From 80% Attrition to a Service Engine: Scaling HR Delivery at Cisco

As Americas Regional Center Leader for HR Shared Services at Cisco, Mark Thompson directed a virtual team supporting roughly 50,000 employees across North America and LATAM, alongside a third-party outsourcing partner delivering compensation, stock, payroll, performance, and workforce administration. Then the pandemic hit. Attrition on the team spiked to 80 percent, service was under strain, and the easy answer — adding layers of management — was the wrong one.

I led with people first, because a service operation is only as strong as the team running it. Rather than stacking management layers, I empowered seasoned representatives to direct the work and coach less experienced colleagues, which kept the structure flat and the ownership high. I paired that with relentless attention to coaching, goal setting, and development so people had a reason to stay and grow. On the delivery side, I redesigned processes to take friction out of the employee experience, built an intake website with API integrations to streamline service, and implemented a new NPS scoring system so we could see satisfaction clearly and act on it. The vendor relationship I managed to outcomes, not activity, holding it to an average NPS of 70.

• 01Attrition reduced from 80% to 15% during the pandemic
• 02Average vendor NPS of 70 sustained across core HR services
• 03Processing times cut by 50% and data gaps reduced by 25%
• 04Customer satisfaction raised 40% through a new NPS scoring system
• 05Quality improved 15% by centralizing into a single source quality system
• 06Intake website with API integrations built to streamline delivery

The instinct in a crisis is to add control. I did the opposite. I gave my most experienced people real authority and trusted them to lead the work, which let us scale without bloating the structure. The attrition turnaround — from 80 percent to 15 — did not come from a retention program. It came from people feeling ownership and growth in a moment when most teams felt neither. Fourteen years at Cisco taught me that you build durable operations the same way you build durable teams: clear standards, real trust, and a relentless focus on the experience of the person on the other end.