Women in Connection is a group of women leaders who work for gender equality, the empowerment of women and the economic and social well-being of the country.
Recently, a study by the IBM Institute for Business Value1 indicated that 1 in 4 people surveyed globally have plans to change jobs in 2021. A situation that tests the agility, resilience and responsiveness of business leadership, since rotation can affect the productivity of companies. Hence the importance of questioning ourselves about the decisions we must make to optimize the attraction and retention of talent.
The high turnover is due, among other things, to a cultural transformation that had been taking place, and with the pandemic the ‘perfect storm’ was created, in which the employability decision was not supported by economic projections or professional growth, but in the search for companies with clear and coherent purposes with the life purposes of the collaborators.
At the beginning of 2021, with the aim of understanding the impact of these purposes on the performance of a company, the company Laborum Chile carried out an investigation in which it showed that when a company has a coherent purpose, a definition of its strategy of branding and communicates it clearly, the engagement of the collaborators multiplies and the response in commitment is greater. María Jesús García- Huidobro, manager of marketing de Laborum, says: “People are currently looking for the different aspects of their lives to be coherent, that is why not only the decisions we make in our personal life must be aligned with our values, but also the work decisions, we seek to work in companies that represent our way of thinking, that make us feel proud of the positive impact they can have on our society ”.
The message of the transformation is clear, the need to align with the purposes of an organization is fundamental, but it cannot just be a strategy to attract and retain talent, but rather a policy that begins with the leadership team. So leaders must not only know the purposes of their teams and support them, but, as a second decision, they must be aware of this need to transform and align the purposes of the organization, starting with the flexibility of the hierarchical models of the past. .
The third decision that is pertinent to take is the development of models of objectives and key results (OKR, for its acronym in English) in which organizations develop clear objectives, with a sense of union and where the ‘what do we do?’ come together with ‘how do we do it?’, an answer that in any case should be aligned with the purpose and meaning of the company.
The recent digital transformations as a consequence of the pandemic and the ideology of the new generations offer us a different way of doing business. Today, more than ever, employees seek to transcend the workplace from being, hence stability and economic development are no longer predominant factors to enter or continue in a company, but integrity and the communion of the values of the organization to which they belong with their own principles. The new reality demands of us a coherent and purposeful world where sustainability, equity, inclusion and well-being are the guiding principles of the economic development of companies.
Catalina Rengifo Botero
Senior Manager of Relations with Governments in the region for IBM, he has promoted equity and inclusion in ICT, he is a member of Women in Connection, Women ICT and Women on Boards of Directors. The opinions expressed are personal and do not bind IBM.
