To stay innovative and competitive, Cisco must attract and retain the very best and brightest employees. We compete for our employees globally, not just in the IT sector but across a broad spectrum of industries. Many of our new hires are young people who come to us with different expectations about their work environments than past generations had. They take flexible workplaces and collaborative technologies for granted, and they bring a facility for social networking and a multicultural outlook to their jobs.
How and where people work has changed. And as the working world continues to evolve, so do the needs and aspirations of the global workforce. At Cisco, we recognize that the innovations we introduce to our employee relations and engagements are just as important to our business as the technical innovations we introduce to networking. And we also know that employees expect to take advantage of company-sponsored career development opportunities, whatever their jobs and aspirations.
We constantly reevaluate our programs and work environments to make sure they meet the needs of our employees, who vary widely in their job descriptions, ages, working styles, cultural backgrounds, career aims, and personal lives. We seek new ways to cultivate inclusiveness, develop leadership abilities, nurture career growth, and engage our employees in our strategies and objectives. Plus, we continually adjust our policies with a view to helping employees stay healthy and keep their work and home lives in balance.
In all these matters, we look to our employees for their ideas and personal involvement. A diverse and highly collaborative workforce like ours can offer a wealth of perspectives that often lead to transformative programs. It’s all part of the collaborative force that drives the human network effect.
Who We Are
Cisco is a multigenerational, multicultural community. There are many ways of looking at Cisco’s employees. Here are a few insights into our workforce:
Where We Live
Cisco employs more than 66,000 people in 70 countries and over 300 locations worldwide. Approximately one third of our employees work at the headquarters site in San Jose, California.
How We Work
Fully 63 percent our employees’ working time is spent communicating and collaborating, and 56 percent of their work is accomplished away from their desks. Collaborative work is more often conducted virtually, using collaborative technology (35 percent), than face to face (28 percent). Forty percent of Cisco employees report to a manager located in another city, state, or country. The average commute time for Cisco employees is 1.4 hours a day, and 85 percent of our employees telecommute at least part of the week. Those who telecommute complete 24 percent of their work outside the office, and 48 percent of work done while telecommuting takes place outside business hours, which underscores our ability to work flexibly.
Message from a New Hire
As Cisco’s chief technology officer, Padmasree Warrior helps define our technological strategy and pursue innovation, working closely with the company’s senior executive team and Board of Directors to align these efforts with Cisco’s corporate goals. As an evangelist for what is possible, she pushes the organization to stretch beyond its current capabilities, not just in technology, but also in its strategic partnerships and new business models. Warrior assumed her position in March 2008.
“I want people to see Cisco as an incredibly capable company poised to lead the next wave of global innovation,” Warrior says. “And I want people to gain a clear sense of the extra effort that Cisco puts into understanding customer and partner goals, both current and future, and the way we work with them to meet those goals. Enabling others to innovate is central to the future model of innovation. In essence, I want everyone to understand that innovation and collaboration are intertwined like the double helix of DNA. This is the code to our culture at Cisco.”
Read more about Cisco’s employees and employee programs:
