L&D Manager Spotlight - Roger Cude

Roger L. Cude, 

Vice President of People and Talent

1. Describe your role for UT.  

I just joined UT in the newly created position of Vice President, People and Talent. My role partners directly with the staff and faculty leaders to fulfill our strategy of building a best place to work for everyone. Along with my team members, I have accountability for partnering across the University to attract, develop and retain the best people that live our values and work together to achieve our mission. Our team is responsible for core areas of human resources that provide foundational services to faculty and staff.

2. What was the most important lesson you learned as a new manager?

Take the time to learn about each of the people reporting to you. It is important to learn about their approach to their work and how they prefer to interact with others. Then spend the time to understand their aspirations, where they engage, get excited and fulfilled. Align to those things as often as possible and it makes the mundane or less exciting (but always necessary) parts of our work more appealing.

3. What advice do you have for managers to help develop their team?

I encourage you to always think of learning and development, not just when we are in a class or on a video conference. In addition to those methods, there are development opportunities with new assignments, temporary projects, researching a new way of completing a task, applying technology to routine and manual work, and learning a new skill or ability. I have found that people want to be challenged while also receiving appropriate support if they make a mistake or don’t get it right the first time. Your role as a manager is ensure that goals are accomplished, and the team is always striving to become better.

4. Why is learning in the workplace important?

The simple answer is that change is accelerating all around us. The pace of change is moving faster in technology, expectations and role of higher education, society, environment, job expectations, and I could go on. Learning about how that impacts everything that we do is essential so that the expectations for our work does not change faster than we do. Trying to catch up is hard and often futile. Constant learning allows us to not only keep pace with changes but provides the opportunity to see into the future and anticipate where we need to be in the next year, 3 years, and so on.

5. What have you recently learned, what are you currently learning about, or how are you developing yourself as a professional?

The most obvious response would be joining the team at UT. I have been on a very rapid learning journey to get up to speed on many aspects of the University. I am learning about the priorities, the great achievements across the University, and the culture of how we respect each other and create an environment of belonging for all. The less obvious response is that I felt a need to learn more about advances in digital technology, machine learning and AI. So just before the pandemic, I completed a challenging certificate in Digital Business Strategy at MIT. It was very rewarding to learn from deep experts as well as hundreds of people around the world about the future of these technological advances.