The alarm went off in many multinationals. A company in the services sector has been unable to find an applicant for one of the many vacant positions for seven months. Another, from the oil sector, is concerned about the constant resignations of your staff.
Nothing is what it was. The transformation of organizations is here to stay and work teams adapt to the new scenario. Professionals are the ones who put their demands on the table and companies, regardless of their size, must be more flexible and negotiate, a verb that was not used in the business world until before the pandemic. Is labor flexibility is actually imposed.
A study, promoted by the agency McCann and the team IDEA Young, had the purpose of knowing the preferences regarding the different work modalities and professional projection, out of 425 respondents (between 18 and 40 years old), mostly from the private sector, manifested two main reasons to continue in the organizations: remuneration according to their expectations, position or performance (74%) and time flexibility (70%). Around the 47% of young people expressed themselves for a hybrid work modality, 45% for virtuality exclusively and only 2% for exclusive attendance.
Conditions
Another survey carried out in the local labor market from the BenchClub network on 285 companies that participated, showed that 26% of the workforce performs “full remote” tasks and the 47% develop a hybrid modality; 54% grant the same number of days for all positions that can work remotely; the majority allocate between 3 (35%) and 2 days (33%) and the 91% do not control schedules in remote days; the youngest and, above all, the digital natives are the most reluctant to return to face-to-face learning.
And many in their interviews to join a company ask directly how many days of home office the proposal includes and if they are told “one or none” they get up and end the interview. “This is not about making age or gender generalizations, the pandemic put on the table the uniqueness of each of the workers and the key is for companies to develop enough flexibility to be able to manage the differences”, adds Gabriel PereiraCEO of the modebeta consultancy.
“It is very clear that companies that refuse to go down that path and manage their talent in the old way will have many problems retaining and attracting new talent that is so scarce in the labor market today,” continues Pereyra..
Cecilia YellowDirector of Human Resources of McCann Buenos Airestells what the new normality is like: “flexibility and working from home predominate. Visits to the agency are only scheduled for meetings or specific projects”.
We are seeing the so-called “employment diversification” and it is more common to have professionals working freelance (4.7%) or in temporary projects for local or foreign companies (3.2%), giving way to a new type of collaborator: the digital nomad.
“People who have a family, whatever their modality, undoubtedly prefer to organize their schedules and improve personal ties. Adults who know their homework prefer to do it from the comfort of home without thinking about what clothes to wear or where (and at what price) they will go to eat”, adds Julio Bresso, executive director of Bresso C&M and professor of Business Sciences at Universidad Austral.
Functions
What are the functions that will require attendance and those that allow the home office? Bresso answers: “Conceptually, most jobs have a home office variable, but basically the security forces (firefighters, police, etc.), also journalists, employees of the medical system demand attendance.
And as long as the means of transport are not controlled by remote control, all kinds of drivers. Special attention must also be paid to all those who teachespecially in kindergartens, primary and secondary schools.
For Nicholas Stajnsznajder, CEO of the consulting firm COSYS, “depends on the positions and personalities of each collaborator, but programmers definitely prefer the virtual mode.” “All the tasks that Cosys employees do can be done from virtuality, but physical and human contact in the same work space generates greater loyalty, creativity and commitment”, expands.
When analyzing the age segment that prefers the different work modalities, there is no definitive answer. Erica Zamoravice president of Gente de Cervecería y Maltería Quilmes for Argentina and Uruguay, does not believe that the choice is linked to the age of a professional, but “with different people have different needs”.
“We understand the current reality and we know that it is dynamic and changing, which is why the starting point for us is to put people at the center of everything we do and to be in constant communication. Seeking to improve their experience, accompanying and developing each person in the most important moments of their lives and guaranteeing that there are equal opportunities”, closes the executive. The business world does not need a law: the new post-pandemic normality actually imposed labor flexibility.
by Marcelo Alfano
