Blazing the Trail: A Recap of Our First Career Development Month

We like to say the magic of our company is our people. We welcome and embrace each of our unique backgrounds, mindsets, and skills we bring to work every day. We know that it’s the different ideas and experiences across our teams that fuel Splunk’s growth. To continuously drive innovation, we believe it’s critical to create ample opportunities for our people to learn new things and grow these skills, in their own way and at their own pace. 

As we’ve been embarking on a journey to bring together the teams at Cisco and Splunk, we have found that our two companies are aligned when it comes to our employee experience: we both deeply believe in the collective power of all of our unique backgrounds, and we know that it’s essential to invest in our employees and encourage them to take time to focus on their development. 

To bring this to life for our people all over the world this year, our learning and development teams designed our first ever, global Career Development Month! This month-long program was created to offer each and every one of our people, no matter your level in the organization or where you live in the world, the dedicated time and space to reflect on your career development and learn something new. 

Blazing the Trail for Career Development Month

Our theme for the month was Blazing the Trail, encouraging our Splunkers to embrace their strengths and build a career path that is unique to them. The purpose was to create a program that was globally connective, culturally relevant, and welcoming to all through a variety of new opportunities to collaborate, practice, listen, and learn.

In partnership with Cisco, we created a month full of programming that allowed people to expand their knowledge at their own pace. Each week, we offered virtual and in-person learning sessions to hear new perspectives through keynote speakers with best-selling authors, Q&As, and panels with team leaders. For the hands-on learners, we hosted weekly workshops to build your skills, like roleplaying challenging career conversations, conducting a self-assessment on personal strengths, and reflecting on building personal habits.

“I really enjoyed the live sessions with guest speakers who shared their experiences and best practices. They gave us a lot of practical tips and advice, and I was able to apply some of it to my own work.” — Splunker feedback

Career Development – Through the Month and Beyond!

We know the pace of a growing business can be intense, so it was important to us to put together a full month of dedicated programming so all our people really felt that taking time to reflect on their career development was not only supported, but encouraged at a company-wide level. This month was just a starting point to transform mindsets around career development, inspire continuous learning, and set our people up for success in their careers, at Splunk, Cisco, and beyond.

“In the words of Ferris Bueller, ‘life moves pretty fast… if you don’t stop and reflect on your career goals every once in a while, you might miss it.’” — Sarah Bedard, Program Manager for Talent Development

Come Reach New Heights With Us.

Are you interested in joining a company that puts career development first? Explore what career development looks like at Splunk and explore our open roles around the world.

This blog was co-authored by Sarah Bedard, Program Manager for Talent Development.