Cisco is preparing its 85,000 employees to learn new skills, experiment with AI, and rethink how they work.
That takes more than teaching people how to use the technology. It takes time to learn, freedom to experiment, and leaders who are willing to change alongside them.
Cisco has invested in AI tools, role-specific training, coaching, mentoring, and new career development opportunities.
That focus on its people has helped earn it the No. 2 spot on the 2026 Fortune World’s Best Workplaces™ list.
Cisco is also seeing record business performance. It closed its 2026 fiscal year with record revenue and a record quarter, including record revenue per employee.
“Our focus is building learning agility: the ability to learn, unlearn, experiment, and apply new capabilities as work evolves,” says Francine Katsoudas, Cisco’s executive vice president and chief people, policy & purpose officer. “We want our people to be able to influence what changes, rather than simply react to it.”
Human skills matter more as AI does more
Katsoudas says human judgment is one of the most important capabilities employees will need, “and the critical thinking, curiosity, and creativity that make it possible.”
“As AI takes on more work, we need people to challenge assumptions and make thoughtful decisions,” she says.
Research from the AI Workforce Consortium found growing demand for human capabilities, including ethical reasoning and systems thinking, in cybersecurity-related jobs.
At Cisco, employees are developing human skills alongside technical ones through coaching, mentoring, and opportunities to experiment with AI.
That requires something employees rarely have enough of: time.
If learning matters, make time for it
Cisco’s Time to Grow initiative gives every employee four dedicated hours each month to learn.
“We’ve all experienced how easily learning can fall to the bottom of the priority list when business demands take over, but the skills our people will need tomorrow require investment today,” Katsoudas says.
Leaders have to make time for learning, too.
“When leaders openly invest in their own development, they help establish a culture where personal growth is expected and supported at every level.”
At Cisco, some executives are taking that a step further: They’re learning from employees.
When employees teach executives
Cisco’s AI Mentorship Program, or CAMP, pairs employee AI “super users” with senior leaders. Employees are the mentors; executives are the mentees.
“Understanding AI at a strategic level is very different from seeing how people actually use it in their work,” Katsoudas says.
Executives aren’t just learning about AI. Every participant in the first cohort said CAMP created space for candid conversations, shared learning, and experimentation.
“Our first CAMP cohort reinforced that AI fluency is less about mastering technology and more about building trust.”
That trust matters when employees are being asked to try new things.
Give employees room to experiment
“We can’t ask people to innovate if they’re afraid to take risks or try something that might not work,” Katsoudas says.
Eighty-nine percent of Cisco employees say management recognizes honest mistakes as part of doing business, compared with 38% at a typical global technology company. That makes Cisco employees 134% more likely to report that experience.
And 87% of Cisco employees are learning AI through experimentation, Katsoudas says.
For Katsoudas, what happens when an experiment doesn’t work is just as important.
“When things go wrong, do we create opportunities to learn and improve together? If we want to innovate faster, we have to accept that some experiments won’t work and learn from them.”
Eighty-eight percent of Cisco employees say people who try new and better ways of doing things are celebrated, compared with 65% at a typical global technology company. The same percentage say people quickly adapt to change, compared with 68%.
Connecting people and performance
For Cisco, getting more from AI starts with leadership.
“The biggest lesson is that we can’t transform our workforce without fundamentally rethinking how we lead,” Katsoudas says.
How leaders use AI matters, too. Cisco employees are twice as likely to use AI when their direct leader does.
But role modeling is only part of the job. Employees also need to understand where the company is going and the role they have in getting there.
“In periods of significant change, people need clarity about where they’re headed, confidence that they have a meaningful role in getting us there, and trust in the decisions being made,” Katsoudas says.
Cisco also had its strongest year for employee productivity in 30 years, Katsoudas says.
Nine in 10 Cisco employees say people are willing to put in extra effort, compared with about two-thirds at a typical global technology company, according to Great Place To Work data.
Katsoudas says Cisco is seeing higher productivity and engagement among employees who consistently use AI.
“That’s encouraging because we’re seeing benefits that extend beyond efficiency,” she says.
Cisco also wants employees to spend more time on customers, relationships, and solving complex problems.
For Katsoudas, the companies that ultimately get AI right will be as intentional about investing in people as they are in technology.
“AI is changing what technology can do, but we need to be equally ambitious about what people can become.”
Roula Amire is the senior content director at Great Place To Work. Follow her on LinkedIn and sign up for the Great Place To Work LinkedIn newsletter to get the latest research on what drives business success.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com