By Martin Padulla for staffingamericalatina

Recently, the World Employment Confederation disseminated the findings of a global study conducted with FT Longitude, titled “The Work We Want.” As Denis Pennel, Managing Director of WEC, stated in the first episode, “The Work We Want is a starting point for governments, employers, and workers to address our new labor reality and find collective solutions to provide better outcomes in labor markets for all.”

AI has made agility non-negotiable, and the workforce solutions sector is crucial in helping bridge the employment and skills gaps caused by digitalization, providing sustainable flexibility. The survey of top global labor market leaders highlighted the urgency for policymakers to recognize these changes in worker preferences and ensure that all opportunities in the modern labor market are accessible to every part of society.

Eighty-three percent of senior executives say that after the pandemic, employees value flexibility in terms of where and when they work as much as compensation. Eighty-two percent believe that the idea of following a single career path throughout one’s life is obsolete. Eighty-three percent think it is necessary to raise awareness about the diverse types of employment contracts available today and allow people to choose what best suits them.

I invite you to review all the detailed findings of this global study, divided into three episodes and conducted between November and December last year with 715 senior executives (680 from Forbes Global 2000 companies and 35 from public sector organizations). Complementary interviews were conducted with senior business leaders and global talent planning and future of work experts.

Personally, and almost automatically, the study led me to reflect on the impact of these data on our region. While all the findings impact the region, the complexity of Latin America requires us to ask many additional questions: What kind of work do we want in Latin America? What work do we need? What does the work we want look like? Is there a single form of work that we want and need? Perhaps we need to first ask what kind of education we want. What kind of education do we need? How will we train for the jobs we want? Who will train us throughout our lives? How will we build our careers?

Education and work are the most determining factors for inclusion first and then for upward social mobility. The culture of work is associated with the idea of progress and development. There are many possible futures. In terms of what truly exists when we talk about futures, we find ideas and concepts. Futures do not exist as such; they are built. What exists is what we do or fail to do, the decisions we make and those we do not.

Education (and its derivative professional training, skill development, lifelong learning) and work feed into and enhance each other. Without this dynamic, the word “want” cannot include everyone. These are parallel paths with constant points of contact and review, requiring recurrent redesigns and immediate implementations. We need trial and error, to fail quickly and cheaply, to guarantee quality early education and efficient access to technology for those who will be the workforce of the future. We need to accompany, guide them in careers that will no longer have predetermined paths, unique formats, or lifetime jobs.

No one disputes that organizations and workers need flexibility. However, our region has rigid labor markets, and many of the reforms being debated do not make significant contributions in this regard. Many reforms are born outdated; they settle 20th-century debts but do not create a platform that allows us to address future jobs, nor do they consider 21st-century needs! (Incidentally, next year we will consume the Q1 of the century; we need to accelerate.)

One in two workers in 11 Latin American countries surveyed by the International Labour Organization (ILO) worked informally last year. In countries like Argentina, Chile, and Ecuador, the rate increased; in others, it decreased, but starting from very high rates. According to the international organization, post-pandemic labor recovery was informal. This detracts from demand-based skill formation and, of course, from inclusion. Current regulatory frameworks explain much of what happens outside them.

Necessary questions remain: how to make space for upcoming generations? How to give new meaning to departing generations? How to think about flexibility with formality and creativity to move away from obsolete frameworks and retrograde conceptions?

We want (and need!) a work concept that aligns with organizations embracing technology, centered around people. In its essence and potential, without distinctions of gender, age, sexual orientation, race, religion, or any other factor not strictly related to development possibilities. By considering each life cycle, understanding and knowing, the People area can add value when designing talent pools linked to the organization through diverse formats, tailored to each individual forming high-performance teams.

During the presentation of the “Regional Strategy for Labor Migration and Human Mobility in Latin America and the Caribbean 2023-2030,” the ILO emphatically called for promoting the articulation between public and private employment services. Evidence indicates that they enhance the formation of skills demanded by the labor market and generate rapid access to formal jobs. What kind of work do we want for migrants? Today it is precarious, informal, untrained, and with lower incomes.

Ratifying ILO Convention 181 on private employment agencies is an urgent need to develop many of the jobs we want. This ratification directly correlates with concepts such as formality, flexibility, inclusion, social security, intergenerational coexistence, health, training, relevance, and decent work.

Technology is both a cause and an effect. It is necessary to also promote workertech as exponential and technological complements to analog regulatory frameworks with low reaction speeds. Today, they are the ones who train, provide health and levels of social protection to independent workers through technology.

The work we need has portable rights, not only to develop diverse forms of work (temporary, agency work, freelancers, contractors, independent, platform-based, etc.) but also portable between countries in the region. Mobility is a constitutive element of the work we want. The concept of remote work is an opportunity to export knowledge. We need to position ourselves as a hub of global talent.

The work we need requires rethinking a 4.0 pension system that addresses diverse forms of work and considers all demographic particularities.

It is clear that we need an educational and labor revolution to accompany the technological revolution. This revolution must also accompany the aging population revolution and take advantage of our citizens’ greater physical and cognitive fullness. It is a revolution that must be conceived very quickly to take advantage of the demographic dividend and must address several highly complex fronts simultaneously.

Creating the best possible work futures is the most transcendent task in the region’s history.

The ingredients have been identified. It is time to roll up our sleeves and create the disruption that will finally end exclusion, guarantee equal opportunities, and harness talent so that the possibility of sustainable development becomes real and inclusive.

https://insights.wecglobal.org/the-work-we-want/home/

Photo of Helena Lopes in Unsplash