I find the subject of the employee of the future so exciting that without a doubt a lot of features come to mind that without a theoretical support that contain them would remain in the air, therefore we will first analyze the theoretical content that encompasses the situation in that the people immersed in the labor maelstrom experienced in organizations and in the global municipality will be found.
Much has been said about the beginnings as far as marketing is concerned, from my point of view it begins in times before the Phoenicians so that to have a point in common with the reader we will say that in the beginning people worked in a of independence and were known by the name of artisans, these well-known blacksmith workers, fabrics, wood, etc., were without a doubt the architects of their own destinies, not because they wanted to be, but because there was no back then an evolved concept, as there seems to be now, (yes believe me yes !!) of work and society.
Back then it was difficult to foresee machines as collaborators of the human hand to make a product. Industrialization, factories, much less technology, computing and robotics, among other aspects, seemed impossible to achieve for a large majority.
The industrial revolution brought about many actions on society, not only because of the introduction of machines, but rather as a consequence of everything that surrounded this human stage. When the factories were established the artisans became workers and were grouped into factories, the unions emerged, the elaborate concept of capitalism and the entrenched differentiation between the two social classes, those from above and those from below.
Although the progress was substantial due to everything that surrounded these stages until today, there is still much to analyze and conclude.
Today, what used to be called workers are now called intellectual workers or knowledge workers, and factories, organizations and companies, where in addition to producing products or services, other needs have to be met, for example, "survive ».
The current fact of surviving in the face of such difficult and unstable markets also has its implications for society and more precisely for employability. Companies try to keep the minimum staff necessary to reduce costs and problems.
As a consequence of the appearance of the intellectual worker and the slow disappearance of the industrial worker occurred by the knowledge revolution between 1979 and 1992, the largest industrial corporations made a total cut of 4.4 million jobs in their companies.
Due to the shrinking in companies and the lack of employment, the concept of «independent professional» arises who obtains knowledge to become employable, and this new form of employability is manifested and corroborated by the business world, more and more professionals are they work for a company, but not "in" a company, so they are given the label of consultant, who is not identified with any particular company, but rather puts on the shirt of the client on duty and when the Job is looking for another client who will accept the conditions of this new form of "free-lance" employment.
In antiquity the free-lance label was given to knights who in exchange for money offered their lances to defend the king against possible attacks. These knights, after completing their work, went in search of another kingdom where the hierarch on duty wanted to have his services, but they did not commit to any king for life, they moved freely throughout the kingdom.
Today the habit of the free-lance worker seems to be the one that reigns in the business kingdom due to the contextual situation that the world village lives. The freelance worker will need tools, but the spear and shield should be replaced by a much more abstract tool, knowledge, which is undoubtedly more comfortable to carry than the spear, but more difficult to obtain.
By having this type of work, the explicit benefits for the company are given by labor flexibility and the clear objectives that must be met, but this is not all, it is seductive for the company to have a person with experience in other companies who can contribute knowledge different from what is known in internal environments.
So the logical conclusion that every company aspires to is to have a minimum and necessary number of internal staff and the largest possible number of external staff. This is what is manifested in the market and from my point of view there is still a long way to go, by this I mean that for those who do not understand this concept the future will be full of layoffs, but rest assured, if today is something normal in the near future it will be natural.
Telephone operators, secretaries, all administrative and production personnel, etc. It will continue to exist, but although this is what the reader aspires to, it will not be so easy, since the knowledge and skills for those positions will be a fundamental value when making a hiring decision.
As time goes by, we see how the characteristics of employment have varied, and not in quantity, but in quality. In this aspect, companies today are very careful when selecting employees, but even this care and suspicion are not It is a matter of focus on the attitudinal aspect that the people you hire must possess.
So it is convenient now to define what the characteristics of the future employee will be and invite companies and people to take them into account when making contact with people since this will be the factor that will determine the success of the company. in the future.
These characteristics are no more than a review for those who write according to their perceptions and direct experience of reality, listed in relation to the current situation and the line that it draws, with the horizon in sight. I am not trying to do futurology because for that there are horoscopes and sorcerers among other "manochantas", and even less because there is nothing as uncertain as it can be.
The main characteristics that people should possess and look for companies in people are:
1. Controversial: If companies had people to tell them if there was no place for innovation in management decisions. It is desirable to have controversial employees who discuss, expose and criticize. If companies could channel all that negative energy into a pooled positive influence over the company's future, the results would be extraordinary.
On the other hand, it is not convenient for people to repress their negative feelings since they are transferred to the external and internal client. In a company, the public service employees had been made to wear a uniform that, according to my criteria, was ridiculous and for the people who wore them as well, but it seemed to management to be the right decision since, from their point of view, they had more than enough. reasons. The Human Resources manager was a very open person who liked people who gave their opinion no matter what they would say. In a meeting an employee very timidly expressed her disagreement with the outfit, she extended this situation to all the people who responded with a resounding IF WE ALSO, very spontaneously it came out: «They were working two months feeling like ridiculous ………..,Why didn't they tell me earlier?
As in this example, it is vital that there is a true bond of trust between the parties involved and demonstrate with concrete actions that the suggestions and differences will be dealt with and resolved as soon as possible so that the differences and controversies are really as positive as they are.
2. Anarchist: Hire people who do not recognize power and who are related only to the market, in this way you will avoid problems of status quo and power struggle. On the other hand, these types of people are the most innovative I know, personally they are the type of people with whom I like to work and it is from my point of view the main characteristics that the employee of the future must possess since many of the characteristics listed in this chapter are sub-values of anarchism.
Like most, in the beginning one starts working as a dependency so that I include myself in that majority and I want to express to the reader that my past employment in a relationship of dependency was full of layoffs, honestly there was no company where I had gone through the big door, he always argued, I fought with my superiors and I tried to find different alternatives from the normal ones which were seen as contempt. I remember that at the age of twenty-one I broke with my own brand. They kicked me out five days after starting a consultancy !!!.
Since I did not last in any company, I decided to work independently and capitalize on all the frustrations I would have suffered to know what I should not do in my fledgling company.
For companies, having professionals of these characteristics among their ranks cause them certain fears about the lack of control over their person, but don't worry, releasing is easier than controlling and, on top of that, it brings more satisfaction.
I am convinced that if people were given more responsibilities regarding constant support from the company, what they would offer in return would be opportunities for the company.
3. Motivator: One factor to not neglect is that of motivation. Everything we do in life has a reason and this reason can be internal or external to people. When working with people, one quality to take into account is that of self-motivation, that is, of finding an internal meaning to the task that one does or to the role that one plays within an organization.
It seems easy to think of techniques and elements to motivate employees, from the whip to the carrot, through money and other material elements, but the critical factor where success lies is that the person assigns a special meaning to make the homework on something motivating regardless of external factors.
To achieve this, it is vital that people assign special meaning to the task they carry out and if this coincides with the best business objective. Therefore when speaking of the motivated employee we say that there must be an alignment between the individual and organizational goals, in this order since here if the order of the factors alters the product.
4. Assimilation Capacity: The ease of incorporating and assimilating is one of the greatest sustainable advantages that companies have in the future. In order to adapt to the continuous changes that the world has, it is vital that individually all the components of the organization can quickly assimilate the new strategies and the turning points that the company must improvise.
Making a parallel, before the cannons used projectiles that were aimed at a target and nothing else. Projectiles are now used which offer the possibility to change and correct the course towards the target. Precisely the latter is the closest thing to an organization where employees have rapid assimilation.
In hyper-changing markets it is necessary to improvise and execute, for this it is necessary to be able to assimilate what one wants to execute and improvise.
5. Transmission Capacity: With knowledge alone it does not reach, rather it can reach, but it is not enough. To be truly effective, people must absorb all the positive and be able to distribute it among the other components of the organization. This is the best multiplier element that companies possess.
It is clear to say that just as positive things can be transmitted, negative things are also transmitted, but consider that people unconsciously multiply what they feel and what they assimilate so that in this characteristic the employee must multiply strategies, values, objectives, and everything that adds to a vision and shared mission of the company projected in the future.
There are people who have developed this skill more than others, but it is not an innate technique that can be developed and incorporated into each person so that the entire company has many transmitting agents.
6. Commitment: Of all the characteristics listed so far, perhaps this is the most intangible of all, but without a doubt it is the most visible when it comes to measuring and evaluating results.
Commitment to the task and to the company is an internal process that each person always lives from the inside out. If we want the employee to commit to the goal, it will be vital that they assign a personal value and meaning, otherwise there will be no love, much less a sincere marriage.
In order to achieve a sincere commitment on the part of the employees, it is important that people assign an internal meaning to the task they carry out within the company, but always from the individual to the company and not vice versa.
Here there should be neither coercion nor illusion but rather participation. Engaging the participants in the objective and taking into account their contributions, they will automatically feel committed.
These characteristics are the most superficial that employees have to possess, but the most decisive and that encompasses all the others is attitude. Having these characteristics all the others are something like sub-values. When we want a tree to grow, what we do is water the roots. When we speak of an employee that is durable in time and suitable for the future of a company, we must seek and know their attitudes.
In the seminars I ask attendees to describe the characteristics of the best employee according to their criteria, they list many factors that according to their knowledge and experiences are the responsibility of the best employees.
Then I tell you to classify all those virtues into attitudes and skills. The results are illuminating, almost 90% of the words listed correspond to attitudinal issues.
It is the attitude added with certain skills that determines the altitude of an employee. It is not a mere play on words, but rather a logical consequence of what an order of importance in the necessary characteristics means.
© Pablo L. Belly All rights reserved. This article may be redistributed, forwarded, copied, printed, or quoted as long as it does not modify its content and does not use it for commercial purposes. You must include this note, as well as the name of the company Belly Knowledge Management International and its author: Pablo L. Belly, the email [email protected] and the address www.bellykm.com
