Archives for March 2022

(This article was drafted by Cornerstone Lima in response to a survey conducted in Peru in the third quarter of 2021. The concerns expressed by the South American business leaders broadly reflect the concerns of executives worldwide, so the survey and comments below by Diego Cubas, CEO of Cornerstone Lima, are relevant anywhere.) 

According to the recent survey “Human Talent Challenges Facing CEOs in 2022”, the main business concern of 55% of Peruvian business owners and executives continues to be the scarcity of local talent that fits the needs of their organization.

As a result, strategic positions within their companies are challenging to fill. While the COVID pandemic initially increased the number of professionals available in the market because many organizations had decided to downsize, companies began to recruit again once a “new normal” established itself. But their search focus had changed: now they were looking for talent with much more digital, innovative, agile, and resilient capabilities.

Today, companies take longer to find the ideal candidate with the necessary skills to achieve productivity and growth. And they are casting their recruiting nets farther. Diego Cubas, Cornerstone’s Chairman for Latin America, has observed this upswing in the “talent without borders” drive. “Recruiting a person who has the skills, fits the culture and has the passion for filling the role increasingly motivates progressive companies to scan the horizons.“

The survey highlighted two significant challenges that CEOs face when making their selections.

40% of CEOs said that finding a candidate who will fit into the firm’s organizational culture is a core concern. 27% also mentioned the need to find a hire with the potential to step up to a higher position.

Recruiters, understanding that these challenges are related, need to spot the ideal candidate’s potential as well as their ability to fill the current position. “In principle, companies must come to grips with the key talent needs in their organization. They should design strategies to identify professionals who possess the skills and knowledge needed now and who can be relied upon to handle what the future may bring,” observes Ignacio Mealla, director of Vistage Peru.

Diego Cubas notes that often the future can be near at hand when a senior hire is almost immediately given responsibilities in addition to the ones usually assigned to a position.   Administrators have to hope that the new employee can handle the added challenge.   But this casual expansion of mandate can result in severe problems for both the new executive and the organization. “As important as identifying talent, the recruitment and selection process must adhere to these four fundamental pillars: holistic understanding of the need, in-depth market research, exhaustive 360 ​​evaluation, and, in some cases, support for the executive through an executive onboarding process”, says Diego Cubas.

Review the management climate of the organization.

Selection is becoming a two-way street at senior levels (and even lower down the hierarchy).  More and more people are looking for workplaces with solid organizational cultures that align with their professional and personal values.  This is why the chemistry with a prospective new boss and the signals emanating from this possible new work environment will influence a candidate’s decision to continue or leave the selection process.

Continually reinforce training programs.

Training programs are vital for both seasoned workers and candidates entering the company. These training programs should respond to the real needs of the organization’s workforce. Building robust programs can be attractive to applicants considering working for an organization.

Click on the links below to learn more about Cornerstone Peru and Cornerstone International Group. Established in 1989, Cornerstone International Group is one of the world’s largest Executive Search groups. Currently, Cornerstone’s global reach extends to 60 offices and 40 countries.

https://cornerstone.com.pe/ (In Spanish) and https://www.cornerstone-group.com  (in English)

Companies that aren’t structurally and culturally inclusive can be harmful to the mental wellbeing of employees who have been hired as part of a diversity program. It often happens that these organizations end up in a zero-sum situation: as they increase their number of diverse employees, many in the original cohort leave.

The problem can be laid to companies not doing the real work of making inclusion a priority. In these situations, negative behavior – from microaggressions to full-on harassment – can frequently arise.

When this does occur, the diverse employee’s complaints are typically not taken seriously. In the aggregate, incidents like these can lead to a workplace that is toxic to diverse employees.

Promoting a culture of inclusion will help diverse candidates feel like they belong, that their ideas are valued, and that their contributions are welcome.

As a policy, increasing inclusion in the workplace will help create a culture of psychological safety. This in turn increases engagement and pays dividends in a more collaborative and innovative workforce.

Hear from Tamica on Inclusion before Diversity

During a conversation I had with a company director, he posed questions whose answers are still not clear: How can hybrid work be made effective? How should we reframe our relationships with employees now that their on-site presence will be limited? And finally, he asked about an age-old problem that will still crop up in this new corporate setting: How do I attract and retain talent?

As the conversation progressed, we managed to work our way towards tentative conclusions. In a hybrid work situation, we do risk losing some of the beneficial aspects of working “face to face”. Collaborating directly with colleagues – so useful in planning and developing innovative solutions – is an important advantage in reaching corporate goals. 

On the other hand, remote work can also prove to be beneficial. Remote work can help generate new ways for colleagues to relate to one another. This new way of working can optimize the time spent on task and, in many cases, improve our quality of life.

Faced with this reality, it is essential to rethink and, in many cases, redesign the culture of an organization. Face-to-face time will be a limited asset and, therefore, must acquire a greater value within the company. How we give value to it is key, and this largely depends on corporate leadership.

This is part of the change in the dynamics of the employer-employee relationship; today understanding and improving the “workforce experience” has become a priority. 

What does it take to engage, motivate and build buy-in to the hybrid work situation? The company director said that he was still grappling with this new experience, but one thing was clear: executives and managers must make themselves available to their employees so that together they can iron out difficulties.  Also, being able to articulate clear purposes and establish solid lines of communication are evergreen priorities, even in this new work environment.

Executives have to be aware that talent, across the board, is demanding more flexibility in the time they commit to their jobs. Companies that do not listen and do not accommodate legitimate requests risk losing key members of the team. 

In 2021, McKinsey & Company made valuable contributions to the Jobs Reset Summit sponsored by the World Economic Forum.  All executives should read their brilliant “reset” summary, “Four Things Workers Want Implemented by Their Bosses Post-Pandemic”

It is definitely time to stop and reset. It is time that management and staff come together and reconfigure a new way of working.

The devil, of course, is in the details.  Resets are being worked out by companies on a trial-and-error basis, with each new arrangement dependent not only on the current culture but on the new environment a company hopes to implement, all this consistent with corporate objectives.  And shareholder expectations.

Onsite gatherings will still be a valuable aspect of our working lives. But let’s not succumb to nostalgia for the way things were done in the good old days. We’ve all endured face-to-face meetings where we left muttering, “What a waste of time. This meeting could have been done by email” – forgetting that email threads can also waste time.  

Similarly, we can expect bumps in the road to an innovative future. But “the great reset” described by the World Economic Forum challenges us to accept that innovation is the only path forward.   

We are at the beginning of a phase in which the way we (and goods) get around will drive enormous growth in the automotive industry. Autonomous driving immediately springs to everyone’s mind.  But the electrification of vehicles will have an enormous impact as well.  

Around 100 components familiar from the classic combustion engine are in line to be replaced by about 40 new components.  In the next ten years, EVs and autonomous vehicles are predicted to generate approximately $400 billion in sales per year.

The images of the classic automotive industry employee will recede into the past.  In many areas, specialists in software and EE (electrics/electronics) will predominate over classic mechanical engineering.  

However, we are already in the grip of too few skilled professionals for these changing requirements. The German automotive industry is faced with even greater challenges, ones not limited to this sector alone. As recruiters, we notice that many of our clients still refer to the failures of politics and see themselves in a victim role.

The immediate focus of the automotive industry should be addressed in−house. The industry has to tackle serious strategic issues regarding new products, manufacturing processes, and digitalization.  In addition, effective recruiting strategies have to be put in place.   

Product Strategies

How long will legacy products still be in demand? How dependent are current products on the technologies of yesteryear? What are a firm’s core competencies, its advantage over the competition? Which technologies can be vertically integrated into value creation processes to complement new products, components, or systems? Which new industries need new or legacy products in profitable batch sizes, and how can these needs be addressed?

Manufacturing Strategies

In the future, which locations will allow which products to be manufactured competitively? At which locations can product manufacturing processes be bundled to maximize efficiency (value streams, resources, setup times, tool availability, application expertise, logistical capabilities, etc.)?

Digitization Strategies

How can suppliers and customers be integrated into a simple “end−to−end” SCM software solution in order to map a smooth and quality−assured material flow and value creation process? How can new digital technologies available on the market be used in the future to develop and manufacture high−quality products faster and more effectively per employee? Only in this way will labor costs play a subordinate role in international competition.

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These strategic issues are confronting not only the German automotive industry but other sectors of the nation’s economy as well.  The issues are, in fact, global.  So is the need for companies to deploy effective recruiting strategies.