Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies

Some people seem to have mapped out their lives at an early age, and a few of these lucky individuals actually realize their plans in their lifetimes. Brian Schipper, senior vice president, human resources at Cisco—whose career spans just under a quarter-century—seems to have planned out his work life from the very beginning, and carefully followed through on it, every step of the way.

Schipper, whose resume reads like a manual on "how to reach the top of your field before age 50," has been in charge of HR at Cisco since October 2006. Each of his previous positions were stepping stones on his journey to the top—from his first job in 1985, as senior HR representative at international communications and IT company Harris Corporation, to high-level HR positions with Fortune 500 companies Compaq (subsequently acquired by Hewlett-Packard), PepsiCo, and Microsoft.

Even the smaller companies he worked for after leaving PepsiCo in 2000 and before joining Microsoft in 2004—digital-marketing company DoubleClick Inc. and hedge fund Andor Capital Management—were acknowledged leaders in their field. And, while these firms were much smaller than his blue-chip employers, Schipper saw in them the opportunity to significantly expand his skill and knowledge base.

"I was conscious at each key inflection point in my career to ensure I was broadening my experience while building functional depth, so that I would be prepared to lead the HR function for a large-scale global corporation," says Schipper. And it's no surprise that that is exactly where he finds himself now. Cisco, which is #57 in the Fortune 500, has a market capitalization of $139.8 billion and about 65,000 employees, and markets products in more than 200 countries, is generally acknowledged to be the world leader in data networking equipment and software.

It's also known for its forward-looking corporate structure and HR practices—staying on the leading edge of people management as well as technology. Cisco ranked #6 in Fortune magazine's 2009 list of 100 Best Companies to Work For.

Cisco HR: The "Virtuous Circle"

As people around the world become increasingly networked, Cisco's organizational structure has followed suit, evolving from a primarily command-and-control, top-down model to a more-collaborative, globally networked and flatter organization. Schipper has been instrumental in this transformation: the company credits him as the developer of its HR vision, strategy, structure and operating model.

"I'm finding that colleagues in chief HR officer roles in other companies are intrigued by how deeply Cisco has embedded our collaborative leadership model into our formal promotion and hiring assessments," says Schipper, pointing out that the company has a very comprehensive approach to employee engagement.

"We try to set up a 'virtuous circle,' where employee feedback tools, such as our annual climate survey (a confidential employee-satisfaction survey), give insight into where and how policies and programs are or are not driving higher levels of engagement."

For example, Schipper mentions that the survey pointed to the need to change workplace practices to give valued employees more career flexibility. The result was an "on/off-ramp leave policy," whereby an employee can, with managerial approval, leave his or her job at Cisco for a one- to two-year period. The employee remains in touch and returns to the company at the end of the defined time, provided he or she has secured a position before returning. "This policy reflects that many of our employees do, over the course of a career, need to take a career break while staying connected to Cisco," says Schipper.

Another Cisco people-management innovation is Cisco Choice, a program in which entry-level hires can select their own bosses—rather than being assigned to managers. Perhaps because they are responsible for choosing their own assignment and have so much input into the process, new hires at Cisco seem much more engaged than typical new employees. And that engagement translates into loyalty. Business Week reports an astonishing two-year retention rate of 98 percent in the program. It's hard to argue with success: Cisco's average employee tenure is 7-10 years.

A People- and Customer- Centric Culture Drives Success

The company's emphasis on people-related aspects of its culture, says Schipper, has a direct relationship to Cisco's long-term success. One important cultural tenet is a relentless focus on the customer; another is the expectation that commitments among employees be kept, "whatever it takes to deliver on those commitments."

Another notable cultural attribute is a focus on the well-being of employees and their families ("the extended Cisco family," Schipper calls them). "We make it a practice to reach out and try to help whenever an extended member of the Cisco family is impacted by illness, injury, or loss."

Schipper notes how serious such situations can be. "The hardest part of my job is when I talk to members of the Cisco family who are impacted by the disease or loss of a colleague or family member," he says. "It's sobering to realize that, given the size and scale of our company, several of our employees are impacted by some form of loss or tragedy every day."

In-House Technologies Help Build Connections

In addition, Schipper, true to Cisco's charter of being the leader in networking technology, is constantly looking for ways to use the same collaboration technologies the company employs with customers and partners to connect with employees.

"Our quarterly employee-manager meetings are conducted between our video studio and our non-HQ sites globally," Schipper points out as an example. "Questions can be asked in real time, and archived sessions and Q&As are available on demand."

The same technologies are being used by HR to conduct interviews and communicate with candidates, including those on university campuses. "Increasingly, we make real time job offers using video," says Schipper. Similarly, Cisco uses web- and video-conferencing applications from its WebEx technology to communicate with employees about benefits changes or service offerings.

The company also uses a technology called TelePresence for long-distance mentoring and facilitating discussions at multiple site locations. This technology depicts remote employees in life size on a large, high-definition screen, so they appear to be in the same room as the physically present participants. TelePresence, touted to be very easy to use, also links up with collaborative applications like WebEx.

"These tools allow us to bring the best resources in the company to the virtual table to address the challenge at hand—versus simply relying on those who happen to be co-located," says Schipper.

Inclusion, Flexible Talent are Keys to Growth

Bringing people together to create a high performing company is Schipper's mission—no matter how far apart they are, culturally, geographically or organizationally. As the chair and founder of Cisco's Inclusion and Diversity Council, he takes a holistic view of this issue.

"The Cisco family reflects the world we live in," says Schipper. "We are relentlessly focused on ensuring that our employee population is representative of our customers, partners, and shareholders.

But equally important," he adds, "is that every employee has the opportunity to contribute to the full extent of their capability, and has an equal opportunity to grow professionally, and be rewarded for his or her results and impact. Achieving the highest possible degree of inclusion requires leaders to give up some power and control so their team members can contribute in a more significant way to drive business results."

He points out that the company's cross-functional bodies are increasingly dependent on emerging, early-in-career leaders, "because the number of these bodies is growing exponentially, and the expertise required to support the work must utilize broader competencies beyond those developed at Cisco."

A flatter and more virtual organization goes hand-in-hand with Cisco's expansion into new market adjacencies—commercial and geographical markets beyond the core business that are ripe for Cisco's trademark innovation and focus on customer value. While the organization is already moving that way, Schipper emphasizes that there's always room for improvement.

"Cisco has to become much more adept at moving talent from one part of the business to another in order to support new products, markets, and business models," he says. "This means our internal employee-movement policies, tools, resources, and practices must evolve so that talent is viewed by every leader as a Cisco resource, not a resource that 'belongs' to a specific function or leader."