By Martín Padulla for staffingamericalatina This could be the title of a job post. Or, maybe, the future of ...
By Martín Padulla for staffingamericalatina
This could be the title of a job post. Or, maybe, the future of staffing and recruitment.
Whenever I am working in the region with companies’ top management to define a long term strategy and design a proper structure to reach their goals, a common issue comes out. This happens in small companies and in multinational companies, in conservative countries as well as in those countries that welcome changes. The common issue is the lack of flexibility or the resilience deficit.
A resilient organization is capable of reinventing itself by using alternative strategies that enable it to adapt to change. Resilient organizations are convinced on the fact they can have an influence on the reality that surrounds them and reach their goals despite the difficulties that emerge when walking that path.
Generally speaking, organizations have difficulties in quickly adapting to change. These difficulties tend to appear in three levels: top management have deficit in the tools they possess to rethink the organization, work teams made of talents with low adaptability to change and rigid regulatory frameworks that make adaptation more difficult due to unjustified restrictions or simply because they are old fashioned.
Governments, companies and workers must bear in mind that modern markets are volatile and disruptive by definition. Everything that causes a sudden breakup is disruptive. Products and services that shake up modern markets are a consequence of disruptive innovation. This concept was introduced by Clayton Christensen, a Professor of Harvard Business School, in 1997.
Basically there is a moment in which users do not consider the innovation applied to a product or service as a differentiating advantage, as they no longer need the elements added to increase the benefit. This situation makes the product/service vulnerable and its evolution stops being determinant. From that moment on, the price may become a key element or a new product/service with a disruptive technology will enter the market and compete with it and with the current technology. Usually, new products or services have more advantages, their value is higher than the value of products that already are in the market and they quickly catch the eye of consumers.
These are emerging companies, with new business models, adaptability to change, a predictive understanding of reality, reach solid positioning. Even though the concept of disruptive innovation is quite new, it was definitely implied in the concept of creative destruction elaborated by the sociologist Werner Sombart. This concept became popular thanks to the economist Joseph Schumpeter, who wrote about it in 1942 in his book “Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy”. Schumpeter stated that innovation in market economies is achieved through new products that destroy old companies and old fashioned business models.
How can companies emerge, live for many years and become stronger through resilience? Part of the answer lies on having the talent with the skills demanded by the business and other competences that become more relevant with time. Some examples of the skills these talents own are:
Having said that, companies may develop strategies to make sure their management team, their core, has these sort of talents. However, cycles are becoming increasingly shorter and change is disruptive. For businesses, adaptation to change means having projects with work teams elaborated ad hoc to achieve goals and reach success. Having those talents is very difficult and everything seems to point out that the future will be even more complex.
Countries will need regulatory frameworks that provide support to 21st century markets, which adapt to the reality of modern labour markets and look after workers’ real needs. Workers of this century want to work under formal conditions in dynamic labour markets that offer them competitive projects to develop and acquire more and better skills.
As regards companies, besides developing their business in updated frameworks, they need specialists who are capable of helping them to create and manage high performing work teams who participate in strategic projects. Specialists close to the labour market, who are key actors in the effective feedback of more and better skills.
Perhaps labour markets’ evolution in Latin America is closely related to up-dating its regulatory frameworks and to the way in which staffing and recruiting companies reinvent themselves, bringing disruptive innovation to become the creators of human capital and specialized managers in the design and elaboration of high performance work teams for specific projects. Companies and workers in the region would strongly appreciate this new role, which would be strategic to improve productivity in our countries.
About Martín Padulla
Managing Director of Staffingamericalatina. Martín Padulla is a Sociologist (USAL), MBA (UCA) and labour markets expert. He published Flexible Work in South America and Regulatory Frameworks for Private Employment Agencies in Latin America, two books that address the new realities of labour.
mpadulla@staffingamericalatina.com
About staffingamericalatina
It is the unique independent digital media specialized in Latin American´s labour markets.
Produce and spread contents, researches and developments about issues such as Employability, Youth Employment, Training for Employment, Decent Work, Private Employment Agencies, Active policies for employment, Teleworking, Public and private actions for the creation of decent work, Green Jobs and Corporate Social Responsibility.
It is the meeting point for companies, providers, candidates, service´s companies, academics and independent professionals of Latin America.
It’s the Authorised Business Partner in the region of Staffing Industry Analysts
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