Cisco sponsors a broad range of diversity programs and provides numerous diversity education resources for employees.

 

ERG Development Series

The Employee Resource Groups Development Series are quarterly events hosted by our combined employee resource groups (ERGs) with a focus on building leadership skills. Each quarter, several ERGs take the lead in making the event possible by coordinating speakers, logistics, and communications. Cisco’s Global Inclusion and Diversity group partners with the ERGs to provide the budget for each of the events, as well as leadership and guidance during the planning process.

A recent ERG Development Series event took as its theme “Putting Our Differences to Work: Impact of Inclusion on Innovation and Leadership.” Speakers discussed types of inclusive behaviors, how to incorporate them into the employee’s personal style, and how to apply them to achieve important objectives such as improved collaboration, adoption of process change, high-performance team creation, and other types of organizational transformation.

The events have been very well received. Every event fills to capacity, with approximately 400 employees attending in person, plus an additional 200 to 500 participating remotely through Cisco IPTV. Videos of the sessions are posted for viewing after the event. Invitations to each session are extended beyond the ERGs to include core functional teams such as Sales, Chief Development Organization, Finance, Operations, and Customer Advocacy. This is partly responsible for a significant increase in ERG membership.

 

Other Diversity Education Activities

Additional educational activities in FY08 that promoted diversity include:

• MicroInequities: The Power of Small™: Developed by Insight Education Systems, this instructor-led workshop increases participants’ awareness of the power of behavior to drive inclusion.
• GlobeSmart: Developed by MeridianEaton Global, this is a web-based tool offered to all employees that provides access to extensive resources relating to how to conduct business effectively with people living in more than 40 different countries.
• Inclusion and Diversity Leadership Session: As part of Cisco’s annual Strategic Leadership Offsite, Cisco leaders at the director level and above are invited to participate in an inclusion and diversity breakout session. Inclusion and diversity information is also covered in activities throughout the event.
• FY08 Inclusion and Diversity Symposium:  On March 26–27, 2008, Cisco held a two-day Inclusion and Diversity Symposium that included topics such as connected women, employee engagement, and leading in a multigenerational and multicultural environment. The global audience consisted of diversity leaders from each of Cisco’s functional organizations, as well as employees from Cisco’s Human Resources group.
• I&D articles and videos:  Ongoing efforts to keep I&D issues at the forefront include posting articles and videos on the Cisco Employee Connection intranet. For example, in June 2008 a video on workplace diversity and women in technology was posted on the homepage for all Cisco employees. The video includes a panel discussion with two female Cisco executives and a researcher from Catalyst, Inc. about how inadvertent barriers can lower retention rates of women in technical and engineering roles.