During the "leaders" meeting this week they were asked if the new focal program would be merely administering only token 2% increases. Fran specifically stated that no, the plan is to offer increases much more meaningful than 2%. Wouldn't you know it, less than 24 hours later we receive an email directive that expected increases will be in the 2-3% range and this is for employees who haven't had any increase in several years, supposedly due to lack of budget!!!
You can bet whatever your sweet social justice cause of the day is that all of the so called "leaders" in that broadcast are receiving many times more than a 2% increase
This messaging to employees will not be very well received at all :(
15 replies (most recent on top)
I was paid well below the payscale midpoint and hardly ever got raises during my time. ... I rode the gravy train all the way to the end and live a very comfortable life these days.
If you were paid well below the midpoint and didn't get raises, why did you stay even if you were barely working? You could have actually been working somewhere else making more money so that you could live "a very comfortable life". Why waste years of earning potential? That extra money, invested over years, would have resulted in a much better retirement.
And if you were barely working, how did you keep your skills relevant for the next job?
Something's not adding up w/ this story.
I did leave. I went to a security competitor. I am making more money now and have more pipeline than ever when I was in GSSO. Once it was announced that SB was the new VP of global security sales, I knew I had to find a new gig. SB literally has no sales leadership experience at any level. My TSA said SB was clueless when she was VP of GSSO Engineering. Feedback from the direct side, that she will throw anyone under the bus to get what she wants.
Now that I am at a competitor, I wish I could nominate SB to our Sales President’s Club. Her incompetence makes it so easy to beat Cisco.
So leave if it makes you unhappy.
I saw this with my own two eyes during my many, many years at Cisco. A lot of my colleagues ran their mouths about how they weren't being treated fairly and their hard work wasn't appreciated blah blah blah. But every time there were whispers of an impending layoff they would clam up and double their efforts of kissing the behinds of their superiors who openly despised them.
Fran and her cronies do this stuff because they can get away with it. They know that none of you are going anywhere.
I was paid well below the payscale midpoint and hardly ever got raises during my time. However I never had to lift a finger at the office and in fact it was a rarity that I would come in during A.M. hours. The way I saw it is that I was lounging around for a few hours of the day and openly stealing money from the company. So it didn't matter to me if Cisco was a toxic company on the decline run by a bunch of buffoons. I rode the gravy train all the way to the end and live a very comfortable life these days.
But I never came on here to complain, that just baffles me.
There is a reason why SB is sending emails with subject of “Winning Wednesday - GSSO Countdown to FY22”
Her first 2 full QTRs as VP of Global Security Sales has been a complete failure. 1% new bookings growth. Yeah. She can’t wait to get to FY22 cause she thinks people will forget the disastrous leadership so far from her.
SB was an SE then SEM then on collab then channels. SB has NEVER EVER had a Sales leadership role at any level and now she is VP of Security Sales. She has no cyber security experience at all. She was the VP of GSSO Engineering which was a debacle. Our TSAs collectively stated she was the worst VP they have in their career. She was clueless and incoherent when speaking about security. The poster below is correct that SB relies on JH, who is arrogant also. Our products are in bad shape cause of JH and his team that is supposed to be representing the field and customer needs. Instead they represent what they think is cool and complicated, then demo stuff at IMPACT or Live that look great but are meant for really only a couple of customers. JH team is so out of touch with the cyber security industry that it is embarrassing.
We are losing to Microsoft, Zscaler, PAN, Fortinet, and others regularly. There is no real sales or technical leadership within GSSO.
SB only regurgitates phrases and words she has heard but does not know what it really means in the industry.
Expect Q4 to be another embarrassment for security sales courtesy of SB’s incompetence.
I heard from someone that she was an SE and then promoted to the management role. If this is true, with all respect, I don't think that she reached VP level because of her technical and industry knowledge in Cybersecurity. She talk nonsense (sorry to be rude), we cannot be leaders in cybersecurity domain if she continues. And her favorite advisor, the chief architecture JH. That guy is an embodiment of word arrogance. He is surviving just because of her. His slides are far better than other TSAs slide. Sad to see such celebrated and high paying Architect in GSSO does "nothing". no value-add to the Org, rather a show stopper for others people idea and Cisco's growth.
This is the problem when we prompt people based on personal relationship. SH has good relation with most senior leadership in GSSO and Cisco. That is the only qualification she has I think. I may be wrong. when you listen to her on calls, she doesn't have the depth and vision of the industry. Last year in a call with my management and only thing she was keep repeating was " we are going to beat Zscaler" over and over. She never talked about the strategy on how we are going to take Zscaler. I think because she never had one and JH came up with couple of slides which pulled from TDMs and start talking those old same repeated statements. Data is moving to cloud, after COVID most employee will be working home bla bla bla...we all know this you don;t have to repeat this every time. what else is there ? nothing...one trick pony?...horrible. If you hear other leads talk from PaltoAlto, Zsclare, Microsoft they talk about vision, the future and their ambitions product roadmap towards those ....i join some of the free webinars, comparing ours - the are world apart. I am not telling that we are too bad. but if we have a leadership like SH and JH then they are going to prove me wrong soon.
Not disagreeing about SB but it also doesn’t help that the product sucks.
The people in GSSO are figuring out that SB CANNOT lead a global sales organization, so they are leaving. No place is perfect but SB is completely clueless in running a global sales organization. SB has been focused more on telling everyone “my plan”…… well, her plan is awful. Only 1% new bookings growth in Q3 and Q4 is looking embarrassing too. Our competitors are growing new bookings by double-digits. I don’t blame people going to the competition as they are getting paid their industry value. Also, our competitors have true executive sales leaders. They know how to run a global sales organization. Also, our top talent in GSSO want nothing to do with this Agile TSA and Click 2 Expert that we are going to have to use to engage a TSA even though TSA is dedicated to a CSS. Our competitors are already using this against us. SB hires her engineering friend to run GSSO Engineering and that is a complete joke. The morale is at an all time low. SB and her engineering friend running the GSSO engineering team have been a train wreck for security sales and engineering. Ask why we are only growing 1%. Too much time by those two on basking in being VPs instead of actually leading a global sales organization.
SB has been saying since she became out Sales VP that she has this GO BIG initiative. That has been a complete joke. The focus on Small and Midsize business should be partner led not hiring a sales team to try to get those customers. Another failed move by SB. The small and midsize impact to the business is a rounding error.
Here is an idea…. How about some focus by SB on actually selling instead of her making everything about herself, with either her saying “my plan” all the time, or her sharing how she has “broken the glass ceiling”…… she has broke something for sure but what she has broke is the growth of security sales.
In GSSO, most of the brainy and creative people are leaving Cisco to our competitors. I have seen people leaving Cisco before but last 6 month the rate is unbelievable. just check the Linkedin..every other day i can see messages saying " today is last day in Cisco as 15 year" all most all senior talent are jumping. I have had linkedIn chat with couple of X-Cisco employee, whom I have e-met them in webniars (panelist). there were not clear about the actually amount ( I think they are comfortable to share how much they got) but I got an idea that Fortinet and Microsoft are paying around 30%-40% increase in salary for G10 and G11 SE/TSA. Cisco doesn't pay much ..very very less and the worst part if now GSSO opening are all G8 ...they are hiring junior people. I have to work with a young lady ( new join) as PM ..she said this her second jump after graduation. may be 4+ years of exp. Nice human, but taking lots of time to provide answers, think which we can resolve via emails now I have to have multiple calls, exhausting ..grrrr when I compare with previous Product Manger (now he is in Fortinet) all these were done via email or Team chat. I have raised my concerns to VP level that we cannot scale or compete effectively with this model. we need senior people in our GSSO. Umbrella BU especially losing all talents every week. not many people left know in that BU and the support team of Umbrella is horrible. they take day to provide reply. All these are concerns for us who "Work" at ground level with customer for Cisco. Top level management is more interested in stock trading than engineering. For them Cisco is more of an investment firm - they buy new company, suck up their revenue every quarter to keep the stock price high. that all. I doubt that they hardly what is Cisco all about. Sad state.
Have to pay for all the "talent" at the check-ins and social justice support. No one should be surprised.
It’s some HR term (I think it’s actually FOCAL).
What is a focus review? Someone in another group mentioned it to me today. I've heard nothing about it. Great communication. Oh, and I've never had a performance review in 9 years.
There’s plenty of money out there to be had from Cisco competition and frenemies. Go grab it. I did…and very happy I did.
Yeah, I was on the leaders call as well. I thought during that call that it was the same old, same old. Tell people this time we’re going to really recognize people and there is serious money there. Then, a few weeks later, as it soaks in, people eventually figure out that nobody got jack sh1t, and the response is “well, the budget was pretty small this time around.” Our BU has had the best year in 10 years, if we cannot get at least a cost of living increase this year, then we’ll never get it.
Fran is worthless. The ELT seems completely out of it in terms of how bad our pay is and what the overall employee attitude is about it. During our GSSO leadership meetings the topic comes up all the time. Yet, I'm not surprised to hear nothing is being done about it