Spotting talent and making it fly
Brigette McInnis-Day is the executive vice-president for human resources at IT company SAP Global. She tells Margaret Harris she loves watching someone at work rise to the occasion and excel in their role
Describe human resources.
For me, it is all about people. The most important thing is identifying key talents and building programmes to help them achieve their best results.
My top priorities are attracting, retaining and growing talent. Helping align personal goals with career ambitions. Taking key talents and getting them ready for bigger and bigger roles.
It is about putting organisations and leaders together. A team can’t survive without the right leader. You take talent, rewards and recognition to drive motivation and ultimate career success.
Technology is also a huge factor. Our Success Factors technology allows us to assess, develop and find talent in a matter of minutes.
It breaks down issues around diversity or getting the job just based on “who you know”, and turns the conversation towards skills, abilities and potential.
What makes your job difficult?
When people don’t leverage their potential. To try to figure out what holds high-potential employees back and how to use human resources to build them up — whether it’s skills, confidence or executive presence.
What do you find most enjoyable about your work?
When you find talent and see them grow beyond what you imagined. You can either take the safe, typical candidate, or you can take a risk and build an unexpected leader. Seeing someone rise, take on new challenges, learn quickly and excel in their role. That is the best part.
Performance appraisals are often seen as box-ticking exercises by the company and employees; is there a better way to assess people’s performance?
In my opinion, the best way to assess performance is by giving praise and constructive feedback in real time. Research continues to show that the once-a-year graded performance review system doesn’t work. Employees want feedback consistently. In this way . . . employees are able to make any necessary adjustments to their work while they are working on it. It also helps to boost employee engagement, because the constant feedback reinforces that their superiors are thinking about them.
In the digital age, where we can communicate with the person sitting next to us at work by e-mail, where does emotional intelligence fit in?
Right now we are faced with a saturation of digital communication in the workplace. While this type of communication can increase efficiency and help clarify tone, it can also affect our soft skills.
In fact, according to a report by PayScale and Future Workplace, hiring managers believe that communication, leadership, ownership and teamwork are skills most lacking among recent graduates. The saturation of digital communication certainly perpetuates the lack of key interpersonal skills among millennials.
Emotional intelligence is something that often differentiates an average employee from a great one. Because more people today are lacking these skills, those who have emotional intelligence are more valued employees.
What did you want to be when you were a child?
A singer or an actress, but I realised I don’t have a great voice. Actually, I have a terrible voice. But it doesn’t stop me from singing to my children.
What was your first paying job, and what did you learn from it?
I was a waitress. I learnt how to read people and understand how to relate to people from different backgrounds.