Cisco

Salaries are competitive.

There are many perks such as:

• Healthcare
• Flexi-time
• Working at home
• Shares
• The ability to gift other employees awards in the form of vouchers
• Pension contributions
• Up to 30 days holiday if salary is used to buy 5 days on top of the base 25 days.

Good infrastructure, facilities, nicely laid out buildings, a small canteen, and generally good people, with a few exceptions (see 'Cons').

The problems lie with Cisco not knowing how to run the STB side of the business. Local upper management and middle management are uncommunicative, and the business is contracting, with hundreds of layoffs around the globe in ex-NDS offices. Many layoffs occurred at the end of 2017, in preparation for what may likely be a sell-off (Bloomberg wrote an article late last year, 'Google Bloomberg NDS'), now that it's cheaper to run.

Cisco has halved the workforce in 5 years, with only one client, Sky, now paying for the s/w created. There are 4 'culls' every year, roughly every 3 months, which are usually small but have increased to 20+ people in the last year. This has led to a more negative atmosphere in the last couple of years.

If you're unlucky and end up in the wrong team, you could be working with managers and colleagues who look after number one and hide their ineptitude and bad behaviour from those above, whilst making themselves look good off the back of other people.

Complaining to HR doesn't do any good; they're still there. It doesn't help there's no local HR department, as they were 'no longer needed' over a year ago.

Find out what's really going on at lower levels and aim to get rid of the people who really aren't doing their jobs properly, instead of getting rid of people who work hard and have to support and cover for the people who shouldn't be there. This should start with you lower-end managers.

Treat all employees with respect; you've had the training. Value your workers. Use the words 'thank you'.

I wonder what Abe Peled would have made of this.