2008, did more than learn about environmental stewardship.

On the last day of the conference, the employees helped plant about 250 trees on property owned by John Deere along the Rock River in Moline, Illinois.

The four-acre tract was planted with oak, pecan, hickory, sycamore, and other trees that produce food for wildlife, an additional benefit of planting trees for land restoration.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Partners for Fish and Wildlife program developed the tree-planting event in partnership with Living Lands and Waters and John Deere.

John Deere has teamed with Partners for Fish and Wildlife before, helping to create a plan for property restoration and wildlife habitat improvement. The tree-planting event met one of the goals in the working plan. Others include additional tree-planting and wetland restoration projects.