“Companies in Mexico urgently need to question their Human Resources practices”

Companies that have people-focused strategies are the most competitive and the ones that best adapt to changing environments, as occurred with the Covid-19 pandemic. But achieving this is not easy, for Michelle Ferrari, general director of Great Place to Work Mexico (GPTW), “organizations have to question their Human Resources practices”.

From the executive’s perspective, the self-criticism that companies should have regarding their talent management practices is an important way to implement actions that really foster stable work spaces, a sense of belonging, and business purposes connected with people. In short: better places to work.

“The important thing is that people live the culture, because you can have excellent practices in the documents and processes of Human Resourcesbut the reality may be different. If you as a collaborator live the culture once a year, then it is useless ”, she points out in conversation with The Economist.

One characteristic that the most advanced companies in Human Capital best practices have in common is that the employee experience is positive and frequent.

But aligning Human Resources strategies with the interests and needs of employees is only part of the challenge that companies have to become a good place to work. The other ingredient is a employee experience that does not distinguish between departments or hierarchical levels.

In this sense, Michelle Ferrari considers that the best practices should be for all workers. “Culture has to encompass everyone, including the people who are out sweating at a job that is much more complex than sitting at a desk, for those people there has to be a great place to work as well.”

The democratization of the employee experience is one of the most important challenges that companies have, but the first step to achieve it is to want to do it and integrate it as part of the business strategy.

“Culture is the way in which we work in an organization and how we reach the business objectives, it is not the ‘what’ but the ‘how’ and that is where the difference comes, because in a world where everything is copied, culture it cannot be copied because it is full of values, attitudes, beliefs, ways of thinking, among other factors, and that is why it is the most important competitive advantage”, he adds.

But why is it so important to talk about organizational culture and people-centered strategies? The executive points out that the levels of dissatisfaction and exhaustion have already begun to take their toll on retention.

“We are encountering a significant retention challenge and where it is not seen is where there is a culture that the collaborator lives in terms of the credibility that they have with their leaders, how they feel cared for by the company, integrated into a project and in the relationship with their leaders, all these aspects that make a person feel good in a Workplace”.

For the CEO of Great Place to Work Mexico, companies in our country already see in the retention levels the repercussions of an organizational culture that does not prioritize people. “If we don’t have a value proposition so that the collaborator wants to go with you and stay, your situation will be more complicated and it will cost you a lot, because recruiting, training and having people leave after two or six months costs a lot of money.”

Does it depend only on Human Resources?

Although talent strategies fall on Human Resources, Michelle Ferrari believes that building better spaces to work it is a task that also depends on the leaders of a company.

“Human Resources He is the enabler of the strategies, the one who promotes the tools and generates the plans for organizations to design a good experience for the collaborator. But who influences the most critical part for this to happen is the leadership. The leaders who have people in charge, as well as the collaborator himself, are the ones who promote, make or break these microclimates that can be very good or very bad ”, he explains.

In other words, there is no formula for building a good workspace and employee experience that does not involve bosses. “If we know that recognition, care, respect or openness, which are key parts of a good workplace, this has to happen on a day-to-day basis and it has to breathe. This is limited to leadership, leaders must implement best practices, especially middle managers.

However, the specialist stresses that this is not a marathon, in fact, it is about moving forward with small steps, real plans and a short-term vision of what work culture you want to have. “That people feel these changes and this real intention, because a good place to work is not built overnight, but you can have a plan, a vision and an intention, and people understand that”.

The health emergency, he points out, helped to emphasize the importance of the investment in peopleboth in time and resources. “It’s the only way people are going to navigate with you through thick and thin. It is a responsibility that we have as businessmen and as leaders, it is not an optional issue: we have to create better spaces to work, with quality of life, and where people give you the best they have because you are giving them a place where they can be the better person”.