Sara Cuddy - Human-Centric Manufacturing

Getting the most out of digital transformation requires securing understanding, support and buy-in, not just from the c-suite in the boardroom but also from the people on the production floor.

“Every company is unique and every site is unique, and they all have micro-cultures. This means we usually need to take a multi-pronged approach to bringing people with us when trying to transform the way a company does things.”

For Sara Cuddy, Director of People, Organisation and Transformation Culture at DMI and an expert in guiding and managing change in manufacturing environments, people are the most important part of any serious rethink of how a business does things.

Because DMI helps manufacturers engage with state of the art digital transformation, she is regularly called upon to help smooth over teething issues created by resistance to change. Doing this well is a point of pride for the company.

“The faster and more authentically you can recognise what’s important to people, the faster you can build trust with them. But there is no one-size-fits-all for every organisation. You have to meet people where they are and a lot of that comes down to how you do communication,” said Cuddy.

“Today I’m all about what’s important to the individual and getting to know them as ‘whole people’ and not just their work persona.”

Cuddy’s role within DMI is to help manage and guide the people part of the change process for customers. She’s a strong believer in the idea that technology is a huge enabler but ultimately is only as effective as the degree to which people embrace it.

Getting the most out of digital transformation requires securing understanding, support and buy-in, not just from the c-suite in the boardroom but also from the people on the production floor.

“A big part of change management is elevating the role of ‘recognition’ and making sure that people feel seen and heard,” she said. “There’s no such thing as over-communication in these situations. And managers need to be able to understand everyone’s concerns, not just those of the board.”

“For example, older managers need to recognise that younger people in the workforce today often want more autonomy in their careers, and to feel like their thoughts have been considered. If you don’t do that, it can create resentment. ”

Cuddy’s role with DMI has brought her full circle in life. She initially studied business and economics in Waterford Institute of Technology before later spending ten years working at a high level in human resources in the US. But it was while growing up in Laois that she first became aware of how important interpersonal relationships were.

Her mother was a social worker and so Cuddy’s childhood home was a place where people, the things they did and the reasons they did them were regular topics of conversation. Later, when her mother went back to college and became a probation officer in the prison service, empathy and how people could be helped were things that made a deep impression on her.

“Being open and honest about your own shortcomings helps lower barriers. As a leader, you should be trying to hire people who are much better than you at what they do, and if you’re not doing that you’re failing basically,” she said.

“You have to put your people at the centre of everything you’re doing, because they’re your main asset and how you treat them is hugely important. It’s common to hear people say things like ‘data is the new oil’ but that’s a little short sighted in my view. It’s people. It’s always been people and it always will be.”

Cuddy thinks that there are some key trends emerging that are likely to play out in ways that will impact manufacturing for some time to come. Some are general and some specific, but all are based in changes to the way people see their roles and their career expectations.

“The pace of technological change is speeding up and there’s no reason to think that’s not going to continue. What young people learn in college today will, at best, only be a foundation for their career and everyone in tech should understand that they will need to upskill and retrain regularly through their working lives,” she said.

“Many organisations are going through a digital transformation process and that in turn is becoming about cultural transformation as well."

"We’re at the start of a decades-long process that is going to redefine what we think of a workforce as being and it’s important to get ahead of that conversation.”

Already, Cuddy said, companies are finding that ‘Generation Z’ -- people born from the 1990s on  -- want and expect more autonomy and more of a say in what they do at work. As these people age into senior management positions, it’s likely that they’re going to exert a strong level of influence on management culture. Change is coming.

“I think we’re also going to see more ‘micro-credentialing’ and ‘micro-learning,’ so instead of taking large chunks of time away to complete courses, it’s going to become more common for people to take small chunks of time to upskill in the workplace -- short sharp upskilling sessions sometimes only five or ten minutes long but happening regularly,” she said.

“And if technology continues to advance in the way that it is now, successful companies will be those that are best able to adapt. It will become more important to be technology agnostic, not fixed on any one way of doing things, and to be culturally able to adapt to market demands faster.”

Already companies that experience lethargy around change and which struggle to get their workforces to ‘adapt to the need to adapt’ are seeing themselves losing out.

“Your people are really important, but just who are your people? Is it your employees? To one way of thinking, yes. But to another, it’s actually the entire ecosystem that supports your company and its efforts. It’s not just the people you directly employ, it’s also your contingent workers, your suppliers, their staff and everyone that plays a role in feeding into your organisation’s success,” said Cuddy.

“Technology and a willingness to adapt to change can massively empower your ability to harness the strength and enthusiasm of all these people. It’s a transformative idea with transformative potential.”