Diversity, equity, and inclusion

At Cisco, we’ve always believed in equal rights, equitable access to opportunity, and standing up to injustice. In 2020, we transformed our longstanding advocacy for Social Justice into a global, enterprisewide commitment to inspiring action and creating lasting change.

Guided by our Social Justice Beliefs, we designed 12 Actions for Social Justice to bring together the full power of our technology, our people, and our ecosystem. We embarked on a five-year journey—backed by a US$300 million commitment to explore new ways to address systemic challenges and create opportunities that can change the trajectory of entire communities—and power an inclusive future for all.

Our beliefs

Fulfilling our purpose to Power an Inclusive Future for All is fueled by our belief that operating sustainably and equitably is the only way to do business.

Our social justice beliefs were created to inform and guide our business in taking innovative steps to create opportunities for inclusion and to improve people’s lives, everywhere.

These six beliefs serve as a constant for Cisco and the leadership of our Social Justice Action Office, and we’ve built them into our Social Justice Actions. They inspire us to take on longstanding challenges and to bridge gaps of inequity by using our technology, extended ecosystem, and the expertise of our people.

Technology for good

Technology connects us. It makes the world better. We’re committed to building technology that encourages people to create new possibilities. And we defend against any misuse of our technology to censor, oppress, or bring injustice against anyone.

Proximity

We educate ourselves by getting closer to people who have lived—and are living—through injustice, hatred, prejudice, or discrimination simply for being who they are. It’s that empathy and understanding that drives us to act boldly.

Coalescence

We’re creating a culture that brings our employees, suppliers, communities, and partners together to take action and drive meaningful change.

Equity

Social justice isn’t political. It’s a call for fairness and solutions that confront injustice and create economies, cultures, and communities where everyone can thrive.

Security of being

We stand for the most fundamental of human rights—the security of being—to protect people who are targets of prejudice, hate, and violence.

Full-spectrum diversity

We believe that social justice must ultimately be addressed across the full spectrum of diversity, including gender identity, age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability status, nationality, religion, military status, background, culture, experience, strengths, and perspectives.

Social Justice Action Office

Together, the Actions require new levels of consistent execution, rigor, accountability, and support from every level of our company.

In May 2021, we created the Social Justice Action Office (AO) to oversee our commitment to social justice and the Action teams. The AO leads the strategy and execution of our Social Justice Actions—bringing together people across functions and regions to lend their unique perspectives, expertise, and skills advance our goals and commitments and continue to expand what’s possible.

No Action stands alone. The work to fulfill our initial 12 commitments to AA/B communities—from accelerating diverse representation to expanding sponsorship to doubling our spend with diverse suppliers—is fully integrated within overarching diversity, equity, and inclusion strategies within Cisco. A member of our Executive Leadership Team is accountable for each of our Social Justice Actions.

• Let’s Get Proximate podcast: Spotify, Apple Podcast, Amazon Podcast, Pandora, Google Podcast, Podcast Republic, Goodpods, Audible
• The Journey and Impact of Getting Proximate
• Discovering Proximity: An Interview with Mayte Marquez Querol

The exponential impact of Inclusive Communities

Cisco’s 29 global employee resource groups, called Inclusive Communities, help our people connect within community and among allies. One in three Cisco employees is now in at least one Inclusive Community, with 316 chapters in 77 countries. Inclusive Communities represent over 30 percent of Cisco’s employee population. Research has shown that 25 percent of a total population is the tipping point for mindset shifts that drive wholesale cultural change. Cisco’s Inclusive Communities are the catalysts for driving culture shift, spawning innovation, and deepening our partnerships across the organization.

Cisco’s Global Inclusive Communities drive their own strategies aligned to Cisco’s diversity, equity, and inclusion approach to support full-spectrum diversity and work together across our global enterprise to drive engagement and create a more Conscious Culture. Every year, they continue to expand their impact on how we attract, retain, develop, and promote diverse talent, how we drive business results, and how we positively impact people in communities across the globe. 2023 made history with the launch of the Inaugural Cisco Radiate Conference, hosted by our Connected Black Professionals (CBP) Inclusive Community. The conference brought together 200+ Black professionals at Cisco from all over the world, and welcomed 100+ Black professionals from the community, to develop, retain, elevate, expose, and recruit Black Talent at Cisco.

Cisco’s Global Inclusive Communities also play a critical role in driving social justice. Many communities integrate social justice into their annual planning. Different communities lead monthly events featuring guest speakers, panel discussions, and personal testimonials designed to create proximity and accelerate action to transform the way we work together. In 2021, Our Connected Disability Action Network (CDAN) Inclusive Community lobbied for Cisco to join The Valuable 500 and commit to supporting a global movement to put disability on the business leadership agenda. In connection with Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) 2023, CDAN hosted the first-ever Cisco-wide event explicitly featuring disabled and neurodivergent employees, signaling a shift toward being more community-centered and neuro-inclusive. The community collaborated with Cisco TV to address accessibility issues that arise when we don’t expect disabled people to be leaders and presenters for Cisco.

Members create exponential impact as frequent guests during our companywide Check-Ins, Cisco IMPACT, and Cisco Live events leading courageous conversations and helping to deepen our understanding on topics like race and identity and the impact of systemic injustice and inequality within communities and across the globe. In 2021, our Women of Cisco Inclusive Community held its first ‘The Bridge’ event, which gathered 5000 attendees from 28 countries and 300 companies to discuss bridging the gender gap in IT. They committed to boosting girls’ participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) through Cisco Networking Academy’s Women Rock-IT program. This year, The Bridge introduced the Unified Action Program focused on the intersectionality of diversity, equity and inclusion and sustainability for an inclusive future for all. The Bridge aims to invest in STEM youth, fostering innovation and sustainability for communities, organizations, and societies. Executives from several notable companies, such as Intel, Ford Next, and Amazon Web Services, committed to The Bridge and the Unified Action Program.

At Cisco, we continue to improve the way we support our Inclusive Communities in the powerful roles they are fulfilling. We’ve recently created a structured operating model for Inclusive Communities to deliver programs that can drive recruitment, retention, development, business, and social impact. This included an expanded funding model and leader succession planning. In fiscal 2022, we implemented a Recognition & Rewards program for global, geography, and chapter community leaders. This year, we included a quarterly recognition program which expanded recognition to additional community volunteers where leaders can express their gratitude for how selflessly our employees continue to give their time and talents to support our Inclusive Communities.

We’re innovating solutions to our most critical inclusion and diversity challenges—and scaling our initiatives to extend our impact across our ecosystem.

Embracing the power of diverse sponsorship

In 2017, we built and launched a first-of-its-kind initiative, The Multiplier Effect (TME), based on a bold idea: leveraging the power of sponsorship to change the equation for diversity. Leaders at all levels are invited to make a personal commitment to sponsor at least one extraordinary person different from themselves for career advancement and to challenge their peers to do the same. Since then, 2451 sponsors and 3783 sponsees have participated.

To accelerate the impact, we've set enterprisewide goals for leadership participation at all levels. Over the last three years, 100 percent of Cisco Vice Presidents have taken the pledge. The benefits of the program are reciprocal, as our data indicates that TME sponsors and sponsees alike are more likely to receive a promotion than others at Cisco.

Innovating beyond pay parity

We also continue to innovate and expand on our longtime commitment to paying our people fairly. In 2016, Cisco took a national leadership role in advancing fair pay for everyone as one of the 28 founding signers of the White House Equal Pay Pledge. We joined forces with companies across multiple industries to form the Employers for Pay Equity Consortium to help make the promise of fair pay a reality for all employees.

Our Pay Parity initiative is designed to ensure that all people are paid fairly, regardless of gender (globally) and ethnicity (in the United States, as defined by the federal government). Our regular reviews look at key factors that influence an equitable talent environment, from new hire offers to individual rewards, so that we can continue to design and deliver fair, inclusive, and competitive pay for our people. In fiscal 2022, we began to factor in intersectional analysis across both gender and ethnicity within our reviews.

As part of Social Justice Action 3: Expand fair pay, we expanded our program in fiscal 2021 beyond base salary to include additional forms of compensation fairness such as promotion, bonus, and stock decisions made in our reward programs.

Understanding our diversity through Self ID

Data-driven insights have been essential to our diversity, equity, and inclusion strategy. As our approach evolves, so must our metrics. In early 2021, we launched Self ID, an initiative that expands the personal data categories that employees can share with Cisco. Employees may opt in to share key aspects of their identity that go beyond government-required classifications, including expanded gender identity, expanded race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, pronouns, and military and/or veteran status.

Self ID is allowing us to gain deeper insights on topics including fair pay and compensation, benefits, and employee engagement across the talent lifecycle. We handle all data that employees share with the highest levels of security and privacy. Self ID is now implemented in 39 countries, providing new opportunities for employees to share who they are with us.

In May of 2023, Cisco introduced a pronouns initiative under the Self ID program. Now employees in 25 countries and territories can share their pronouns with other Cisco employees in the internal company People Directory. The objective is to foster a culture of inclusivity; sharing pronouns helps us to capture the complexity and wholeness of diversity in the workplace. Our Conscious Culture at Cisco prioritizes diversity, inclusion, and collaboration, as they are fundamental to who we are, and how we create the best teams. The opportunity to add pronouns creates an environment in which we are all accountable for being aware of—and sensitive to—each other’s unique identities.

The number of Cisco employees who share their pronouns in the company directory today has more than quadrupled since the initiative’s launch date and continues to rise.

Expanding our impact to our suppliers

Expanding diversity, equity, and inclusion to our suppliers is part of powering an inclusive future for all. We require suppliers to track and report their workforce diversity with the same rigor we do, and, in return, we are sharing our innovations and successful solutions aimed at accelerating diversity. In fiscal 2022, we began sharing our highly effective Building Skills for Conscious Culture training with key suppliers.

We’re developing leaders at all levels to accelerate diversity, drive inclusion, and create true connection within our Conscious Culture.

Our Conscious Culture thrives when we continue to learn, explore, and evolve. Our development opportunities are designed to support leaders at every level to build inclusive mindsets, skillsets, and toolsets.

Participant feedback suggests that the quality and efficacy of our development opportunities is one of the factors that contributes to people choosing to stay and grow their careers at Cisco and to their receiving promotions. During the pandemic, we shifted most of our efforts to all-virtual, which helped us reach more corners of the company globally. While the virtual format proved to be successful, participant feedback revealed a strong desire to have more opportunities for in-person engagement. With this in mind, leadership development highlights include:

To align with the new normal of hybrid work, we’ve shifted engagements to a combination of in-person as well as fully virtual conferences, programs, and events. In fiscal 2023, over 3000 Cisco employees participated and benefited from these impactful development programs, with Cisco technology powering many of them.