October 22, 2024

Key insights

Cisco took a business transformation approach to supercharge employee participation rates in their social impact programs.

The company surpassed 80% engagement globally with a three-part strategy: make it inclusive, lean into digitization and follow the data.

A three-year longitudinal study found Cisco employees who gave back through their social impact program stayed at the company longer, had higher bonuses, had higher odds of being promoted and received more peer recognition.

Cisco’s analysis uncovered an important point for leaders in particular about the power of engaged leadership and peer participation:

A transformative framework

Make it inclusive  

Cisco went all-in on inclusivity. They took a step back and considered all the ways employees might give back to people, planet and society. Then, instead of only including traditional volunteering and donations, the company expanded its definition of giving back to include “invisible participation” like actions to promote environmental sustainability or digital advocacy for critical social issues. This made it easier than ever for people to take that first action. 

Lean into digitization

Cisco created internal buzz. They leveraged digital features to encourage employees to get involved in the campaign and follow the progress. Everyone could see the data front and center on the company’s highly-trafficked intranet landing page, such as their team’s participation rates and Cisco’s overall progress to the 80% goal. The community impact dashboard kept track of detailed metrics, such as participation from leaders and key influencers who were driving giving back, which helped them craft additional engagement campaigns.

Follow the data

Cisco made data-based decisions. The company tracked which campaigns and communications were working, and which weren’t, in near real time. They tested and tweaked new approaches and monitored adoption rates to uncover the best way to engage their employees. With email engagement rates generally declining, for example, they switched to Webex for notifications and chatbots for encouraging employee participation. 

While this work played out behind the scenes, what employees saw happening around them were new programs, new opportunities – and an engagement number ticking higher and higher on the Cisco intranet homepage. 

One program that kept growing was Time2Give, which was introduced in 2016 to give employees five days off to volunteer beyond their regular paid leave (later upped to 10 days). Employee volunteer stories soon began to circulate — like how Carolyn Philippe traveled to Morocco and Costa Rica to teach children English and how testicular cancer survivor Josh McInnis supported others facing cancer by driving them to their treatments.

Brian Tippens

Cisco’s Senior Vice President and
Chief Social Impact Officer

These past few years we've exceeded 80% employee engagement in our community impact work. Now we're finding ways to make an even bigger impact.

Key learnings

Get employees involved early

New hire credit

Cisco sees some of its highest gains with new hires based on a simple campaign that provides welcome credits to new hires that can be donated to the nonprofit of their choice through the Benevity platform.

After nudging employees to use their credits during their orientation and via emails and chatbots, 50% redeemed the credits.

The 50% who used their credit had 29% lower attrition than those who didn’t redeem them and 15% higher odds of promotion.

Get a commitment in writing

The Cisco Pledge

Cisco encourages employees to make an official commitment to impact by signing a pledge. Those who sign are more likely to get and stay engaged, donating their time or money — 51% take two such actions and 27% take a third action. The collective impact of employees who take second actions totals over $500,000. 

Keep giving back top of mind

Nudge campaigns

Cisco’s nudge campaigns are simple and effective. The company found that each nudge campaign engaged about 10% of employees and served to encourage those who hadn’t previously  participated to get involved. For example, for its Earth Aware Experience, they nudged people to take everyday actions such as engaging in more sustainable travel, food and water usage.

Give employees the wheel

Inclusive framework

Cisco transformed their traditional top-down social impact program into an open and democratic version that gave people a sense of ownership over the program and its success. They empowered employees to help define participation, shared data openly and used innovative Webex chatbots that delivered nearly twice the engagement of traditional mailers.