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Welcome to The Culture Code podcast. On this podcast, you’ll learn how to grow, shape, and sustain a high-performance culture with the CEO of LEADx, Kevin Kruse. From designing and delivering highly effective leadership development programs, to measuring and improving the employee experience, you will understand what it takes to cultivate a thriving company culture. Through interviews with Chief People Officers, deep dives into key topics, and recordings of our invite-only community sessions, we bring you cutting-edge, data-backed insights from the most desirable companies to work for in the world.
Kruse: Hello, everyone. I'm Kevin Kruse. Welcome back to Culture Code. Our guest today is the Chief People Officer at UiPath, Brigette McInnis-Day. Brigette, welcome! Where are you joining us from today?
McInnis-Day: Hi, Kevin! Thanks so much for having me. I'm joining today from Sea Isle City, New Jersey, trying to really see out the last week of summer here as well.
Kruse: So extra big thanks that you're actually carving out some time for me, when you could just be sitting with a cocktail in a lounge chair at the beach right now.
For those who might not be familiar with UiPath, how big is your organization and in plain language, what do you do?
McInnis-Day: Sure. Thank you. So excited to be here today, Kevin. Thanks again. Just a little bit about the company. UiPath is, I have to say, a business automation software leader. And we're right in the space between automation with AI, which is probably the hottest thing out there right now, right? I have to say, to your point, what I really like, and especially coming from a people view, the UiPath AI-powered automation platform is not just about optimizing workflows. A lot of times, they think of RPA robots, but it goes beyond that. And I think what's interesting is I always want to think about what it means for our employees, but it enables employee engagement and empowerment. Our people can go well beyond the mundane tasks to focus on what inspires them. So think about the grind. You always hear about our mission; it is really to remove that. And we're doing that internally as well at UiPath with our roughly 4,000 employees globally. And we are truly global, having been global from the start, with a big presence around the world in different geographies. Making sure we're being role models for our own automation is key.
Kruse: I'm glad you clarified, because AI is all the hype right now, right? And so there are many people that are a little scared it's going to put them out of a job.
How would you describe your company culture in just a few words?
McInnis-Day: That's a great one. I think if you ever watch some of the videos on our founder and CEO, Daniel, you'll hear a lot about why culture is so important and how mindful and thoughtful he's been in terms of leading the organization to focus on it. And there's... I'll just give you the words. I know that sometimes they feel like they're just words on paper, but it's not the case here. What's interesting is the humbleness of this place. One of our values is "humble" in our aspirations. We know we're not perfect. And the idea is we seek to aspire to be these things. And that's always the journey as you evolve. So I think that's also something in itself, and it gives you an indicator of what UiPath is like, not only in terms of words on paper but in terms of behavior you want to see. Our values are bold: you've got to really get out there, be in front of the action, be humble, and aspire to make sure that while we have great technology, we're always thinking of improvement. Be fast. As we all know, we can miss the market and opportunities. We want to make sure we really relish in the opportunity and embrace it. And be immersed. It's a nice word that really grounds people and guides behavior. That's how we describe it. One of the things I looked for in organizations as a people leader is a people-first philosophy. We have that. And if you think about how decisions are made, how we build up the organization, and why we do what we do as a company, it leads with a people-first approach. For me, that was really important, and one of the main reasons why I came to UiPath. And just to wrap it up, what I was really attracted to is our overall mission and vision, which is truly about purpose. It's about accelerating human achievement. Any company that wants to do that has people at the core, at the heart, and that for me is important from a people-first approach.
Kruse: So much great stuff there. What are some of the ways you foster or sustain this culture? Any unique rituals or traditions related to your culture?
McInnis-Day: No, it's great. I think a lot of times people like to talk about mindset shift and all this high-level stuff, or change, and how we drive that. I think it's down to, how do we even understand how to measure culture? Over the last couple of positions I've held, I've really thought about, how do you measure it? What metrics do you use? And how do you get around it so that you can do more than just pulsing? Intuition's key, but for UiPath, one of the things that was really unique was they had a culture team. They already had a culture team. What that did was really serve as the voice of the people. So that you're getting a sense of people around the world but also sharing what's important for the company. They have people called culture champions – super diverse and from all around the world. For example, we took our values and looked at the behaviors and said, "These need to evolve." We did that over this past year as we updated our mission, vision, strategy, and OKRs. This allowed us to have constant communication. Think about a company that invests in culture as a team – small but mighty. We're working it through the employee base. These culture champions help drive engagement with our new behaviors. Imagine having leaders get feedback that's unbiased, outside of HR. That's how we're doing it differently. To measure, we tie things to culture, especially as part of our people experience survey. We do that annually, but we also do pulses throughout the year. We have a feedback channel on Slack, always getting the pulse. It helps us act quickly and feel inclusive. There are symbols in our culture – how we make decisions, what we share at all hands, how we communicate. We've shifted some things. We ensure our people's strategy links to our business strategy. One big thing around our culture is, "Can I have a career here?" We looked at what careers mean. I started asking people. Everyone had a different definition of "career." Some wanted a clear path, others wanted every opportunity. What we're trying to do at UiPath is define what "career" means at our company for our people. Our people strategy vision is "career without limits" – meeting people where they are, providing opportunities, not just in learning but also in leadership, ensuring we are the career, as defined by the individual, allowing growth at UiPath.
Kruse: Tell me a little bit about what you're doing to support or develop your leaders, especially your frontline leaders. 70% of engagement is correlated to the manager, and front-line managers touch more employees than any other leadership group. What are some of the ways you develop your front-line managers?
McInnis-Day: Yeah, Kevin, I think this is a big one. I read an HBR article probably about 10 years ago. I don't remember exactly, but it mentioned that first-line leaders touch roughly 80% of the entire population. We spend so much time at the top cascading messages. In a previous role, one thing we questioned was, "Why aren't we communicating to first-line leaders first?" If they get the message versus worrying about the range in between, we can have the best leadership in the company. That's why first-line leaders are where you need to place most of your focus, especially from a people perspective. It's crucial to ensure they understand how to manage people, how to design processes, and how to handle tough conversations. All these aspects are vital. We recently introduced a new aspiring leaders program. It's for those who want to become leaders, and we're currently testing it. We plan to fully roll it out to the organization next year. We've also launched a leadership experiences initiative – not calling it leadership development but experiences because we want to include shadowing, job rotations, and various other opportunities beyond just learning. We are offering learning, but it's more hands-on, interactive, and geared towards applying the skills. That's what we've launched for all levels in the organization this month. But, going back to the first-line leaders, ensuring that communication reaches them first or simultaneously is beneficial. It enables us to provide the support they need.
Kruse: Now, you've talked already about some great initiatives from the manager. Related to culture, are there any special initiatives or results you’re most proud of?
McInnis-Day: I think a couple of things. Before we jumped into leadership development, definitions, and design. Because during Covid, I think it was difficult to drive some of those things, right? And how do you do it in a nice way? We set out, like I mentioned before, and we really looked at our behaviors to our values. We said our values are right. But the behaviors are what we need to focus on. What we did was we also established leadership expectations. And it was really about, what does it mean to be a leader? Why do you hold a higher, you know, ability to manage and lead, and what that looks like and what the expectations are? We've been cascading that throughout the organization, and we are measuring it as well to help leaders understand what that looks like. What I'm pretty proud of, and I think the company as a combined effort, was that we took our people's experience survey results last year, and we focused on 3 things: accelerate for your growth, build strategy, mission, vision, and OKRs to measure them. Simplification and automation have to be everything we do. So we took 3 topics that we're focused on, worked through, and continued to deliver. They're not all done, and I think combining that as a whole collective across the organization and continuing to report it out is very important. Because these expectations as a leader were clear, we tied every person's leader to people's OKRs in addition to their job and showing every quarter where we are right. And that recipe of providing clarity, providing transparency, and increased communication has shown a big increase in behavior. So I think we're tapping into what's working for the people and what they want and need. Many people have volunteered to be part of these major initiatives like accelerating career growth. I've got 40 people around the world that are part of the build and the outcome. Because, like I said, do I know how to define a career? Not sure, right? And we need it to be fluid and need it to be agile for the future as well.
Kruse: Now, Brigette, this is a short format podcast, so we only have a few minutes. But I want to hit you with a few more questions. What book would you recommend that your colleagues read? (or podcast, video, etc.)
McInnis-Day: So I love the Julia Louis-Dreyfus podcast called "Wiser Than Me." First of all, the first one she had is with Jane Fonda, which I also think is pretty phenomenal, and the premise is really about sharing your background, sharing your journey as a woman, and also listening to more senior women who've been there longer with different experiences. If you start to listen to women in their seventies or older and what they have been through in their lives, how they've seen their careers, and what's happening, you can learn a lot about where we need to go as well. But also, because of those women, what has actually opened up for other women in the world. First of all, I think she's hilarious. I love all of her comedy, her style; all of it's great. And her podcasts are really insightful. So that's what I listen to as well. And I think it's great to link that to think about the people in your life. Are you listening to them? Do you tap into their knowledge at all ages, right? And to use that as part of how you apply it to your job as well.
Kruse: I'm a huge podcast listener and also a big fan of hers. I didn't even know she had a podcast, so that's a great one for me to add to my treadmill routine. What skill or behavior do you wish your employees did more of?
McInnis-Day: If you're new to the role of Chief People Officer, I would say, get really close to your board. Understand what the board needs, at the same time as listening to the employee needs. One of the first things to do is to dive deep into the heart of the culture, the behavior, and listening around the world. That's probably the best thing you can do right off the bat. It's not about delivering all the HR things you know how to do. It's really about understanding what types of solutions you need now for this company and to build for the future. And it's got to be applied differently. You can't just use the same toolkit everywhere you go. And I think that's also about listening to your own intuition and applying that as well. So, what I would say is just step back, observe, understand it, and really target what's needed, not what might be the right thing to do from an HR perspective, but really tailor to what's needed.
Kruse: I love this. This might be the first time I've heard this advice about not just thinking about your internal customers and stakeholders as the employees or even your direct boss, but there's a board. So, make sure you know what all your stakeholders are interested in.
McInnis-Day: Getting out there and listening to customers is interesting. What customers observe when they see your people at the sites, or even your engineers, is a different reflection. Look at how you measure your values as well.
Kruse: There's so much going on in the world for everyone, with significant growth and change at UiPath. When you think about the year ahead, what are maybe some of your focus areas or priorities for yourself and your team?
McInnis-Day: Sure, I know we haven't talked too much about it today. But for me, the exciting part about being at UiPath is really around HR automation. When you think about all the new solutions coming out and how we use generative AI automation, I think we talk about the world of work changing and how people work. We really need to empower employees and leaders to think differently about leveraging automation, to accelerate their work and change it from a value-added approach. That's a big piece. The priority for us is to build that and be a role model for the HR organizations in UiPath. In addition, I believe it's not just about elevating HR, but it's about lifting the entire organization. If we take away the mundane work and add more value, giving more ability for leaders to lead and own their people's topics in a way that's not cumbersome and is normal as part of just doing your job, I think we're going to have a better outcome overall. The other two big things are we're going to continue accelerating career growth. I don't think that one goes away. Also, for us, it's about continuing to evolve the culture as we continue to grow. We're a little over 2 years post IPO. As we continue to grow and evolve, I think that's something that has to be not just managed, but evolved and be part of our focus areas as well. Those are the big ones for us. With automation, it really challenges the HCMS we've used in the past and also how we deliver solutions going forward. I'm really excited to get rid of any type of binder hobbling different reports together. Imagine a succession plan where all the information on the employees is already there. There are talent pools. We have the ability to move people around based on projects or past experiences. Give them the support they need, all via automation, like we do with our onboarding. It's a different world that we have to redefine quickly because employees want choice, have choice, and they're going to want to go where the work is — the best work they can find.
Kruse: A future with no more binders is a compelling vision for sure.
McInnis-Day: I remember talking to a colleague who was saying that's where they keep everything and thinking, wow, we've got to get well beyond that so that you can get access to everything, especially on talent. Having access internally and externally on talent is going to be the key differentiation for companies going forward.
Kruse: And we see that, you know, the lens I often look through is an L&D lens. Back in the day, there were actual physical binders. Everyone had training binders, books, and things. And then the modern version was, "Here's a PDF." But it's a joke because you take your DISC assessment, your personality test, whatever it is, and they give you a report. Has anyone ever found and opened that PDF after the day of the workshop? Right, you know, the PDFs are just the same as the binders, or worse, they're out of sight, out of mind. Moving into a world where this is automated and delivered to us in a supportive way is definitely a bright future. So, Brigette, I'm so glad that your shorehouse had strong Wi-Fi, and we were able to keep you from the beach for half an hour or so. Congratulations on all the success and thanks for spending some time with us today.
McInnis-Day: Kevin, thanks so much. Thanks for focusing on this, and I appreciate the time. Thanks, all.