The new normal begins to adopt habits from that old normal. The corporate world had to adapt abruptly to the impact caused by the restrictions caused by the outbreak of COVID. However, four years later, reality seems to return to the times before the pandemic.
2,500 years ago, Heraclitus said “the only constant is change”. “The pandemic, and subsequent events, show us that change is no longer constant, but that change is now exponential”indicates Christian Bernal, director of the Master’s Degree in Human Resources at the University of San Andrés. In this scenario, change and variability is the new constant. “The world of organizations went from living in VUCA environments (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous), to BANI environments (brittle: brittle, anxious, non-linear and incomprehensible)”, Bernal expands.
If the specialists agree on anything, it is that the labor market is going through a talent crisis, since they must make an effort to compete and attract candidates, as well as retain their own employees. “A market where those people who can do it stop to think about what they want to do, and choose different ways to include the concept of work in their lives. And that is why today the value proposition in its entirety is more important than ever, where compensation and benefits stop being differential and become hygienic, and the type of project (what), the way of working, (the how), the work team (with whom) and the purpose (why) become decisive for people to choose their place of work”, Bernal explains.
Priorities. In the past, applicants for a position the first thing they asked were the economic conditions, while today they raise the issue of in-person attendance as part of their priorities. For that reason, Julio Bressoteacher of the Austral University and executive director of BRESSO C&Mexplains that many companies are adopting flexibility policies to attract and retain talent. “There is less commitment to organizations. And options like remote work and hybrid systems are challenging to regulate. Employees increasingly value the reconciliation between work and personal life, as well as the possibility of a proper balance”, he adds.
Globalization makes remote work an advantage for companies by accessing talent anywhere in the world, and on the side of skilled workers they can obtain greater job opportunities and better conditions. For this reason, Bernal considers that the concept of “labor mobility” changes, because for “the first time in the history of humanity it is possible for people to separate the place where they live from the place where they obtain their livelihood.” “The global trend points to hybrid work in all its versions, to return to the workplace with a specific purpose, and not completely remote, to the extent that business dynamics allow it”, underlines.
In Argentina, the hybrid modality is even more segmented because some companies define the number of face-to-face and home office days per week (3×2 or 4×1). “This, in addition to affecting people’s freedom of choice, limits the advantages of hybrid work to its greatest potential. It can be heard in a corridor: “I go to the office to be locked in a room with virtual meetings,” explains Bernal. In this context, the corporate world does not find a unique path to take. Some multinational companies maintain the full home office, others left a day for “work at home” and there are those that returned to full face-to-face. “Companies are at different stages, some are capitalizing on and enhancing the lessons learned from the pandemic, others maintained the same schemes, and some are returning to how it was before,” Bernal details. Bresso warns that “the total home office is not convenient, with some exceptions, because team spirit and socialization are lost, so the physical is also necessary. Not everyone is ready to respond professionally remotely. However, face-to-face did not return as before the pandemic, since employees got used to the home office.
Context. Technology will continue to increasingly influence the work environment and new forms of employment. According to a report from World Economic Forum 2023, 80% of companies plan to continue investing in technology for their organizations. Currently, it is estimated that 34% of tasks within an organization are performed by some type of machine or automation system. Gabriel PereiraCEO of betamodecontributes that the pandemic “It accelerated the digitization processes in organizations and has introduced the notion of a hybrid world, where the face-to-face and the virtual coexist. Currently, there is great uncertainty about the future of work, but also some certainties. Likewise, for the next five years, a loss of 83 million jobs is projected due to obsolescence, more than 63 million new jobs will also be created, many of which have not yet been conceived. “The main challenge for companies lies in adapting to these new technologies and retraining their collaborators to face the changes”, concludes Pereyra. The labor market is experiencing a new normality, which wants to look like the old one again… MARCELO ALPHANO
by Marcelo Alfano
