Cisco Ranked Among Top Three Best Employers in Canada

Company Debuts at Highest Rank Ever for a First-Time Participant on Hewitt’s List

TORONTO, Ont. - Cisco Canada has ranked third out of 134 companies surveyed, in Hewitt Associates’ annual ranking of Canada’s best employers. The Hewitt study, in partnership with the Globe and Mail Report on Business magazine, recognizes the top employers in Canada based on employee responses. Cisco achieved the highest ranking ever by a first-time participant.

One of the determinants in Cisco’s ranking was its exceptionally high scores for employee engagement. Cisco’s success in engaging employees is driven by a work environment that encourages collaboration, teamwork, and empowerment. Cisco offers employees challenge in their day-to-day work, and encourages them to make a significant contribution to Cisco’s business by taking leadership roles not only for their business responsibilities, but also in workplace initiatives around corporate social responsibility (CSR), community, diversity and other key areas.

Of note, Cisco employees gave the organization high marks for its CSR commitment. Giving back to the community is a key component of the Cisco culture and a fundamental way it promotes employee engagement. Cisco Canada’s employees give financial aid, technology expertise, and most importantly, volunteer time to organizations that support the environment, education and socioeconomic development and improve the health and well-being of people around the world. The hallmark of Cisco Canada’s CSR program in 2009 was the One Million Acts of Green campaign in partnership with CBC, which encouraged Canadians to commit green acts. More than 1.8 million acts were logged, reflecting a carbon savings of more than 100 million kilograms. Almost two in every thousand Canadians heeded the Million Acts call.
Highlights / Key Facts:

* Hewitt Associates, one of the world’s leading HR consultancies, conducts the only annual national workplace study in Canada that measures engagement by gathering in-depth, actionable information from your employees and leaders.
* The Hewitt study awards organizations that clearly understand the link between a solid business strategy and a commitment to building a culture of continuous learning and employee involvement to support it. “Best Employers” named in the study are companies that strive to achieve business success for their organizations and that also have a highly engaged workforces that volunteer to comment positively on the company.
* One hundred and thirty-four Canadian organizations registered to participate in the study. The results from this year’s study are based on survey responses from more than 108,000 Canadian employees, with additional input from more than 1,200 leaders and human resources professionals.
* Corporate social responsibility was a special focus of the 2010 study. Hewitt partnered with Canadian Business for Social Responsibility to develop a special research focus on employee and leader perceptions and engagement associated with corporate social responsibility.

Quotes:

* Neil Crawford, leader of Hewitt’s Best Employers in Canada study.
“There are several organizations that are on the 50 Best Employers list for the first time this year. But none has ranked as highly as Cisco Canada. Clearly, they’ve captured the hearts and minds of their employees.”
* Nitin Kawale, president, Cisco Canada
“Cisco Canada employees bring an incredible degree of passion and commitment to our day-to-day business. That’s our key differentiator and, I believe, our greatest competitive strength.”

Links / URLs:

* Hewitt Associates Best Employers in Canada: www.hewitt.com/bestemployerscanada

About Cisco Systems

Cisco Systems, (NASDAQ: CSCO), the worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate, this year celebrates 25 years of technology innovation, operational excellence and corporate social responsibility. Information on Cisco can be found at http://www.cisco.com. For ongoing news, please go to http://newsroom.cisco.com.

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