Monique LeFors Edmondson

Senior Director, Intranet Experience, Cisco

Cisco is a global leader in technology, powering more than 80% of the world’s web traffic. Its software and solutions protect millions of users' data worldwide.  
 
In 2023, Cisco’s IT organization established the Intranet of the Future team to revolutionize employee access and interaction with technology. This initiative enhances how employees connect with and utilize technology. In a single year, the team designed and built an all-new intranet featuring six interconnected platforms that enable faster, better and easier access to the technology solutions employees need to thrive.

Supernova Award Category: 
Future of Work: Employee Experience
The Problem: 

One thing the pandemic taught us was that work is not a place we go, but a thing we can do from anywhere and how we do it is up to us. With that in mind, in 2023, Cisco CIO Fletcher Previn challenged his organization to revolutionize the employee experience for the post-pandemic world.
 
Cisco workforce studies from 2021 showed that our employees’ needs were changing:

  • 57% of Cisco employees surveyed expect to be in the office 10 days or less each month.
  • 77% want a flexible workstyle.
  • 64% agreed that work from anywhere vs. coming into the office directly affects whether they stay or leave a job.

Our internal studies also showed that employees needed optimized collaboration, improved agility/flexibility, and a safer and more frictionless experience across their tools and technologies.
 
These insights continue to shape our efforts to improve the employee experience today. With 76,000 employees working from home, from one of Cisco’s many global offices, or virtually, Cisco needed to create an equitable experience for ALL employees. To retain our top talent and elevate our ability to compete, building a next-generation workplace became critical.
 
Over 100 people were a core part of the IT team that took on the massive challenge. The goal was to innovate new platforms to create not only the intranet of the future, but also enable the workforce of the future. Our approach was based on a commitment to Agile strategies

The Solution: 

Our global Cisco workforce studies revealed employee pain points and preferences with workday tools. We then worked with our design teams to innovate a next-gen intranet that reflected their needs while upholding Cisco’s values of inclusivity, diversity, and collaboration.
 
In one year, using UX research and tight well-formed Agile scrums, we released a consistent thread of experiences for employees, launching these six interconnected platforms:

  • Homepage
  • Search
  • Help
  • Apps store
  • Devices store
  • Hybrid Worker Bundle

Using a single consistent User Experience Framework with reusable design componentry and an intelligent design, the platforms let employees tailor their experiences with:

  • A personal menu of devices based on role, location, in-stock availability in country
  • A personal subset of apps tailored on role, location, job type
  • Intelligent type-ahead search enables single-click access to frequently-used pages and tools
The Results: 

Looking back on 2023, our data shows the scale of our impact:

  • The number of monthly visitors to the new intranet homepage is one million, with 76,000 unique visitors, meaning every employee visits the home page at least once a month.
  • More than 21,000 Mobile Directory Downloads occurred, making it the biggest mobile app in Cisco history, spanning 41% of managed devices.
  • 152 new apps and services, built by our teams from scratch in 2023, were onboarded to our new App Experience platform – each with compliance, version, and accessibility details.

Employee Satisfaction
We use quarterly Employee IT Satisfaction surveys to gather internal feedback and find out what’s working and what isn’t across our customer base (our employees). The most recent survey showed a year-over year improvement in three key areas:

  • 80% of Cisco employees are satisfied or very satisfied with their IT experience, up from 76%.
  • 89% of employees said their technology allows them to work productively, up from 75%.
  • 86% of employees stated they have the tools and devices to do their job effectively, up from 82%.

These achievements underscore our commitment to operational excellence and our continuous drive to set industry standards in creating an innovative and forward-thinking workplace. Our efforts helped solidify Cisco’s status as a top-ranked employer: Cisco was included in the 2023 and 2024 Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work for list, Times’ World Best Companies List for 2023, and several others.

Metrics: 

User Experience metrics comparing 2023 to 2022 show a 12% increase in employee software acquisition, a 4.9% rise in software installation, a 2.3% growth in device returns, and a 2% uptick in new device setups, highlighting our 2023 work across App Store and Devices.
 
Other improvements:

  • Remediation proficiency doubled our target, aiming for 50% and achieving 100%, reflecting our ability to resolve IT issues with unmatched speed and efficiency.
  • SLA proficiency soared past our goal. We established a target of 50% but achieved 100%, ensuring our IT service delivery exceeded speed and reliability expectations.
  • Technical debt management proficiency surpassed our target by a wide margin. We aimed for 50% and achieved 100%, indicating a proactive and effective approach to managing IT maintenance responsibilities.

In evaluating performance, operational benefits, risks and cost metrics:

  • Our lead Risk officer feeds compliance and major security initiatives into user stories for project teams.
  • Each group has a Security prime to help manage risk at the design face.
  • Our Agile PMO manages the flow and monitoring of issues as well as successful resource management within 1% of target budget strategy.

Our approach to every new feature, capability and improvement follows this formula:

  • What was the friction employees faced?
  • What did we do about it (features/capabilities released)?
  • How has it helped/not helped (look at the metrics)?
  • What are our opportunities for future improvement?
The Technology: 
  1. Agile Development Practices: Scrum teams, sprint reviews, and demos ensured efficient and iterative progress.
  2. V2MOM (Vision, Values, Methods, Obstacles, and Measures): Method to shape individual strategies and set team goals.
  3. Security by Design: Security considerations were integrated from the design phase, with a focus on compliance and major security initiatives.
  4. APIs and Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA): Uplifted to ensure seamless integration and interaction between services.
Disruptive Factor: 

Here are three reasons why our game-changing entry sets us apart:

Speed and Scale: The Intranet of the Future team, formed in 2023, designed and launched a successful intranet platform supporting 76,000+ global employees -- spanning apps and devices, support, HR, knowledge base resources, and more. In a single year, it provided the foundation for diverse global teams to collaborate easier, work more productively, and do great work.

Supporting our company vision: While rising to the challenge of designing and building the Intranet of the Future, our team never lost sight of our Cisco values. Throughout the development process, accessibility was top of mind; we developed according to accessibility standards and had frequent accessibility testing sessions across our portfolio.

As a team, we participated in give-back events and programs, extending our culture of inclusivity to disabled students in Kenya. We were purposeful in ensuring diversity and inclusion in our hiring practices; supported one another in our own caring “bear hug” way day in and day out; and remained focused on modernizing the way employees learn and train through our platforms.

Impact: The intranet is now employees daily go-to place for everything they need to become the workforce of the future, working smarter and more productively and successfully. With employee satisfaction with their technology increasing by 18+%, and 100% of employees now using the new intranet, we are nearing our goal.

Shining Moment: 

Even with a massive launch underway, we took time to embrace Cisco’s inclusive culture through the Nairobi Project. More than 4 million people in Kenya have disabilities: only 1% are employed. Unlocking the potential of the remaining 99% drove a diverse team of employees including disabled staff to provide IT coaching, leading to:

  • 97% of the program candidates passing their IT certification exam on the first attempt (2+X the standard rate)
  • 92% landing IT internships
  • Incredible inspiration

About Cisco

The Intranet of the Future team, part of Cisco’s IT organization, was formed to provide employees with faster, better, and easier access to the technology solutions they need to thrive.