Dive Brief:
- Cisco has been awarded the top spot on Fortune’s list of The World’s Best Multinational Workplaces. The list is based on an annual poll on what workers at global companies think about their organizations, including diversity and inclusion initiatives.
- Cisco has remained on various best-place-to-work lists even during times of social upheaval, Ellen McGirt, senior editor at Fortune, noted in her RaceAhead column. In a previous interview with Fortune, Irving Tan, the company's chief of operations, said Cisco closely tracks workers’ complaints and has procedures to investigate and sometimes publicly address critical problems, such as discrimination or bias. The company also uses a "Love or Loathe" prompt to get team members to engage in candid talks with their managers about their experiences during the previous week, an approach that builds trust, Cisco’s chief people officer Fran Katsoudas told Fortune.
- Rounding out the top 10 global companies were Hilton, Salesforce, DHL Express, Mars Inc., SAP SE, EY, Stryker Corp., SAS and Workday.
Dive Insight:
Companies on "best place to work" lists are sometimes noted for treating employees with the same attention usually reserved for customers. Employers are increasingly focusing on the employee experience as they compete for talent in a tight labor market and strive to attract younger generations of workers who are choosier about where they work.
Cisco, in particular, has been on the forefront of innovative benefits. The company announced in 2018 that it was offering a new benefit for child adoption and egg storage, reimbursing employees up to $20,000 to harvest or store embryos or eggs and pay for pregnancy-fostering services. Cisco also increased reimbursement for child adoption and parent surrogacy from $10,000 to $20,000.
Transparency also stood out as a trait of Fortune's winning companies. Transparency can not only build trust between employers and workers but also generate a greater return on equity (ROE) when it defines a company's policies, according to research from JUST Capital. For example, the research found that companies that publish a pay equity analysis reported a 3% ROE advantage.
