The Argentine economy this year entered a period that could be classified as another lost decade. But, unlike other stages of economic life, the average explains little: the 0% was built with peaks and valleys, euphorias and recessions.
However, paraphrasing former President Duhalde, the Argentine executive who must project his career, seems doomed to success. “The world became a more uncertain place, which led to widespread disruptions of all kinds. In this universe, the Argentine executive moves naturally: creativity is more valued to reinvent processes or products and immediate decision-making”, he summarizes Fabian GadowCEO in Argentina of the consultancy Korn Ferry. The challenge is now to respond to new experiences of consumers, collaborators and clients and review the processes to gain efficiency. This has a common denominator: the pandemic, which established a forced parenthesis in the ways of producing, consuming and managing companies.yes
corporate exiles. These two years of forced stoppage ended up being a turning point that, added to Argentina’s economic instability, also marked the careers of many managers. For Gonzalo Matamanaging partner of wall chasewhat mattered most was, in fact, that the borders were eliminated and that encouraged taking more risks for professionals. “Several management positions in Argentina began to be more monotonous and strategic due to the transfer of reports to other countries in the region. This encouraged us to look with different eyes at positions in start-ups or companies in which technology is the differential vector”, he explains.
All this conjunction of factors put on the horizon the decision to emigrate to other more profitable destinations from the monetary point of view and more predictable for the immediate future of their work.
paul taussigconsulting partner of Spencer Stuart With vast experience in the regional financial business, there is a lot of interest from candidates to go work abroad, but it is often idealized. “It is very difficult to obtain a work visa in the United States unless it is in a transfer from a multinational company to there. For Europe, without a community passport, everything is complicated and also depends on the type of sector. Specifically, if they ask us to recruit talent, it is in the region and in particular in Chile, Peru and Colombia”, says Taussig.
The curb appeal is also seen by John Valverdeconsultant for Egon Zehnder in Buenos Aires as something logical due to the lack of opportunities in Argentina, especially due to the transfer of some regional hubs in the country with the consequent disappearance of more strategic roles. Nevertheless, what he notices is that there is an internal process for candidates for positions abroad to validate ahead of time the prospect of emigrating in which not only a jump in income weighs but also everything that the move implies: learning, living immersed in another culture and family experience.
Prices. The other element, of weight, worth the redundancy, is the salary. With a high dollar, costs in Argentina tend to be cheap, although the comparison is not automatic. This triggered countless formulas to reconcile what a regional position is quoted in the executive market and what it would cost in the country. As creativity in these matters never rests, there are contracting modalities that combine local payment (salary plus social benefits) with payment in foreign currency, which also eases the tax calculation. The same happens with short-term incentives (the “bonus”) or long-term ones (payment in shares).
Paradoxically, these formulas also served to retain managers in the country: as life “in pesos” continues to be cheaper and access to certain goods easier, some prefer to emigrate only “virtually”. Accelerated digitization during the pandemic helped shape new roles and ways of working. “During the stoppage, there was a lot of difficulty in consolidating international work teams due to the impossibility of flying. Now it is beginning to be remedied and each project has begun to be strengthened. It is a good thing for the sustainability of the business,” adds Valverde.
In this sense, the sector that “broke” the logic of the market is technology, although today the strict definition applies to all those in which technology plays a key role. Taussig sees in this segment the only one with greater dynamics and, furthermore, with the capacity for companies to be willing to bet more on the global competition that exists for this talent, which in times of “start-ups” is more coveted.. This combination gives them the possibility of getting very close to the income of the most advanced markets, but without leaving the Argentine borders. A silent revolution.
Finally, the other relevant change is that of diversity, not as a proclamation but as an operational factor. “There was an opening in every sense: young talent to replace transfers, experienced to compensate in directories where the experience itself counts more and specifically, searches for women leadersboth to balance an unequal gender balance or for positions in which women are considered to carry a more interesting profile and which today have become more strategic”, adds Gadow.
The adaptation will not only be of business models and managers but also, and above all, of the companies themselves. Because for many, the pandemic sting was not enough.
