India Times has an interesting inside look at the work culture at Cisco’s India facility, from letting an employee take 6 months full-paid leave to attend to his wife – who also worked at Cisco – after she fell seriously ill during the birth of their child, to allowing another employee to be “a mother first and a manager later.”
Every employee gets a cell phone, laptop and a broadband connection at home if they ask for it and Cisco does not track people being at work; attendance and the number of hours put in at work are not measured, reads the story. Resources – such as getting flights for clients – is freely given, and employees are encouraged to jump from one group to another in the course of their careers at Cisco.
But getting the job is not easy – potential recruits go through at least six or seven rounds of interviews before being selected, and once they’re in, they have to prove themselves. For instance, every sales manager has weekly targets and if he fails to achieve them two or three times in a row, he’s out.
