Welcome to the next edition of Leadership Matters where we ask leaders around the Pacific Zone for their insights and advice about leadership matters to support our continuing journey of personal and professional development.
In this edition, we hear from our new Vice President Human Resources James Comer who joined Schneider Electric in February 2023. Prior to his current role, James was the Head of HR ANZ at Cisco, with additional responsibility for Sales Engineering in the APJC region.
James has over 15 years of experience in human capital and human resource management and project management and has worked for some of the world’s leading companies including HP, IBM, and Accenture. James is a fully qualified organisational psychologist (MA Org. Psych.) and is passionate about growing great teams, workforce analytics, and the future of work.
What motivates and excites you about your role at Schneider Electric?
It has to be the people! The opportunity to work alongside talented people and teams from who I hope to learn and who help make a positive impact on the world – whether it be through electrification, sustainability and de-carbonisation, or bringing the new energy landscape to life.
What makes you most proud of your team?
I have been struck by how passionate our HR team is about putting customers – our Schneider leaders and teams – first. The HR team is enthusiastic about our business and make it their business to be of service to our teams. The level of business intimacy, trusted advisory, and curiosity to learn every day is next level!
How do you see the market for HR evolving in the next 5 years?
Undoubtedly, we will see more HR operations and transactions be automated, digitised, and predicated by AI. I also think we will see the skills economy quickly become the new talent currency whereby people will be hired for what they can do instead of what roles they have done. I also think HR’s role as a coach for leaders will amplify as leadership becomes ever more complex as the future of work evolves – including inclusiveness, building best teams, fostering wellbeing, and ‘human’ skills such as empathy.
How does HR support our leadership in sustainability in the Pacific Zone?
Fundamentally, HR’s role is to help attract, source, select, develop, and enable a superior experience for our talented people. Simply put, it is our job to help our leaders find, grow, and energise our people with the skills and capability to drive our path to strategise, digitise, and de-carbonise our way to a net zero world.
Sustainability is fast becoming a prized skill-set across the talent market. People are building qualifications and careers in sustainability and the circular economy. HR contributes to Schneider’s ongoing leadership by finding, building, and growing the talented teams to maintain our leadership in sustainability.
I think we can also help our teams think about the ‘S’ and the ‘G’ in ESG, so that we don’t lose sight of the social and governance aspects needed to drive our purpose.
Finally, HR strives to model the way – as ambassadors of Schneider and human beings who share an environment that needs our commitment to long-term sustainability.
Which of our other values resonates with you most and why?
Right now, it’d have to be ‘Learn Every Day’. Schneider is a large and evolving company that has been around for over 180 years. You don’t stay in business for that long without learning to transform and evolve to meet the needs of your customers, shareholders, and talent market. Our people need to be at the edge of our digital and sustainable electrification journey – and that requires us to innovate, be curious, and learn every day.
What makes someone a leader?
I firmly believe that real leadership lies in how people show up: in their behaviour. I follow lots of leaders who have no team or title. For me, the one thing that makes someone a leader is that they have followers. Why people choose to follow them is because they trust them, believe in what they stand for, their vision and values, know that the leader will help them grow and find success, and will treat them with empathy and compassion.
Who has influenced you most during your career and how?
I’ve been very lucky to have been led by many super leaders during my career and in life. I’ve always tried to reflect on what each of those leaders have taught me – and would like to think I bring those learnings and qualities forward in how I show up. My advice has always been to consciously build your own personal “board of humans” (vs. directors) from all aspects of your life and trust their influence and support to help you make choices and navigate your course.
What is the best advice you’ve ever received?
“We all make choices, but in the end, it is our choices that make us”. This quote comes from one of my favourite video games. It says more succinctly what my Master’s supervisor and first full-time leader once shared with me, which was: “we are where we are, and we are who we are, because of the culmination of many choices we have made throughout our lives – not because of one choice, or someone else, or something else putting us here (or there)”. His point was that while we have a remarkably low amount of real control over our lives, what we do have control over is our choices… So, we should make them consciously, intentionally, kindly (mostly to ourselves), and in line with our core values.