Cisco’s Formula for Building Engagement in Complex Workforces

Narrator: You know you’re doing something right when employees spend their entire career working for you. Employees feel engaged, cared for, and purposeful. There are ways to instill that feeling into the employee experience. That’s one of the things we’re talking about today with Joey Wilkerson.

Joey Wilkerson: We have to always think about ourselves internal talent movement as competing for talent across the company. We want to encourage internal talent movement. To be successful at that, it’s important for leaders to understand the experience for the employee, while unique, must be consistent to some degree. 

Narrator: Joey is the Senior Manager for M&A employee experience and change management at Cisco systems. And as such, he’s also an expert on onboarding and integrating new employees after an acquisition. That is to say that he knows how to ensure new employees feel connected and supported whether they’re hired individually or join en masse from an acquisition. And in this episode, Joey and our host, Nicole Alvino, also talk about strategies for retaining top talent,  the significance of consistent yet flexible processes tailored to various subcultures, and much more.

On Cruising Altitude, we talk about employee experience lessons from leaders at companies with over 30, 000 employees. A lot like reaching cruising altitude at 30, 000 feet, things look a little different when you’re managing 30, 000 people. On this podcast, we bring you insights from the leaders who inhabit that rarefied air. Today’s episode features an interview with Joey Wilkerson, but first let’s hear a word from our sponsor. 

And now your host, Nicole Alvino, CEO and co-founder of Firstup.

Nicole Alvino: Hello, everyone, and thanks for joining us on Cruising Altitude. I’m Nicole Alvino, founder and CEO of Firstup. Super passionate about ensuring that every worker feels connected and engaged with their employer. Firstup is a SaaS platform used by 40 of the Fortune 100 to provide an exceptional employee experience for every employee. When we do this, we retain and grow our people and increase efficiency and adoption of organizational initiatives, all part of driving a high performance culture. So our mission today is to help you learn about how we can retain top talent, improve organizational culture, and drive your business outcomes. And I’m so excited to be joined today by Joey Wilkerson from Cisco. Thanks for joining us, Joey.

Joey Wilkerson: Yeah. Thank you. Happy to be here.

Nicole Alvino: So at first step, when we have new employees join our team, we ask them to tell us three fun facts about themselves. So I’m going to ask the same of you. What are your three fun facts?

Joey Wilkerson: Okay. Three facts. I think one for me, prior to getting into Employee Experience, my background was higher education. I spent about 15 years in higher ed. I share that because it sparked my love for college sports. And that kind of dominates a lot of some of my social group. And just that, that competition and environment.

I love it. 

Nicole Alvino: Any particular teams?

Joey Wilkerson: You know, I have worked across many universities. I am in, I always joked when I moved to North Carolina, I feel like you go to the DMV and change your license and you must declare your allegiance to a team. but most recently I was at North Carolina State University. So there will always be a special place in my heart for the Wolfpack.

Nicole Alvino: there we go.

Joey Wilkerson: Yeah.I think another one, I enjoy baking, and I share that a lot because it really speaks to my personality. I like it because of the accuracy and the precision, but you can also be creative. And I think that plays out through a lot of my life. and then the last one, less fun fact, but appropriate for today.

I have the worst allergies in the winter. And so hopefully we can make it through the day without those becoming an issue.

Nicole Alvino: Perfect. College sports, accuracy, creativity, and maybe some sneezing. So we’ll, we’ll see, we’ll see how this goes.

Joey Wilkerson: that sums it up.

Nicole Alvino: Well, good. Well, tell us about your current role at Cisco.

Joey Wilkerson: So I am part of Cisco’s M& A practice, and I lead Cisco’s employee experience and change management in the M& A space. Cisco is a serial acquirer. We have done 200 and I think we’re up over 250. and about, I haven’t looked at the numbers recently, but about 10 percent of our employees who join Cisco, That’s done through an acquisition.

So my team focuses on employee experience, employee listening, employee communications, onboarding, and really this cultural change as new teams join our organization and really through their first year. So very new employee focus, and, and heavy change focus, in the engagement and experience space.

Nicole Alvino: Super. Well, as we know, there is a lot of change happening, including M& A and just other in general. So I’m super excited for you to share lessons learned and then some best practices with our listeners. So can you tell us a little more about Cisco? I know some people might have a preconceived notion or an idea of what Cisco is and does, but would love to hear from you.

Joey Wilkerson: Yeah, it’s interesting. I think many people when they think of Cisco, they see a Cisco phone in a movie or a show and, probably think about Cisco as a networking company. for, actually, I’m looking at my calendar. Eight days ago was Cisco’s 40th anniversary. so for 40 years, Cisco has been around connecting the world, and it’s been kind of the backbone of the internet.

What people don’t always think of is Cisco is also a very large software company, working in the security space, collaboration. And so we are that mix of hardware and software, which we see play out, across our employees and, and our organization. we are a global organization. Right now, I think we’ve got about 90, 000 employees in 80 plus countries, across the globe.

Nicole Alvino: That’s a lot, a lot of different, different people, different types of cultures. So it’ll be great to, to dive into how you think about those personas and creating different types of experiences, especially digital employee experiences for those different groups. Just from a very high level, how do you start to think about it?

Joey Wilkerson: Yeah. You mentioned personas. and I think one thing that we see across Cisco is there is the Cisco culture and it’s fantastic. It is why Cisco continues to be, one of the best places to work globally in many countries. but the reality is an organization our size. We are a mixture of a ton of different subcultures.

And I heard a recruiter say to me once, and I forget the number she used, but it was along the lines of 80. She said, when I think about hiring and hiring into teams, there are about 80 different distinct groups across the company. And we see that play out. as we think about, you know, Our work with employees.

A lot of it is probably what others are thinking about. There are certainly cultural differences based on geography. There are early in career groups that are going to look for a different experience. I think the ones that really That I think about when I think about Cisco. Cisco places great value on the leader community.

Those employees who are managing and leading teams. We rely on those groups for a lot. But the other is in the M& A space. We think about our teams as cohorts. and it helps us understand kind of where they are uniquely in their career, in this journey.

Have they worked at Cisco before? have they been through an acquisition before? And there are some other unique groups. We’ll hear our chief people officer, Kelly Jones, say a lot. Cisco really prides itself on one company, many careers. and that’s a group across Cisco that we think a lot about those employees who have found success with internal talent movement.

and you know what that looks like, but understanding, you know, who the groups are, what’s working well in teams, and how we can help influence others to practice some of the same rituals and behaviors and provide the same experience that they are getting. really shapes all that we do.

Nicole Alvino: Yeah, and it’s so important when you think about cohorts, sometimes it’s, it’s not just location or just tenure or just department. There are so many other things that go into who these people are, what they need and want, especially if you think about many types of careers at Cisco. And to think about how we, we do that.

Group them. So I guess that’s my question. How do you think about these personas and then how do you guide them along their own personalized journeys?

Joey Wilkerson: we’re fortunate in our space because we are working with new. so there is a kind of common thread that we are working primarily with new employees who are entering for most the first time for some, they are boomeranging back, through the acquisition, but Cisco has done an incredible job.

Our people research and intelligence team, they have done such a great job helping us understand what successful teams look like. And so I think that. Part of the groundwork for us and kind of the base layer. What are these teams who are finding? What do they look like? What are they doing? what rituals are they participating in?

 It’s so easy when you think about culture to think about inclusion and well being and, you know, But decision making, how we do business, all of that is part of this too. and so understanding how those successful teams are operating is really helpful. And then how we can move others into that space, either because they’re new and they’re learning and understanding how we do things.

we rely heavily on our HR business partners and our business unit partners. some of our teams have employee experience teams, some do not. they really help us. I’m never going to be an expert on the culture across every one of our business units, and what the right experience is. For the employees, we have to leverage them and rely on those experts who are in those spaces to help us bridge those gaps.

And we do that a lot, working in those partnerships, to make sure that we’re creating what’s right for all of Cisco, but also uniquely right for that group. and that can be tough sometimes when you scale for 90, 000, you sometimes lose some of the, the ease of operation. And so we’ve got to kind of back into that a little bit and bring some of that back for what’s right for those teams.

Nicole Alvino: Yeah, I know that makes a lot of sense. We talk a lot about how do we create hyper personalized experiences at scale. And so each individual thinks that, they have this experience for one that’s obviously connected with their group and, and their, their unique needs, but being able to do that, that somebody that the size and scale of, Cisco, that’s a, Great opportunity for sure. So how, do you think about, you mentioned about working with leaders, working with business partners to make sure that we’re giving all of those new people who are joining kind of this incredible connected experience. How do you make sure that, what happens is unique to the individual and also what Cisco needs as you’re, bringing these new folks into your organization.

Joey Wilkerson: Yeah, we think about a couple of things. One is the personal touch. prior to joining Cisco, I mentioned I worked in higher education. I spent several years in fundraising. And, That is so hyper focused on the individual and the personal experience for donors in the nonprofit fundraising world. So I think about that a lot with employees too.

How can we make scaled processes and experiences personal? and some of that’s, you know, small decisions. We recently did a survey, to a new team that joined, there’s about 8, 000 employees. It’s their first survey at Cisco. The email didn’t come from our generic mailer inbox. It came from me because they know my name, they know my face.

And when, when people are able to put that face and name on it, it helps make it a little more personal. One of the biggest challenges for new employees at Cisco is finding things and understanding where to go. We’re a large organization. We’re very self serviced. And so when we can look at them in those cohorts in their teams and understand what is it and try to predict what are those critical needs going to be in month one.

First six months, et cetera, and take the Cisco resources that exist and customize them, it can’t always be done. You know, we’re not always successful. Some things we’ve got to rely on what’s already there at the enterprise level, but when we can customize stuff for those teams, it creates the situation where yes, it is inconsistent, but in the right way.

That they’re getting what they need real time in the moment. The other thing that I’ve seen a lot of conversation about is we have to always think about ourselves internal talent movement as competing for talent across the company. We want to encourage internal talent movement. To be successful at that, it’s important for leaders to understand the experience for the employee, while unique, you.

must be consistent to some degree. And I think that really does help us maintain some of that consistency. We are, you know, different organizations. Our sales team is going to function one way. hardware team, software, finance, what works for one may not for the other. And so we, we have had to embrace some inconsistency, but I always say to new employees, I know it can be frustrating when you want a clear policy, you know, what is your hybrid working policy?

And the answer is, we let leaders decide what works best for their teams. There’s great value in that. And once people start to see that play out, then it really kind of sinks in that, okay, this is the way to do it at the size is to allow a little bit of inconsistency to make it right in that moment for that group.

Nicole Alvino: Yeah, definitely. But back to that hyper personalization, how do you get, and you talked a little bit about finding information or accessing information, even accessing internal roles and, and momentum. So, obviously, a lot of things where AI and generative AI can play a big role. So, can you talk about some of the things that you are doing at Cisco to embrace AI and enhance it?

The employee experience with AI. Mm

Joey Wilkerson: Yeah.

Nicole Alvino: hmm. 

Joey Wilkerson: A couple of things come to mind. for us, employee listening is critical. and one of the things we do, so much of my team’s work, we represent Groups across our Cisco, our HR community is called people in communities and across our PNC team, uh, whether it be onboarding, employee communications, employee listening, we kind of take over that during the first year for this unique population.

So that employee listening piece is absolutely critical. And the gold that we find in our surveys of new employees is they’re either going to see a question of, you know, do you have everything you need? And if the answer is yes, you’ll get one, and no, then what else do you need? Or, tell us about your experience so far at Cisco. That really gives us so much to use. But it’s so much to use. So, we’ve really tried to embrace, AI, really look at employee, employee voice, employee sentiment. And it’s been a, struggle in some cases. I work in acquisition integration and early on when I started at Cisco, one of the top three issues flagged in almost every single acquisition we did was,

Nicole Alvino: diversity.

Mm.

Joey Wilkerson: The reason was the word integration. That was getting flagged as a diversity, a DEI comment, and it’s not at all related. It is to the integration of the team into the company. And so that became a challenge. And so we’ve had to do a lot of work looking at different resources out there and how we can program language models and to understand That, know, unique subset and we found, I mean, we have to, we, we’ve found great success in that.

as an organization we’ve started to introduce, I mentioned before, it’s tough for employees to find information sometimes when you’re new search for that. We’ve got some new AI assistance to help search for knowledge articles, information across our core platforms, whether it be our employee internet or we call it help zone, which is our self-service.

you know, kind of employee portal. Those are fairly new. We’ve been rolling them out over the last year. I’d love to take credit for them. I can’t, but I will certainly put them to use. so those are two that kind of immediately come to mind that we’re leveraging in our space right now with employees.

and we’re seeing it across all of our people and communities group in other ways.

Nicole Alvino: Yeah, that’s great. And we’re starting to see too and play around with some, some, Next best actions or based on what employees are doing, feeling, telling us either in surveys or showing us with, behavior. So we can then say, oh, here’s something you might be interested in, whether it’s a new type of job or role, or just additional information that they might be interested in.

Joey Wilkerson: Yeah, I think that’s great. When you can get to the point where you’re able to predict what’s next, and what that next question is going to be, that’s such a great place to be. and you know, I love that, path.

Nicole Alvino: Yeah. So let’s talk about something that maybe was a little bit unpredictable. The biggest acquisition, I think, Cisco’s done to date with Splunk. And so can you just talk a little bit about How you managed onboarding new employees, lessons learned from that big of a deal and integration. I think that’s just super, super, super interesting to have gone through something on, Mm hmm.

Joey Wilkerson: Yeah. It’s been an interesting journey for, since really, for me, September of last year. We knew coming into this, everything you just said. This is the biggest we’ve done. This was going to be very unique. It in essence created an entire new business unit inside of our company. So this was not team going into an existing, it was team going into an existing company.

and we knew that we really were fortunate that we were able to do this. Some my gosh, you are crazy. We really customize and build out everything unique across each acquisition that we’re doing. Onboarding, kind of the path that we go, tailoring it to the unique needs of the group. So we knew we were going to have to do some of that.

But. To start that, we have really had to understand who we were working with.which is more difficult with an organization. There are over 8, 000 employees inside Splunk. and I was really impressed at how Cisco embraced understanding the culture of this organization. and Really thinking about how we bring the two together and not just bring them together, but also learn, and think about the way we do business.

we did a lot of listening, looking at employees who had worked at both companies, people at Cisco who were formerly at Splunk and vice versa. some of our executives have gone back and forth.and we saw. A lot, just a lot. I cannot emphasize that enough. A lot of synergy, a lot of common elements across our organizations that we knew would be beneficial in this process.

But there were some, some people would probably use fault lines maybe along the way. But I really, I think Cisco did really well. Understanding those and embracing those. I recall one workshop we did just physically walking around the room, putting stickers on assumptions. , and we started to see one of the ones that surfaced was speed at making decisions.

It was a pretty large gap in our organizations in terms of how quickly we can make decisions. I can say a year later, we have not fully changed and embraced a quicker decision making model. But I see in teams across Cisco who are connected to this acquisition, a different way of viewing decision making.

and that, that gave us a lot. we’ve had incredible partners. across the Splunk HR and communications team to really help us translate what we’re doing into their language. and it’s, it’s important for us to help everyone get used to Cisco, but not overnight. It will take time. and so I think that’s helped us find success, but we have been able to think about the journey.

We’re not through. we have made it through onboarding, and successfully onboarded everyone into Cisco. it was a whirlwind global tour for many of our teams. We, do try to do a lot of that in person, where teams are able to come together. But there have been ups and downs. we’ve tried to give ourselves grace and permission to focus on 80%.

We’re not going to hit a lot of this at 100%, and we have to be okay with that, and that can be tough. And so I think we’ve been able to kind of build out resources for the team. we’ve seen along the way that some didn’t work, and actually had some of their employees help us recraft some things to, help that journey.

and help,make that experience, I hate using this word, smoother. It’s never totally smooth, but smoother, you know, in this process.

Nicole Alvino: Yeah, and I love that. That’s very growth mindset, right? Let’s, let’s continuously learn. We don’t need to get everything perfect. We’re going to make mistakes. Let’s all just have, that open mind, which, which speaks volumes just around that Cisco culture. So when you think about, and I could see you, you spoke about that experience with great pride, but what’s one of your proudest moments in shaping the employee experience that, just makes you light up.

Joey Wilkerson: Yeah, I was traveling a couple of years ago, working with a new team and someone from elsewhere in Cisco was also there on site. And it just happened to be that he was the founder of a company that Cisco had acquired several years before who I had worked with. that was kind of the, visual, the experience for me that really put it all in place.

When I’m able to see any team find success. That’s our goal in all of this. We want to build an experience for employees that creates connection and belonging and where they enjoy being part of our organization and coming to work, but where they can find success and be successful at Cisco in whatever that looks like for them.

That’s when I can just sit back when I see that and say, You know what? this makes some of the long nights worth it, to see them in their moment.

Nicole Alvino: Definitely. I love, I love seeing people reach their peak potential and being able to be part of the steps along the way. And you know, this better than anyone else is when people are at their best, that’s when companies together. Deliver top performance as well. So all of this investment, as you well know, is so, so worth it.

So what do you see as some emerging trend, just as we think about the future of the employee experience, how AI is, going to enhance, and then what you’re most excited about to embrace?

Joey Wilkerson: There are a lot of things out there that you’re familiar with, that we all see now, you know, hybrid work, all that, you know, all that’s going to continue to be there. When I think about, you know, what’s coming next and, and I I don’t know, continued evolution, I guess is probably the right way to phrase it, where employees are really expecting this kind of consumer based experience across the organization.

And we’re going to have to keep that in mind moving forward. I was watching,an online webinar and,Benjamin Granger, who is the Chief Workplace Psychologist for Qualtrics. He was presented and he made this comment about, if you think about sports, if you’re a sports fan, there are seasons that your team has a winning season.

You know, even if it’s just one over half, 51 percent that you’re excited. But there are other times that that exact same record may be disappointing, and it’s that expectation. And I think that is changing across the employee experience landscape. The expectations of employees are changing, and We’ve got to understand what that is.

And that’s only going to come from employee listening, from great data, and analytics. we do just so much, not, not in a bad way. We try to do the right amount of surveying and focus groups and understanding to really see what’s going on out there and what are some of those expectations.I think we’re also going to really see the continued, success for some, struggle for others, as we look at more asynchronous work, and, you know, how do we allow people to live life and work at the same time, which goes back to that, that’s part of that expectation now in the workforce.

and that’s just understanding. How those individual expectations, because even an experience today that is Incredibly well thought out and incredibly positive. The exact same thing in a year that may not be the case because of expectations are changing.

Nicole Alvino: Yeah, definitely everything you’re talking about. I just think about our consumer experience, whether it’s with Amazon or Nike or our bank, right? And everything to your point, it’s hyper personalized to us. It gives us what we need when we need it. It’s on multiple digital channels. We also get a great analog experience if we choose to do so.

And to your point, it’s, ever changing and evolving. And you mentioned data and in part, it’s. constant data that I think is just a great opportunity to be able to data, whether it’s, we can do more with, whether it’s language model or whether it’s true numeric data that we can use some things to just predict what, We as consumers or we as employees want next.

And I just think that that’s, to your point, such an incredible opportunity, for all of us who are really focused on making the experience of, our people, just incredible.

Joey Wilkerson: Yeah. and I’m anxious to see, you know, when we talk about this for these organizations that are creating this consumer experience, that for many of us, We love sometimes you, we all have those moments where it’s, Oh, well, and I see I had an ad because I spoke about this three days ago. but I think in general, it’s a positive experience for us as consumers.

One of the things that we have seen, at Cisco in the last probably two years is a more critical eye on privacy what does. The organization is my employer, I have access to in terms of what I’m doing, what I’m clicking on. And those two things Kind of, you know, we’ll push against each other, I am afraid, in order for us to create that consumer like experience, it requires understanding the behavior of the employee, which may not be as private as some may expect.

 and I, I’m no expert in this space of privacy and, online privacy by any means, but I’m really curious. to see how these two things play out, and if they come to a head at some point.

Nicole Alvino: Yeah, I think probably like with anything, if, there’s a positive benefit, right? You mentioned if, if we can say, wow, based on how someone is engaging with this type of leader content or with these topics, they perhaps could be looked at for a management track and they might have been overlooked for some sort of DEI reason.

Like if you think about those types of examples and those types of opportunities. I think that, that’s where we can really look to some of that data in a really, really positive way. Obviously, the tracking keystrokes and, and things like that are, I don’t think anyone is, excited about that.

but I, I do think that there is this, will be an interesting balance and, and to your point, different than consumers, these are our people. And so while we can take. Examples and principles from marketing. We need to do some marketing to our people, but we can’t risk losing them or spamming them.

And I think some, brands can walk, a different type of line. So I think that that’s the thing that, that I get really excited about.

Joey Wilkerson: Yeah, I agree. And when you’ve got the culture that creates the trust and transparency to understand everything you just talked about and to make that information readily available, that transparency I think is so key. You know, what’s happening with this? We just went through this, launching a new employee survey.

What’s happening with this information? and the answer is it’ll be available to everyone. and some leaders will use it in a different way to help craft, you know, new resources and some things like that. But, yeah, that, that trust and transparency is so key to get to the space you just described.

Nicole Alvino: Yeah, definitely, definitely. So along with transparency and trust, I’m going to pivot slightly to talk about some clarity and perspective. podcast is called Cruising Altitude. We’re at that 30, 000 feet. I personally am on a lot of planes. I have great moments of clarity when I’m in airplanes. So do some of my best thinking.

So where do you do your best thinking and where does it all come together for you?

Joey Wilkerson: Yeah, it’s an interesting question, and I think it’s different in personal life and professional. For me, the water is my personal place, and it is where I’m most at peace. But I’m very intentional about not allowing work to creep into that space, to maintain that. for me, the post conference, the post meeting in person, that return trip has always been a real clear, place for me to, to process.

for ideas to be generated, but also a clear kind of indicator for me of, you know, how things were going professionally when that time was productive and I was, came back, like, that’s what I knew. I was like, there’s still more for me to do. And when those changed in roles, that’s when I knew it’s time for me to let someone else take the reins here, and think about something.

But yeah, that, that post conference travel has always been a big one for me.

Nicole Alvino: Yeah, I love that. That’s such a great one. Okay, so, uh, my last question I like to ask, so our listeners can take some of your wisdom with them. always end with the one. So what is the one thing you never do and the one thing you always do?

Joey Wilkerson: The one thing I never do, and try to instill this in my team. Never let fear of missing prevent you from taking the swing. Our risks have to be calculated, but we have to be okay trying some things and missing. Taking that swing and missing. On the similar, I guess, Always, I try to celebrate progress, not necessarily perfection.

and we may not get it exactly where we need it to be, but let’s celebrate that progress and those, that, that small incremental movement. and don’t wait till the end. keep the entire journey, a celebratory one during those moments.

Nicole Alvino: I love those. Those are so great. So Joey, can you tell us how people can get in touch with you and stay in touch with you?

Joey Wilkerson: Yeah, absolutely. I welcome that. I love connecting with colleagues across the world and all industries. Feel free to look me up on LinkedIn. I’m Joey Wilkerson. And, you know, would be happy to connect and stay in touch.

Nicole Alvino: Well, super. Well, thank you so much for sharing your wealth of experiences. I know this is, um, a lot of exciting things that, people can take away. So thank you.

Joey Wilkerson: Thank you for having me. I had a great time chatting today.