Those companies that are not transparent, that do not have a social development strategy and that do not listen to their employees to include them and make them participate in their business project are destined to disappear. Each time you will have fewer applicants who want to work in them. If they are not known, they do not exist. It is a warning to sailors at a time when the distortion between supply and demand in jobs necessary to progress and succeed in a changing world is essential. If companies want to attract the best they are going to have to strip down and tell their narratives to get the best engineers, molecular biologists, digital experts; but, also to recruit the best lawyers, capable of deciphering the complexity of the new legislation.
The battle for talent, a hackneyed word but one that is still more than current, is intensifying. And the salaries and past of the hiring company is not enough. The decision factors begin to change, those that potential employees ask: what degree of flexibility do I have? How does the internal information system work? Do you work in networks within the company? What options does the company give me to learn and grow? And internal mobility in the medium term? BTS consultant, Brad Chambersdescribes in an article in the Harvard Business Review some characteristics of this new labor revolution.
He explains how in the hunt for young promises it is essential that the company is able to relate its culture and its social objectives. Some objectives that can no longer be disguised behind punctual and not very credible marketing campaigns. There must be a social and environmental strategy. No more thinking only about financial goals. They are necessary, but not sufficient. Companies are required to have their foundations and clearly defined statutes. In the end, the question, very Anglo-Saxon roots: “How to give back to society what society has given me?” For this, it is essential to nurture regular meetings, virtual or face-to-face, between the CEOs of the companies with groups of diverse employees to ask, listen and respond.
Beyond the pandemic
The debate has been accentuated by the effects of the pandemic. An intense debate, which will not end, on the future of work. About where and how we will work. Two apparently contradictory effects have been produced. While the option of being able to work outside the office has become widespread as long as projects are completed, electronic communication has generated a hysteria of messages sent at all hours and days. Even on vacation. There are not a few of us who have to control sending messages, sometimes simple occurrences, at odd hours. A human resources director of an important Spanish company told me that the fact of sending a message at two in the morning on a Saturday does not require a response within twenty-four hours. Fake. Tied as we are to the mobile, a message received after hours is always likely to generate unnecessary stress that forces us to answer for what the superior will say. To solve it, it is not so important to wait for new legislation, but to self-regulate. In a visit to the Galletas Gullón company in Aguilar de Campoo (Palencia) they assured that after five in the afternoon it is forbidden to use the mobile phone for work issues except for important emergencies. There is always someone on duty… just in case a crisis arises in the factory.
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The search for talent does not only affect graduates and luminaries of science and/or letters. Every time I go to my barber, he complains about the difficulty he has in maintaining employee loyalty beyond six months. Why does it happen? I ask him. He answers: they get tired, they ask for more free time, absenteeism… Even in the restaurant sector, the leading employer sector in Spain, complaints arise about the difficulty of finding a service. At the gates of the best summer since 2019, there is a hunt in coastal areas for restaurant waiters and hotel employees.
The Spanish context
A reminder to contextualize this debate in a country that has the highest youth unemployment rate in the EU. This week, Spain has again exceeded twenty million affiliates to social security. It hadn’t happened since 2008, the year the financial crisis hit. The unemployed total 2.9 million. This does not excuse the need to remember the labor landscape. Of the 20.2 million affiliates, 3.4 million are paid by the different public administrations. An easy subtraction: the private sector employs 16.8 million. More: in Spain there are 47.3 million inhabitants. Conclusion: 35.5% of the population works in the private sector and, in one way or another, their taxes and contributions serve to partially finance the passive classes and public employees. It makes you think.