Cisco is dedicated to supporting the needs of employees and their families. Knowing our staff often struggles to maintain balance between the competing priorities of career and personal life, Cisco offers numerous convenience programs to help.
Our Employee Assistance program offers many services for our employees including legal advice, emergency assistance and support, and well-being seminars. Face-to-face and telephone support is available through an independent third-party organization that specializes in providing workplace counseling services. Web-based resources provide information on a wide variety of family, mental health, and well-being topics, and a resource library provides information on depression and alcohol abuse. Other benefits include online support programs for parents and a health information line.
In addition, Cisco offers a worldwide Employee Discount Program that provides discounts for our staff at hundreds of retailers. More than 70 percent of our staff has registered with the program and more than 50 percent use it on a monthly basis.
We offer a range of additional benefit programs that support our employees and their families:
Childcare services: Cisco Family Connection is the onsite childcare facility at the company's San Jose campus that serves more than 400 children from infancy through kindergarten. Nationwide, Cisco's nearly 25,000 employees can also use the Bright Horizons Network Access program, which gives their children priority status for full-time and backup care. Additional services at the center include school-age and enrichment programs, which include music, dance, gymnastics, and several language classes. The childcare facility has age-appropriate classrooms, music, gym, and multipurpose rooms. In the United Kingdom, employees are offered childcare vouchers that are redeemable at registered nurseries, after-school clubs, and child-minders.
Breastfeeding support: Cisco offers a number of "mother's rooms," and support for comfort and privacy for moms who are breastfeeding (there are 30 such rooms on the San Jose campus alone). Through our internal mailing list, employees can subscribe to our "mom's milk" discussion group for support and advice from other Cisco employees. In the United States, Cisco sponsors breastfeeding classes and provides subsidized breast pumps to employees or their spouses to help encourage effective parenting skills.
Adoption support: When Cisco employees adopt children, the company offers a US$2,500 adoption subsidy to help offset the costs of the adoption process.
For dads too: Cisco encourages its employees who are fathers to take advantage of the educational opportunities and share the resources with their partners.
Elder care: In the United States, Cisco offers a resource and referral program to assist employees in learning about the care and support options available for elderly dependents, as well as free elder care educational resources and consultation.
Children's Scholarship Fund: Started in FY2005, this fund offers support and assistance to the children of deceased Cisco employees.
Fitness centers: Cisco operates three fitness centers outside of and five fitness centers in the United States which provide health education, fitness services, and wellness screenings to the employees and contractors of Cisco. Specifically, those services include recreation programs, group exercise, fitness assessments, exercise prescription, incentive-based fitness games, massage therapy, personal training, health education lectures, and health and wellness fairs.
For staff at our San Jose headquarters we offer additional services:
Weight Watchers programs, cooking classes, and farmers markets
Financial planning and financial wellness fairs
Classes and seminars on ergonomics, nutrition, exercise, and other health issues
Onsite dental care for all employees and their dependents
Other convenient onsite services such as haircuts, dry cleaning, car oil change, and car detailing
Parenting classes run in partnership with Parents Place, a local nonprofit parenting educational organization
