Employee Experience

Talent and Culture

At Cisco, we strive to create the best possible workplace environment and culture so our employees can thrive, and Cisco can win. We do this by fostering a culture of respect and living our three Guiding Principles, introduced in 2025, to drive success for Cisco, our customers, and our communities externally.

• Our three new Guiding Principles — Think Really Big, Play to Win, and Drive Durable Growth — are foundational to the ways we lead, learn, and work in the artificial intelligence (AI) era.

Onboarding

My Onboarding Journey is a 90-day introduction to help new hires acclimate quickly to Cisco. Through interactive, cross-functional experiences, participants learn about Cisco’s business, strategy, and culture.

• In fiscal 2025, My Onboarding Journey welcomed more than 5,000 new hires, and 90% of participants said the program exceeded their expectations.

Performance

The performance process at Cisco starts with a leader aligning with their employee on the specific metrics by which they will be evaluated. Cisco creates mechanisms for employees and managers to have continuous and transparent conversations, including:

• Team Space, our platform for both individual and team collaboration, enables Weekly Check-Ins and quarterly engagement pulse checks to support alignment on professional development and business priorities.
  • 2 million+ total team Check-⁠Ins were submitted in fiscal 2025.
  • 76% of employees submitted Check-Ins during fiscal 2025.
• One-on-one conversations are opportunities to share performance feedback, provide recognition, and plan development priorities.
  • A two-way exchange — sharing resources with their employees and listening closely to their feedback — gives everyone a voice and a stake in our success.
• Bi-annual Talent Assessments are captured in Workday. Leaders are encouraged to hold performance and development discussions and leverage tangible, objective metrics to guide employee evaluations.
  • 98% of leaders submitted Talent Assessments (Q2 FY25).
  • 99% of leaders and employees are having conversations on expectations, performance, and development (Q2 FY25).

Professional Development

We believe in continuous learning and skill-building so that everyone — from our interns to our Executive Leadership Team — can discover new ways to work and lead.

• We encourage people to explore job roles and functions outside of their daily work, creating opportunities for employees to reinvent their careers within Cisco.
• In fiscal 2025, the average hours spent on training and development by our full-time employees (FTEs) was 17.1, representing an average investment of more than US$1,759 spent per FTE.