'With the rise of AI, we're seeing an increased need for human skills': Kelly Jones

Cisco is continuing to focus on talent and workspace as it looks to transform its hiring processes amid the rapid rise of artificial intelligence, said Kelly Jones, chief people officer of the US technology firm. In an interview—during her recent visit to India—Jones said as AI is increasing the need for human skills and that Cisco would look for leaders who can also work on human skills like critical thinking, communication, and compassion.

Edited excerpts:
Q: What are the areas of investment and focus for your India site? How vital is it in terms of global operations?

KJ: India has been one of our main sites for a while now—we’ve often referred to it as our ‘second headquarters’, and we just celebrated our 30-year anniversary in the country, which is testament to our focus here. Talent and workspace continues to be an area of focus for us. We just got approval for our site plan in Bengaluru. We’re continuing to amplify our skill development programmes especially around cybersecurity and AI. Security remains a crucial area for us from a product and services perspective. We have an extremely diverse technology stack, so the skillset looks different for each employee.

Q: What gaps are you seeing around skilling and leadership?

KJ: With the rise of AI, we’re seeing an increasing need for human skills. Critical thinking, communication, compassion—these are some things we would not necessarily think of as hard technical skills. But as we start to map out the impact that we know AI is going to have on the tasks that we have within Cisco, we feel strongly that it's going to allow our people to work more up the human side of the stack, and so, we're seeing gaps there. Increasingly we’re thinking about leaders of the future, and understanding the competitive landscape is important. We look at leaders who can manage people, manage agentic processes, and eventually some level of humanoid.

Q: What transformations are you bringing about in your talent processes?

KJ: The hiring area is the one that’s most ripe for transformation, and we’ve got quite a bit going on around that. We're going to launch a project in the next few months, which is going to give us a lot more data and insights in our hiring process but also connect to future platforms that we have around learning. For example, after a new hire goes through the initial onboarding process and we understand their skills, we will determine what training we can enable for them in the flow of work. The second area that I'm particularly excited about is uplifting the employee experience, by removing the friction from employees’ day-to-day work. We have these large language models that answer straightforward queries. We want to also take all these services a step further. For instance, if you ask it how much vacation time you have left this year, it can tell you how many days and then ask if you would like to log a day. From there, it will ask you to specify which day you would like to log and then, it will do it for you. And then it can even generate a letter to your leader stating that you have requested a day off. So, we're trying to take all the disaggregated complexity in HR tools and bring it together.

Q: Diversity hiring in the US has been significantly impacted due to government policies. Is this affecting India?

KJ: I don't see US hiring laws affecting India at all. Cisco has such great talent in India. Our teams here are supporting innovation and customers as well as our purpose to power an inclusive future for all. And part of why our team here — and around the world — has been so successful is because we believe in casting a broad recruiting net and hiring the best, most qualified people with the broadest set of skills for the job and always have. That foundation includes a wide array of skills, experiences, and backgrounds. And that's where our focus is — ensuring that we have the best teams and an environment where employees can bring their authentic selves to work.