Need to reimagine Cisco tech, spaces and policies to make hybrid work a reality

Conversations in the post-pandemic world are often marked with deliberations on the future of work. Two years of a debilitating pandemic have established that technology is ubiquitous; that it can be leveraged to deliver work in real time even while being stationed in the remotest corners of the world. Daisy Chittilapilly, president at Cisco India and SAARC believes that the conversation around flexibility, choice, giving people the chance to do the work wherever they want to do that work from will continue to be around long after Covid becomes endemic.

“Hybrid is the new world and my bet is that it will further open up consumption of technologies in newer ways; not just Webex, but also for us at Cisco may be equally and lot more in areas like networking, security and adoption of cloud and experience... now hybrid work is very much a part of our talent strategy and the way we will do work at Cisco. That is what we have decided will be our future,” says Chittilapilly.

"Even as the prospect of a hybrid work world seems encouraging and in many ways uplifting, there is still a lot to be done to ensure the smooth transition of workspaces within a hybrid framework. Technology is one element... we also have to figure out policies for the new world. One of the other things that is happening is spaces are being reimagined for this new world. At Cisco, we said that 95% plus of the meetings will have at least one remote participant. So, how do you build technology in a way that makes them feel included, makes them feel heard just like they are people who are in person or who are on-site inside the office. These are our new challenges for ourselves as a technology provider... these are the challenges for us an employer and a place to work as well. We have a lot of the foundational pieces but we are also building on it. We have to really reimagine our technologies, our spaces and our policies to make hybrid work a reality and its still work in progress,” says Chittilapilly.