From good to great: Helping talented people shine with the ‘Emerging Talent’ group

‘Emerging Talent’ is a community within Cisco focused on supporting people’s career journeys, with particularly focus on helping them shine and unlock their goals. One of the first questions we get asked when someone joins, or is interested in joining, is: ‘what is the group and where did it ‘emerge’ from?” We asked the core team to find out more about the group.

The Emerging Talent Community evolved from another organisation (called ‘early in career’) aimed at supporting people entering the workforce, and Cisco. We realised that the practices and activities we were delivering could suit a much broader membership – not just those early in career. With inclusivity at the forefront, we rebranded as Emerging Talent embracing employees of all ages, experience, and abilities with a common goal of taking the next step their career.

Our motto, and our purpose is incredibly simple – To get you from good to great

Each of our members might be on a different stage of their Cisco journey such as:

People new to Cisco and want to fast track their learning,

Employees who feel like they’ve hit a plateau and keen to reignite the flame

Team members looking for that new development opportunity.

Whatever the case, our mission is to provide the framework and to facilitate these growth opportunities.

We support our employees by building a connected community

We run events and programs with the goal of providing a platform for the personal and professional development of employees within Australia and New Zealand. We try to do this whilst also fostering a sense of community for individuals to network and build connections. This is particularly important as we shift to a more hybrid way of working.

Our membership base is constantly growing and currently we have over 200 people across multiple functions in ANZ. Many of our presentations, training or coaching sessions attract at least ¼ of participants.

We focus on professional development on leadership skills

In the last 6 months we have run several programs each focussed on different areas of development for our community. The first was a Leadership Presence webinar run by Chris Morsley of CMC Global. This was a very practical session where Chris shared some unknown tricks of the trade (Chris’s background is acting) on how to make your presence felt, digitally and in person. The session was jam packed with simple yet powerful techniques that empowered the audience to attract the right attention, on and off the screen.

Another was a presentation from world leading design sprint and innovation firm AJ&Smart on “How the world’s leading brands use Design Sprints to de-risk (and do) valuable work, faster.” Using the Miro online collaborative tool, this session demonstrated the power of design sprint and innovation methodologies to enabled structured collaboration, inclusivity, and ultimately better outcomes. Both sessions attracted high attendance and outstanding feedback.

As is true for anything in life, you will get out what you put into it

If your goal is to learn and develop new skills outside of your day job, then we have many experts and industry coaches lined up to facilitate that. If your goal is to broaden your branding and connect with senior stakeholders within Australia and New Zealand, then we provide the opportunity and platform to do so. Simply, we want our members to expand their industry knowledge, deepen and broaden their skillsets and ultimately enhance their Cisco experience.

The emerging talent group is offered in addition to training offered by the business and between employees and their managers.