Eimear Sutcliffe, DAA

What does a typical day look like for you?

On a typical day I work on company-wide projects alongside our project management team. So, while our project managers work on the process and the technology side of changes, I focus on the people aspect. I look at how those processes and changes impact the human side of projects.

What are the main skills you need to be successful in your roles?

You need to be a people person. I think it’s important to be able to read the room well and be able to understand people and the challenges that they might have with changes. You need to understand what kind of support they might need. If there are any issues, you need to understand why those issues have arisen.

You also need to be analytical. You should be able to look at a process and determine what works in that process, what doesn’t work and what can be done to change that.

What was your career break?

I found the DAA graduate programme, and I was very interested. I had heard very good things about the DAA, the different types of roles you can go into and the different types of people you can work with.

I applied and I got the job as a security project manager. I then spent two years on the graduate programme working as a security project manager. Then, two years ago I got the opportunity to work in a new team, the change management team. This team was new to the DAA. Two years later, that’s where I still am today!

What advice would you give to a student?

Do charity work. I find that it has given me a lot of confidence, patience and respect for other people. It has given me life-long skills that I definitely use in my role and will continue to use going forward.

How have you adjusted to working from home?

I struggled with the initial transition to working from home because my job is very much people-facing. I work with people in person, usually with computers and mobiles. I did find it quite difficult at the start, but my team’s support has been vital. They have been good with keeping up the communication and making sure we’re all still working together and communicating. Having informal discussions has also made a huge difference in settling in.

Now we’re going back to being on site. I am quite looking forward to being on site again but work from home has its benefits.

What do you like about your job?

No two days are the same. I could be presenting to senior management one day and then coming in at four o’clock in the morning the following day to do a shift with our security staff or fire station crew. I could be travelling down to Cork airport to work with the lovely team down there.

There are so many different roles and opportunities, it’s a great place to work. I love my job.