design ORGANIZATIONAL AND ENVIRONMENT / Rocío del Prado
Flexibility, equal opportunities and sustainability are the three opportunities that the pandemic has opened up in the future of work, as Mireia Las Heras, professor at IESE Business School, explained at the workshop entitled "The Telework of the Future". Also speaking at the meeting, organized by the University of Navarra's high school business and Humanism, were executives from Repsol, Fundae, Outvise and the school's Executive Master's in Human Resources and Digitalization.
"Telecommuting is an opportunity to hire people, not for how they are, but for how they perform. It is an opportunity to hire more women," said Las Heras. Likewise, the spaces at work must adapt to the new needs: "The days we go to the office are for generating relationships, immersing ourselves in the culture and co-creating," said the academic, who has developed a study on telework during the pandemic months at IESE's International Center of work and Family.
For her part, Antonia Casado, Director of Human Resources and Organization at Fundae, stressed the importance of the training of employees in technological tools: "The transversal training is core topic. In public sector companies there is no experience in teleworking, as there is a great hierarchical dependence", she pointed out.
This change must be gradual and requires a change of mentality, as Pilar Rojas, senior leader of Repsol, recalled: "Telework is not a right, but responds to the nature of work". Thus, according to Rojas, the business must have a proposal of value for each subject of employee; and the solution is based on self-management.
Flexibility to retain talent
However, it is not a new reality, as there were many companies that already practiced it, as is the case of Eusebi Llensa, CEO of the technology company Outvise. Llensa highlighted the remote work as a competitive advantage for attracting talent: "If we don't offer candidates flexibility we will lose a lot of talent. In addition, telecommuting broadens my range of possibilities as employer. If I need someone who speaks German, I can hire someone directly from Germany.
In the roundtable, moderated by Javier Arellano, director academic of the Master in Human Resources and Digitalization of the University of Navarra, the speakers agreed that in addition to a transformation of mentality, a new style of management must be adopted. "Measuring objectives is easy in transactional jobs, but in creative jobs, measuring productivity is more difficult" highlighted Llensa, who clarified that productivity must include creativity, the proposal of value and the contribution of each employee. "If we are not going to reach digital presentialism," stressed Rojas, who also contributed as ingredients core topic for this new model of management: autonomy, trust and responsibility. "We will have to think of different ways of measuring employee performance," Las Heras recalled, proposing an orderly transition that encourages autonomy staff.
