Today attracting talent has become the key to the development and sustainability of companies and, at the same time, one of the greatest challenges we face. For this essential value we compete between cities, and also between large and small companies, no matter how different the services we can offer. A city that offers many and varied possibilities to find work is a city that attracts the best talent. The fact that there are many companies competing, looking for it and fighting for it, does not harm the business fabric as a whole, on the contrary, it strengthens it.
To attract talent, the first factor is that the salaries are still attractive; but this is no longer enough. We have to think about what added advantages and better social benefits we offer in a city like Barcelona. Our goal must be to become the preferred urban option, where people decide to live comfortably and at the same time develop a professional career. Our metropolitan area offers a magnificent environment, an ideal climate by the sea, with an immense cultural background, good communications, being close to natural spaces of great beauty that allow many activities with family or friends. In addition, we have access to quality education and an excellent health network. Of course there are always aspects to improve, but it is still a happy and inclusive city, although sometimes we Barcelonans are very critical of it. On the other hand, diversity and multiculturalism benefit us all and that is already a great lesson learned over the years. Nobody wants to go to work in a self-absorbed, closed and uniform city.
Before the pandemic, we already valued being able to reconcile work and personal life, but that desire has now become a real requirement and companies must take it into account. Anyone can consider that it is very attractive to move to Barcelona if they can spend a few years working in a first company with the possibility of developing professionally later in another, in the same city, later on. From the companies we also see it like this.
The problem comes when the supply does not match the demand and the fight for human talent becomes a fight of who pays more; that would benefit some operations in the short term, probably the largest ones –which by the way do not represent our business group–. Such a fight – a wrong strategy – would end up eliminating so many companies that the consequences would be negative for the majority. Because those who did not find the right people would move their base of operations to another city, trying to find them, and even those who had won the battle at the beginning would end up losing the talent that they would have paid so dearly for, because Barcelona as an ecosystem would no longer be attractive. Talent attracts talent. The more opportunities there are in a city to find good jobs, and the more diverse, and that allow conciliation, the more people will want to stay in it. If there are only a few companies that offer work, that city will no longer be interesting for the majority.
We all agree on the summary: decent work cannot be precarious, and it must be well paid. But, in addition, to be attractive it has to offer creative measures to combine teleworking with face-to-face work; promote activities that promote balanced personal development; design continuous training systems to continue advancing in professional development. And activate conciliation mechanisms aimed at favoring professional development in terms of equality and diversity.
We must therefore find formulas that fight against precariousness, but that are not only dedicated to protecting past labor models, believing that jobs are protected with these old recipes. What they do precisely is prevent the creation of new ones.
All this and much more is what we have to continue thinking about together, companies and workers, unions and administration. Probably the impact of initiatives that offer flexibility to attract and retain talent is much greater than that provided by other formulas designed from the wrong perspective and that do not adjust to the needs of the new economy. I refer as an example and very uniquely to the contract proposals that prevent the flexibility of contracting for specific production needs. These needs exist, and to go against the reality of the world is to go against employment.
That is why I think we should celebrate public stimuli, such as the recent Award for the innovative company in time organization, awarded by the Barcelona City Council to our company Webhelp, dedicated to outsourcing services and customer experience management . That the official Barcelona stimulates the companies that want to work in this direction, helps the "real Barcelona", that of work, employment, services and industry. In this bet on the future we will all win.
