Name: A focus on culture keeps Cisco atop 100 Best Companies list
Uploaded: 2022-10-14
Duration: 5 min 4 s
Description: Cisco Systems has appeared on Fortune's 100 Best Companies to Work For list for 25 years running. This is the second year in a row it's held the top spot.

Cisco Systems has appeared on Fortune's 100 Best Companies to Work For list for 25 years running. This is the second year in a row it's held the top spot.

A focus on culture keeps Cisco atop 100 Best Companies list

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Cisco Systems has appeared on Fortune's 100 Best Companies to Work For list for 25 years running. 

I think culture is the main reason that people consider Cisco a great place to work. It's not something that's necessarily owned just by an executive or by our Ceo it's owned by all of the employees at Cisco and I think that's part of what makes it great. Every individual I think comes into the company with a different set of needs. We love to see that 96% of our people are happy to work here and are having a good experience, but I think there's a foundation of trust and meeting the needs of our people that I see in that number, which is exciting at Cisco. We have this thing called conscious Culture and I remember showing, I'm like, what does that mean? But I'm intrigued. What does it mean? It's this idea that culture isn't just this amorphous thing that just happens to you. Culture is something that we all have a part in creating, We have weekly check ins with all of our employees where they share with us, not only what their main priorities are, but the things that they loved about their week, the things that they loathed about their week and what help they need from their leader when our people are engaged when they feel valued when they feel like they belong in turn the way in which they show up to their work is with a lot more innovation and creativity. It's not just about culture fit, but it's also about culture ad, but like to build on that a little bit, it's I'm gonna make a food analogy if that's all right. I like to cook. So like culture fit would be, let's say you're making this really great gooey mac and cheese, but you fit all those cheeses into one type of substance that will be culture fit. Whereas Culture ad is like if you're making a gumbo and you really wanna preserve the goodness of all the individual ingredients and still be able to kind of see them for the individual that they are, but it still comes together nicely to actually be 11 dish. I'm hungry too. Clearly, I think with our careers in the past we've only thought about one path. What we try to do is really give people a broad set of opportunities and options and to demonstrate that this is how careers can work. Our flex program at Cisco is one of the great ways that we bring talent into our people in communities. Organization flex stands for find lead, explore. And so within the flex program, the participants have the chance to explore three roles at 9-12 months each and within those roles also run strategic projects together as a community. They're learning from one another. Uh there's a tremendous amount of focus on their development as well and then being able to say, I love doing this. I never want to do that again, I think it's an important part of our journey and I think the flex program is a very strategic investment for us and talent that will be running this place one day. So Marcus is actually a great example of our flex program, of someone who's come in and completely embraced the idea of one company many careers and has allowed himself to do many different rotations, learning many different areas of our business in the flex program, you get to kind of choose your own adventure as we call it. And so I've had the benefit and the blessing of able to choose that adventure. I think part of what makes this a great place to work for me is I don't I don't have to negotiate which parts of my blackness or my queerness. I need to leave the door before I come to work. And so that experience, I feel like I'm having, I can see others having their own version of that. So, coming to Cisco, I've been able to kind of peel back the layers you put on to be able to kind of play the game and I think that unlocks bandwidth. So if I'm not worried about how I'm showing up to you in all the ways of like, of how you cover yourself to play the corporate game. I'm able to actually to have access to other parts of my brain around creativity. I hope I hope I'm better leader because of it. You do want to be a great place to work for all you want to make sure that every voice is heard, you want to make sure that people feel like they belong. And then you have to ensure that as a company, you're creating the programs, um, to really break some of the systems that have historically created an exclusionary approach. When I think about, um, whether our goal is to be the number one place to work, I would actually say that it shouldn't be. Um, I think our goal should be to listen to our people to understand where the business is going to think about how we can serve our communities. And my belief is when we do those things, we end up potentially being a number one company.