By: Dr. Luis Arciniega, ITAM

There is unusual activity in the multipurpose room of the small village of Laguna del Rey, in the Mexican State of Coahuila. Dozens of people enter and leave the premises where the town’s great annual event will take place the next morning. It is not a fair or agro-industrial exhibition. It is the annual continuous improvement contest organized by the company Magnelec. It is not a corporate event closed to the public. On the contrary, family members of the teams that were the finalists in the year just ended attend. The implementation of their ideas for continuous improvement has impacted on the operative efficiency of the processes of the company. They were preselected to reach the great finale, where executives of the corporation to which the company belongs, serve as judges to choose the best teams based on the degree of innovation and scope of the projects.

It is as if it were a great musical event. People line up very early to enter the auditorium, which is filled until there is not a single space available. The emotion and stress are latent. The banners begin to unfold. It is striking to see schoolchildren enthusiastically supporting their parents, including in some cases their grandparents and aunts and uncles, and you can read signs with words such as, “I support my mother of the monarchs team,” “Jaguars will win” or “I support my grandfather Pedro.”

Brief History of the Company

Magnelec is a subsidiary of Grupo Peñoles, which is located next to one of the largest deposits of sodium sulfate on the planet. The nearest urban center is Torreón, which is two and a half hours away by car.  During the summer, it is not uncommon to see temperatures reach nearly 50 degrees Celsius, which is normal in this semi-desert region of the country.

The company has been operating for more than 50 years and although it is part of a leading industrial group in the mining sector, its main focus is the production of chemical inputs for the industry. The plant is one of the world’s largest producers of sodium sulfate, a basic element in the manufacture of detergents, as well as other chemicals highly valued today, such as one used in the manufacture of building coating products, which slow down significantly the propagation of fire in the event of a fire.

In Mexico, the petrochemical and automotive sectors, among others, were pioneers in the implantation of systems of continuous improvement through the different modalities of collaborative work, as for example self-managed or self-directed work teams. In the case of mining, it took a little longer in Mexico to implement these methodologies. The variability in the international price of the star product of Magnelec forced the company more than two decades ago to focus on improving the efficiency of its processes to be able to offer competitive prices before a growing presence of Asian players in the market. Continuous improvement was undoubtedly the best tool to apply to achieve this goal.

The fact that the deposit was located in the middle of the desert made it necessary to build a town where the company’s employees would live. This also brought other immigrants who operate the micro-businesses that attend to the daily needs of the population, such as supermarkets and laundries and, of course, professionals and technicians who provide services to the community, such as doctors, nurses and teachers who teach classes in the elementary, secondary and high schools that educate the children and youth of this town of about 4,500 inhabitants.

A very interesting phenomenon happened in the town and has greatly benefitted the students in Laguna del Rey who have an outstanding academic performance, according to the rankings of the state of Coahuila. When moving to Laguna del Rey, several of the wives of the technicians and professionals who worked in the corporate world in the nearby cities, left that world and emigrated to the educational field and today are the teachers at the secondary and high schools. It is not uncommon to see cases like that of a chemical engineer who worked in the area of quality control of the powerful dairy industry of La Laguna and today is a chemistry teacher in one of the secondary schools in the town. In other words, the local children and youth have benefitted from this migratory phenomenon.

The Rise of the Contest and Aid to the Community

The company’s management made the decision, more than 26 years ago, to hold an annual continuous improvement contest to institutionalize the importance of the company’s philosophy of improvement, to generate positive competition among teams and to strengthen the social link between the company and families, so that the children of the employees would be aware of the contribution of their parents to the organization and that they would feel pride in their parent’s work. The recipe has been so successful that the event is held annually and increasingly on a larger scale, and participating has become an aspiration among the employees of the company.

In the last years, the ideas for improvement proposed by the plants’ teams have gone beyond the processes of the company. Team members realized thattheir collaborative work could transcend the workcontext, so they decided to carry out community projects in Laguna del Rey. For example, one of the teams observed that the people of the town had to spend several minutes under the hot sun while waiting for the arrival of buses passing through the town. With their initiative and work, and with materials donated by the company, the team built a covered bus stop with seats. Another team detected that the families of the town had to cut their hours of recreation in the small park that is located on the outskirts of town, since after sunset it was practically impossible for the children to play. They requested the support of the company to buy lamps and cable and they themselves took charge of developing a lighting system that today allows families in Laguna del Rey to have more hours of outdoor recreation.

The Unexpected Side Effect

A focus group discussion was held with one of the winning teams in a previous edition of the annual competition for improvement, which sought to probe the individual and collective benefits of the system. One of the participants commented that his daughter, who was studying engineering in Monclova, had called him a few days before to ask him about some details of the process of continuous improvement. She had to make a presentation the following day and she had become the star of her group, besides having astonished her teacher with the great amount of knowledge she had about the subject. She had to be careful in the presentation in order not lose her reputation as an expert. With great pride, her father said, “and why wouldn’t you know a lot, if from a young age you never missed a single edition of the annual contest for improvement, as if it were The Voiceor another show like that.” This interesting comment stimulated my interest in tracking whether it was only an individual effect or whether the system had transcended to a collective level. I asked for support of the company to visit one of the elementary and secondary schools in the town and to interview the children who were studying there to assess the extent to which the seeds of continuous improvement planted through their attendance at the annual competition had paid off. During my visit to one of the elementary schools, I had the opportunity to interview three children in fifth and sixth grade simultaneously. All three were randomly selected. One of them was the son of an engineer in the company, one of a supervisor and the youngest of a line operator. With absolute naturalness, the three described to me that to improve something, it was absolutely necessary to measure what they wanted to improve, and from there decide what they would measure and how. The next step was for people to think what actions to take so that the measurements would perform better. In addition, it was very important to share the results with the team and to find ways to celebrate the achievements and to reflect on and analyze the failures. The conclusion of the interview was overwhelming: the seeds of improvement sown in the desert had borne unexpected results, a striking case of how a corporative initiative can have a significant impact on society.

By: Virginia Kalis Letayf

Much has been said and written about the adjustments and eliminations needed in order for groups to present their consolidated financial information, that is, “as if they were one company”. However, there is a problem that goes way back, since it is first necessary to identify whether or not you have control of the companies in which you participate, which is not necessarily transparent in all cases.

Before, control was identified by stock ownership in most situations. However, it is now a matter of identifying who has the right to manage the important activities of the entity.

According to the International Financial Reporting Standards 10 (IFRS 10), Consolidated Financial Statements, an investor will determine whether he/she has control over the investee company, provided that each of the following conditions is met:

1. Power over the investee company.
2. Exposure or rights to variable returns from its involvement with the investee company.
3. The ability to use its power over the investee company to affect the amount of the investor’s returns.

Power refers to the authority to direct the relevant activities of the investee company and is exercised on the basis of rights, which may be as follows:

• Voting rights, that is, derived from the shareholding.
• Rights arising from agreements between shareholders.
• Rights to appoint and remove key managerial personnel, provided that this employee is the one who directs the relevant activities.

As mentioned above, in many cases the rights granted through shareholding are not a strong or significant indication of the exercise of power. In principle, these rights must be on the majority of the shares with the right to vote and even so, it is essential to review the agreements between shareholders and other rights they have to identify if having the majority of the stocks gives control of the company to its shareholder.

In addition, those potential voting rights must be substantive rather than protective. What is understood by substantive right is to have the capacity to exercise power, that is, that there are no barriers preventing the exercise of that power. Possible voting rights are substantive provided that they have a favorable exercise price, that is, that their exercise price is lower than the market price.

By saying that they should not be protective, the rule is that rights should not be designed to protect any party. Normally, these rights are granted to the non-controlling interest, formerly known as minority interest, that is, they protect the interests of minority shareholders. Therefore, if the rights were protective, regardless of the percentage of shareholding participation, they would not give their shareholder control of the company.

There is also no control when deciding only on one or some, but not all relevant business activities. In such a case, it would be treated as a joint control. Therefore, great care must be taken in drafting shareholder agreements, such as those related to resolution of disputes, as well as conscientiously reviewing the clauses of the contracts, in order to determine whether the mechanism that is used is a substantive right.

In the case of joint ventures, normally the agreements include deadlock clauses, which apply when there is a dispute regarding the management of the company. This corporate deadlock is due to the inability of the partners to reach an agreement and put an end to the conflict. Therefore, these clauses are equivalent to a “pact among partners” and are designed to resolve differences, but, as such, they become a barrier to exercise control.

Among the most common deadlock clauses are the following:

• Establish options to buy or sell the shares of any of the parties. They entitle the shareholders who agree on the same solution to the dispute to buy the shares of other shareholders at an agreed upon price. But they also give the other shareholders the power to buy them out at the same price. If no one agrees to sell at this price, counteroffers are allowed, until a suitable price is reached. This solution typically forces the exit of one or more shareholders and favors those who are in a better financial situation.
• Submit the dispute to arbitration and decision of an independent expert appointed beforehand, who has the power to impose a solution and make a decision that breaks the deadlock.
• Give one of the shareholders the right to become the chairperson, in the event of a situation of conflict.
• Liquidate the partnership if the problem persists for a significant period of time. Logically, this clause is only suitable in serious situations.
• Empower one of the shareholders to find a buyer for 100% of the shares. If the designated shareholder fails to secure a buyer, this authority is moved to another shareholder and continues until all shareholders have had a chance or a buyer is found.

For example, company X belongs to shareholders A and B, each of which holds 50% of the voting rights. But shareholder A also has the right to appoint the chairman of the board, who has the casting vote in the event that shareholders A and B do not reach an agreement. Thus, shareholder A exercises control of X. However, if the chairman of the board does not have a casting vote, even when shareholder A has the right to appoint him, that does not give him control of the entity.

It may be the case that, despite these agreements, one of the parties refuses to comply. That is why other clauses are included that impose the obligation to pay compensation to the other party if it breaches the pact. Thus, the compliant partner may demand that the noncompliant partner must comply with the payment of the compensation established in the pact.

Let us take another example. Shareholders A and B each have 50% of the voting rights of company X. What would happen in the case of a dispute between them and they did not reach an agreement? To know who has control it is necessary to review the agreements established between the two.

If the agreement says that in case that no agreement is reached, shareholder A is obliged to buy all the shares of shareholder B, who has the obligation to sell them to A, would it seem that shareholder A has control? Before the reader makes a decision, there are other aspects to consider.

If shareholder A has the resources to buy all the shares of B and gets some benefit for doing so, it can be said that shareholder A’s right is substantive and, therefore, he has the control. But, what would happen if shareholder A were not interested in acquiring B’s shares? Logically, he would not be willing to enter into a dispute with shareholder B, because he knows that, if they do not reach an agreement, he would be forced (by the agreement) to buy them. In this case, it would seem that shareholder B would have control. However, in reality it is a joint control, since shareholder A’s right is not substantive, since there is a barrier to exercising it.

Several problems may be presented over time. The first is the difficulty to lay down the criteria for establishing the deadlock clauses. Another problem may be to detect that a conflict situation has occurred and that it is necessary to apply the corresponding clauses.

Perhaps one may think it is most appropriate to appoint a third party to resolve the conflict. However, for this it is necessary that the designated person not favor one of the parties, so that his appointment is far from simple.

In conclusion, having more than 50% of the voting rights is the easiest way to avoid situations of conflict and the need to establish deadlock clauses. However, there are more and more joint ventures. Due to the above, the lawyers of the company are a key piece in the wording and explanation of the agreements and contracts, as well as of all the derived implications.

Referencias

• IASB. 2016. IFRS 10: Consolidated Financial Statements, in: http://www.checkpointmexico.com/maf/app/document?endChunk=1&startChunk.Consulted on December 5, 2016.
• Hanrahan, Gavin. What types of deadlock clauses are used in shareholder agreements?, en: http://www.turnbullhill.com.au/articles/what-types-of-deadlock-clauses-are-used-in-shareholder-agreements-.html. Consulted on December 5, 2016
• González, Antonio. El bloqueo societario y los pactos de socios, en: http://www.gonzalezasturiano.com/el-bloqueo-societario-y-los-pactos-de-socios/. Consulted on December 7, 2016.
• Fernández, J. Raúl. Evita el bloqueo societario con un pacto de socios, en: http://www.jraulfernandez.es/evita-el-bloqueo-societario-con-un-pacto-de-socios/. Consulted on December 7, 2016

Por: Luis González Fernández,
Universidad de Salamanca

“If I could ignore for 8 minutes of arc I would adapt my hypothesis, but as I cannot ignore them, those 8 minutes alone with lead us along a path to the reform of the whole of Astronomy,” wrote Johannes Kepler when he submitted his hypothesis of perfect solids to Tycho Brahe’s observations of the orbits. And he did not ignore them, but by joining observation and theory he built the foundations that explain the orbits of the planets around the sun. The theory of company organization and management can no longer ignore, as collateral and minor, the employee’s behavior at the moment of explaining how the company achieves a competitive advantage and sustains it over time. Just as those 8 minutes of arc led to a reform of astronomy, incorporating employee behavior into management as a central element leads to a revolution in business management and, more specifically, in human resource management. This revolution is known as “micro-foundations of administration.” This micro-foundation of management implies integrating the micro aspects (employee behavior) with the macro aspects (company strategy). The model of human resource management presented below integrates these two components by placing the employee’s behavior at the core or, to be exact, the variables, processes and theories that explain the different aspects of that behavior. In addition, compared to the classic proposals that separate the behavior at work from its determinants (knowledge, abilities, skills and other characteristics), the model that we present integrates them as interrelated elements in an expanded conception of human capital that can be placed at the base of the mechanisms with which to obtain a competitive advantage for the company.

Dimensions of Human Resource Management

An analysis of human resource management allows one to define the essential dimensions that characterize it, among which are the following:

• Conception of the employee
• Way of acting
• Strategic perspective

The progressive replacement of the personnel division by human resource management is determined in large part by the change in the company director’s conception of the employee. It is no longer considered a cost that must be minimized; rather it must be understood as one of the most valuable resources that the company has to achieve its objectives. Human resource management is no longer oriented toward reducing staff costs, but all its activities are directed toward the optimal use of this resource.

The second dimension refers to the mode of action in human resource management, which must be essentially proactive. The activities of human resource management are integrated into policies and programs with multiple interrelationships and interdependencies, in order to anticipate and facilitate the achievement of the company’s objectives. This is what today is called “horizontal adjustment” of human resource management.

The third dimension is the strategic perspective of human resource management. The strategy in human resource management may refer to a way of acting, to the process of relating human resource management to the company strategy or to the mechanisms by which human resource management contributes to obtaining and maintaining a competitive advantage.

Strategic Human Resource Management

A great variety of theoretical frameworks have been proposed to foster strategic human resource management. Of all of them, the theory of resources and skills is the most accepted.

The resource-based view or theory of resources and capabilities stipulates that companies are different, heterogeneous, in terms of the resources they have and the capabilities they acquire from the combination of resources, and that it is precisely in these resources and capabilities where its sustainable competitive advantage is found.

An organization, a company, is seen as a system or configuration integrated by objectives and values, a set of resources and capabilities necessary to compete in the market, structures and a strategy in a concrete environment. The resources are the factors, the assets, the inputs that the organization owns and controls and that intervene in the production of goods and services. The capabilities are the dynamic mechanisms that allow the company to perform an activity by integrating the resources to achieve a performance that is superior to its competitors. The combination of resources and capabilities generates organizational competencies; that is, that which the organization is able to do with a performance that is superior to its competitors.

Resources can be classified in many ways. One of the main classifications is to divide them into tangible and intangible resources. Tangible resources are those that have physical support, such as machines, facilities, tools, financial capital, etc. They are easy to identify, value and integrate into the company’s financial statements. The objective of the management of these resources must be the optimal use by the company. In addition to tangible resources, the company also owns and controls intangible resources that do not have a clear physical support, such as patents, brands, culture or human capital, among others. Unlike tangible resources, intangibles are difficult to identify, value and incorporate into company accounting. Among the intangible resources of the company is human capital.

Human capital differs from other resources of the company in its composition, as it has two components of which one is a necessary condition and the other condition is sufficient to generate value for the company. That is, mere possession of the resource will not generate value automatically. These two components are, on the one hand, the set of knowledge, abilities, skills, etc. the company needs to achieve its objectives. It involves a component of competencies, since the company needs to equip itself with this set of elements that the employees possess to reach its objectives. However, possessing these elements is not enough to generate value in the company. It is necessary that they become behavior. That is, the employee must develop a certain behavior. This is the second component of human capital, a dynamic flow component. The two components are inseparable; to develop the behavior that allows the company to obtain a sustainable competitive advantage, employees must have certain knowledge, skills, abilities, etc. Likewise, the possession of this knowledge, abilities, skills, etc. does not generate value for the company if it is not transformed into a certain behavior.

Finally, we must highlight another of the characteristics of human capital that is directly related to the mechanisms of obtaining a competitive advantage. The mere possession of a base of knowledge, abilities, skills, etc. does not automatically become the behavior that the company needs. It is necessary to manage this human capital to obtain it. Therefore, strategic human resource management must allow the company to equip itself with human capital and turn it into flow, in the behavior that it needs to reach its objectives. This double composition of human capital is graphically represented in Figure 1.

According to the theory of resources and capabilities, in order for resources and capabilities to generate a sustainable competitive advantage, ie, to be considered as strategic, they must possess a series of characteristics. In this sense, in order for a resource or capabilities to generate a competitive advantage for the company it must have value. This value depends on two conditions, the scarcity in the market of the resource or the capabilities, or if there is no scarcity, the limited availability among the competitors. Possessing a range of valuable resources and capabilities generates a competitive advantage for the company. Maintaining this advantage depends on other characteristics, among which are: durability, inimitable, irreplaceable and non-transferable.

Figure 1: Human Capital and its Components

Deciding factors of organizational behavior

Organizational behavior

Intangible resources and capabilities, including human capital, have these characteristics, so they are strategic resources and conform organizational competencies, that is, what the organization does better than its competitors. These organizational competencies should be articulated with the organization’s strategy based on the characteristics of the environment, which ultimately determines the attainment of a sustainable competitive advantage.

Strategic human resource management, through configurations or systems of practices of high performance that constitute the capabilities of human capital management, endows the company with a human capital base and transforms it into a behavior. Figure 2 shows this scheme of strategic human resource management and its action on human capital through human resource management capabilities. Human resource management practices provide, develop and maintain the company with human capital that has a set of characteristics (knowledge, abilities, skills, etc.) and certain behavior (motivation, commitment, performance, etc.) susceptible to becoming a strategic asset for the company. Human resource management practices create dynamic structures capable of becoming a strategic asset and generating a sustainable competitive advantage.

Structure and functions of human resource management

One of the first aspects that must be analyzed in human resource management is the structure of this function within the organization. The analysis of the structure of human resource management has to address both its articulation within the organizational structure and its internal composition.

In relation to the first element, the articulation of human resource management within the organization, there is no structure that is valid for all companies. Each company must define the best way to articulate human resource management once the contingencies of each organization have been assessed. Three basic elements must be taken into account: the management model, the size and the structure of the company.

With regard to the size of the company, determined by the number of employees, three broad categories are usually demarcated: small, medium and large enterprises. As for the organizational structure, we will consider the basic modes of functional, divisional and matrix structure. The most frequent ways of articulating human resource management according to the size of the company are: small company (external counseling or consulting); medium size company (internal consulting or functional structure) and large company (internal consulting, functional structure, divisional, matrix or a combination of any). This does not mean that another articulation is not possible, always depending on the objectives, strategy and contingencies of each organization.

Figure 2: Strategic Human Resource Management

External counseling or consulting is the most common form of articulation in small businesses. Given that the volume of human capital management is very small in these companies, it is common practice to outsource human resource management. An external counsel or consultant conducts or overseas all human resource management. Therefore, it is a mode of articulation with an unspecific, very generic response and with a limited cost. However, it is important to emphasize that there must always be human resource management. The fact that the size of the company and, consequently, the volume of human resource management and the financing capacity of the company are very small does not mean that there should not be a specialized response. This can be done through organizations such as business or government associations that offer this consultancy to small businesses.

The most common way of articulating human resource management in medium size companies is internal consulting. The volume of human capital management and the financial capacity of the company make it advisable to incorporate a specialized structure in human resource management. In this way, a specific, very specialized management is achieved and without great costs. Internal consulting is situated as a satellite between the management of the company and the different departments. Internal consulting establishes the objectives and human resource management strategies, designs the programs and combines their execution, with the advice and guidance of the line supervisors.

The medium-size company may also opt for a mode of articulation with a functional structure. In this case, human resource management is integrated as one more function within the management structure of the company. In this way, a high degree of specificity and specialization is achieved in the responses to human resource management needs. However, the cost is higher than internal consulting.

The large company, given its volume of human capital management needs and its financial resources, can opt for all the alternatives and even frequently combine several. In addition to internal consulting, articulation through a functional structure, it can also resort to a mode of articulation divisional or matrix. The divisional mode increases the degree of specificity and speed of responses in human resource management. However, there may be problems of coordination and integration of management practices between the divisions of the same human resource management strategy. The cost is also higher than the functional structure.

Figure 3: Practices of Human Resource Management

Finally, the matrix structure, which arises from the combination of a functional structure and a divisional structure, is the way of articulating human resource management in the company that provides with greater speed the most specific, specialized, coordinated and integrated responses within the same strategy. In return, it is also the most costly for the company and frequently generates conflicts of activities between those responsible for human resource management. The internal structure of human resource management can also take a variety of forms, such as functional, divisional, matrix or mixed, although (as in the case of the articulation of human resource management with the structure of the organization) it will depend on the objectives, strategies and contingencies; the most frequent international structure is the functional one. Depending on the objectives and strategy, as well as the size of the organization, human resource management will have units specialized in different practices, such as job analysis and performance selection or evaluation, to cite two examples. As we have pointed out, strategic human resource management acts on human capital through activities or practices, as shown in Figure 3.

Human Capital

As we have seen, human resource management acts on human capital to obtain a sustainable competitive advantage. Human capital, unlike other assets of the company, has two inseparable components that constitute the necessary and sufficient condition for employees to adopt a behavior that, in line with the company’s strategy, allows the possibility of obtaining and maintaining a competitive advantage. The first of these components is the set of competencies, that is, the knowledge, abilities, skills, etc. that the employees of a company have and that are necessary to exhibit certain behavior. The second component refers precisely to that behavior that the employee cannot cultivate if he/she does not have certain knowledge, abilities, skills, etc. This transformation is not automatic or mechanical, but requires the management of human capital. In other words, the mere possession of a set of knowledge, abilities, skills, etc. does not assure the company that its employees will exhibit the necessary behavior. It is a necessary condition, but it is not sufficient. This asset must be managed, and human resource management is responsible for this. All its activities, which constitute mechanisms for the integration of this resource and therefore can be conceptualized as capabilities, are aimed at providing the company with a human capital base and facilitating the transformation of this base into behavior.

Given the characteristics of human capital, to manage it, it is essential to know the scientific bases that explain its elements. That is, to know the theoretical models and tools which allow their evaluation and management. This behavior responds to the same laws and processes of any human behavior, but occurs in a very concrete environment: the organizations.

The rigorous and scientific management of human resources, not based on implicit beliefs or common sense, requires a deep and scientific knowledge of human capital. This knowledge is the foundation and the starting point of human resource management, without which it is not possible to carry it out efficiently. An example will help us illustrate and understand the importance of human capital knowledge in human resource management. A human resource director could not properly develop a motivational program for the employees of a high performance team if he/she does not know the theoretical bases and tools of motivation. Guided by intuition, by beliefs that are almost always wrong, leads only to the failure of programs and, which is much more serious, to a progressive loss of commitment of the employees with the company project, which has a direct impact on the results of the organization.

Changes in the labor market as a result of phenomena such as the globalization of the economy and technological advances have become more turbulent and competitive. To cope with these changes, which are increasingly more rapid, companies have chosen to adopt models of flexibility, in which the horizontal mobility and multitasking of workers have been gaining ground.

Given this panorama, one may wonder what the appropriate parameters for the full development of professionals are since traditional notions of a job for life and vertical career advancement have lost their meaning. In this context, the concept of employability has special relevance in order to respond to the functional flexibility that organizations adopt to thrive in a working environment full of insecurities and unexpected events.

What is Employability?

Traditionally, the term “employability” has been defined as the degree to which a person has opportunities to get or keep a job or to improve what he/she has (Gamboa, Gracia, Ripoll and Peiró, 2009). However, today the term is related to the promotion of attributes, skills or competencies. Thus, some authors define employability as “a form of work specific active adaptability that enables workers to identify and realize career opportunities” (Fugate, Kinicky and Ashforth, 2004) or “the continuous fulfilling, acquiring or creating of work through the optimal use of competencies” (Van der Heijde and Van der Heijden, 2006).

According to Van der Heijde and Van der Heijden (2006), the following four generic competences are important distinguishing components of people’s employability: 1) anticipation and optimization, i.e., they have the ability to prepare for and adapt to future changes in a personal and creative manner, striving for the best possible results; 2) personal flexibility to adapt easily to the changes in the internal and external labor market; 3) corporate sense, i.e., the ability to participate and perform in different work groups (such as entire organizations, work teams, occupational communities and other networks); and 4) balance between the sometimes opposing employers’ and employees’ interests.

The concept of employability comprises two ideas: internal and external employability. The first refers to the competitiveness of a worker who is already part of the company and is based on the skills that he/she should learn within the company. External employability focuses on the competitiveness of the person in the labor market and highlights their skills in the environment of the company, as required by the demands of the labor market.

The increase in internal employability offers advantages for individuals and for the entire organization. At the individual level, people who feel more employable are more satisfied and motivated by their work, which makes them more productive and innovative in their position and in the organization (Fugate, Kinicky and Ashforth, 2004; Gamboa et al., 2009). At the organizational level, to have competitive, motivated workers who have a highly solicited profile in the labor market improves competitiveness, productivity and the sustainability of the organization over time (Van der Heijde and Van der Heijden, 2006).

Employability and Human Resources Management

As we saw, due to the rapidly changing labor market, organizations tend to be more flexible and look for people who have key and transferable skills, and who can adapt and perform in a flexible context. Therefore, although the term “employability” is used infrequently in organizations, it is becoming increasingly important because of its relation to areas of human resources such as the development of skills, learning, commitment, psychological contract or identity, among others.

The current processes of socialization and training in organizations face discrepancies between the skills that people have and the changing needs of the market. Human resources policies designed to enhance the employability of workers focus on improving and maintaining the competitiveness of companies through recruitment strategies, selection and training of personnel.

In connection with recruitment, currently there is a “war for talent” in which a distinction is made between persons of high and low employability. Those with greater employability, in addition to having the basic skills and knowledge to perform the work, are more visible in the labor market. This is because they perceive the turbulent work contexts as opportunities and they are highly valued by employers and human resources managers. In addition, the recruitment of the best talent there is in the environment gives the organization greater possibilities of growth, as it makes their internal processes very competitive.

When selecting personnel, those who can provide strength to the business project are singled out. From the point of view of employability, the selection begins by determining the labor experience and the responsibilities in previous job positions using the following quantifiable elements: 1) technical skills necessary for independent problem solving; 2) ability to perform tasks effectively; 3) general and social skills (anticipation, flexibility, corporate sense, balance, teamwork, initiative, decision, among others); and 4) clear and consistent career identity throughout the working life.

Another important aspect of human resources is training. In the current context, lifelong learning is essential for organizations. However, the training of workers is often based on technical training that is not conducive to their full professional development. In some cases, businesses fail in continuous training, which gives rise to problems of knowledge obsolescence. Therefore, it is important to promote the internal employability of the company by adjusting training efforts and developing more competitive management strategies. The training of workers focused on employability is associated with learning skills that are relational, strategic and metacognitive, rather than the possession of specific knowledge. It is providing people skills that are transferable and consistent with the strategies of the company. Many of these skills are based on effective communication and awareness of the sector, as well as on aspects inherent to the person, such as assertion, confidence and motivation (Van Der Heijden, 2002).

Apart from these aspects, there are still others related to human resources that should also be taken into account to enhance the employability of employees. The promotion of a culture of strengthening the capacity of organizational learning on the part of human resources will facilitate the employability of workers, as well as a transformational and constructive leadership style, in which supervisors provide the resources and necessary support (Van der Heijden, and Bakker, 2011). Similarly, the design of jobs with tasks with a high learning value will also promote the employability of workers, as these complex tasks promote learning and encourage initiative, determination and creativity, and improve self esteem (Van der Heijden, and Bakker, 2011)

In conclusion, the concept of employability in human resources has implications in the recognition of workers as their own managers to cope with the rapid changes that occur in organizations, taking into account the opportunities for growth. It is important that these individualized processes are based on participatory management, personal development and adaptability to increase the competitiveness of the employees.

References

Fugate, M., Kinicki, A.J. and Ashforth, B.E. (2004). Employability: A psycho-social construct, its dimensions, and applications. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 65, 14-38.

Gamboa, J.P., Gracia, F., Ripoll, P. and Peiró J.M. (2009). Employability and personal initiative as antecedents of job satisfaction. The Spanish Journal of Psychology, 12, 632-640.

Van der Heijde, C.M. and Van der Heijden, B. (2006). A competence-based and multi-dimensional operationalization and measurement of employability. Human Resources Management, 45, 449-476.

Van der Heijden, B. and Bakker, A. (2011). Toward a mediation model of employability enhancement: A study of employee-supervisor pairs in the building sector. The Career of Development Quarterly, 59(3), 232-248.

Van der Heijden, B. (2002). Pre-requisites to guarantee life-long employability. Personnel Review, 31(1), 44-61.

In the minds of today’s managers, it’s common sense that an organization’s employees are its most valuable asset. Keeping a healthy and energetic manpower force may mean the difference between success and crisis, or even failure, in a business operation.

In practice, however, assessing employees’ overall wellbeing is poorly understood and rarely evaluated. Consequentially, it’s not strange to see high rates of absences, sick leave, low morale and even more terrible accidents in work places.

Between 2009 and 2010, the world was shaken by a wave of staff suicides in French Telecom: 20 workers took their lives within 18 months. At almost the same time, the suicides of at least 13 Chinese workers in its plants put Foxconn, which assembles products for Apple Inc. and Sony Corp, under fire. As recently as December 2015, Junming Li, a group leader at Tencent, the second largest internet company in China, died suddenly at home at the age of 30. The reasons for these employees’ death were similar: tough working conditions, high job stress, a sense of alienation and misery at work. These events made managers understand that human resource management should not simply focus on recruiting, training, compensating, evaluation and other traditional issues, but also the emotional and mental condition of employees.

Employees face economic problems in supporting their lives and physical problems in keeping healthy; they need time to relax, and be together with their family and friends. Their relationships with parents, wives, kids, and colleagues may cause emotional strain, and they may also be worried about the future of their careers.  Though most of these problems originate outside the workplace, they can impact work attendance or on-the-job performance negatively, or cause social problems.

Successful organizations tend to be those that are committed to helping their employees manage and deal with a range of issues they may face. Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) are the most effective method for organizations to performance this function.

What are EAPs, and why are they used?

EAPs are series of workplace-based benefits or services designed to offer employees and their family members the emotional and practical support necessary to function optimally. EAPs started about six decades ago, as occupational alcohol and substances use programs. Since then, they have dramatically evolved into comprehensive managerial instruments that often combine work-life and other behavioral health services to address a host of mental health issues and workplace performance problems.

As a feature of HRM processes, EAPs have gathered greater prominence in recent years. Over 75% of U.S. employers and 67% of Canadian employers provide EAP services to their employees and family members. Although readily available at many workplaces in affluent countries, EAPs are still rare in other parts of the world, especially in emerging economics like Mexico and China. The reasons are twofold: firstly, employers know little about EAPs, and secondly, some managers consider EAP services investments which increases management costs but only benefit employees.

While it is true that EAPs cost money, those are costs that are returned exponentially by reducing absenteeism and employee turnover, maintaining a more harmonious workplace, minimizing plant accidents, and reducing managers’ daily workload. These are benefits that, in turn, decrease operating costs and increase productivity. According to the successful experience of MacDonald Douglas, the annual return of investment on an EAP project is at least 1:3. Such success can be duplicated, however, only by designing the right EAP for an organization–one that takes organizational culture and the specific purpose for having an EAP into account.

Service Contents of EAPs

EAPs cover a wide range of services from working environment design to personal issues affecting an employee’s job performance. Although the services differ from workplace to workplace, they tend to include the following:

• substance abuse or alcohol problems
• mental health
• emotional problems
• physical health
• marital problems
• parenting problems
• professional career development
• legal and financial problem
• crisis and workplace critical incidents intervention
• management and work team problems

Employees and their family members can get these services for free through the following channels:

• phone and web-based consulting
• face-to-face private consulting
• group guidance
• specific training
• executive coaching

In most cases, organizations combine several channels to fulfill EAP functions according to their culture and needs.

Operation Models of EAPs

Once the decision to implement EAPs has been made, the first question that comes to an employer is who will manage and provide the service? Three models are available: internal programs, external programs, and blended programs. Which to choose depends on whether or not the organization has dedicated EAP staff of its own to implement EAPs, and what sort of budget the organization has available.

Originally EAPs were staffed by individuals working directly for the host organization. These programs were typically referred to as internal EAPs. The host organization would have a full-time program director, one or more clinical professionals, and some administrative staff to coordinate the services. On-site contact between employees and counselors was possible, as well was 24-hour support and counseling services over the phone, especially for work locations without EAP staff counselors. The use of internal EAPs for management consultations and other organizational services is substantial compared to other program models. The overall level of EAP utilization for internal programs varies, as does the cost for the program.

Today, with the development of the EAP industry, the bulk of the EAP services are offered by vendors in the workplace. EAPs where all or most aspects of the services are primarily delivered by a vendor are considered external. An external EAP vendor that provides services to help organizations enhance the wellbeing of their employees may be a not-for-profit or for-profit enterprise. Depending on how they’re arranged, the degree of onsite presence for external EAPs varies, but is often less than with internal programs. The use of phone-based EAP counseling sessions and organization-wide training programs may be emphasized.

The blended model is the third way to implement EAPs. It features a small staff which is employed by the host organization, directs the EAP, and provides some onsite clinical and management related services. In the blended model, most of the clinical services are provided by affiliate counselors who work for an external EAP vendor but coordinate their activities through the internal EAP staff.

No matter which model is used, the services must be managed and delivered by trust-worthy professionals, so as to ensure the quality of EAPs. Within the past decades, there has been a movement to standardize the services. As a consequence, there are now two voluntary accreditation certifications specific to EAPs: the first is available from the Council on Accreditation (COA), a US-based international, independent, nonprofit, human service accrediting organization founded in 1977; the second is offered by the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities, now known as CARF International, a group of companies composed of  CARF Canada and CARF Europe. Because some EAP venders are part of larger health care or social service agencies, they may also describe themselves as “accredited,” though the process through which they are certified are not specific to their EAP product. Also, there may be difference local certificate system in different countries. For example, a Chinese EAP counselor can get accreditation from Chinese Vocational Skills Identification Center of National Human Resources and Social Security Ministry.

EAP Initiation Process 

After selecting a proper EAP provider, the employer needs to develop a plan to get the program started. The initial EAPs process is normally composed of 5 steps:

Step 1: Establishing an EAPs Team

Right at the start, a team or committee, including members of the human resources department, must be established to lead and supervise the EAPs implementation. The team must then decide on which operational model should be used: internal, external, or blended.

Step 2: EAPs Need Data

The EAP team must next identify targeted stakeholders (i.e., employees) and the commonly existing issues among them, so as to determine what specific kinds of EAP services and topics are of most use to their needs. A database should be established. These data can be obtained by means of questionnaires, interviews, psychological test and organizational performance review.

Step 3: Developing and Publicizing an EAP Implementation Plan 

Based on the survey results of the former step, an EAP implementation plan should be designed. The plan should include areas covered by the EAP, techniques to be applied, implementation schedules, persons to be involved, and the budget. Specific goals and metrics should also be developed for each of the services.

The implementation of the program should be publicized via internal newsletters, the business’s internal website, and any other means of communication guaranteed to reach employees in every sector of the organization. The various services available through the program should be clearly listed, and the confidentiality of the services must be assured.

Step 4: Implementing EAPs

Implement the EAPs according to the plan. For example, set aside appointment times within the human resource department to speak individually with employees about their questions, and refer these individuals to the program so they may make any necessary appointments with specialists and begin accessing services.

Step 5: Follow Up and Evaluation

The results of each of the EAP services need to be measured and reported on, in order to evaluate the outcome. These results then become the basis for making improvements and changes in the program’s future operation.

Implications for Managers

Besides the five necessary steps listed above, managers should also take the following actions into consideration to assure the smooth implementation and fruitful outcome of EAPs:

1. Show Leadership Support of EAPs: Senior executives at the organization should announce the availability of EAP services, emphasizing the organization’s interest is maintaining a healthy workforce and outlining the steps the organization has taken in terms of offering those services. This will introduce the EAPs into the organization’s culture and encourages its use.
2. Provide Promotional Communications: Regular communication with employees and family members regarding the availability of the EAP and the importance of being proactive concerning its use is critical to program’s success. All of the staff in the organization should be encouraged to approach the EAP with an attitude that any one of them could one day need, and readily make use of, one of the provided services.
3. Encourage Manager Training: Managers should be trained to recognize changes in behavior or the presence of individual conflicts between colleagues or among subordinates. Supervisors can be taught to proactively identify personal and behavioral issues in employees, and take appropriate action to involve the EAP to get them the help they need.

Suggested readings:

Richmond MK, Pampel FC, Wood RC, Nunes AP. The Impact of Employee Assistance Services on Workplace Outcomes: Results of a Prospective, Quasi-Experimental Study. Journal of occupational health psychology. 2015 Dec.

Nobrega S, Champagne NJ, Azaroff LS, Shetty K, Punnett L. Barriers to workplace stress interventions in employee assistance practice: EAP perspectives. Journal of Workplace Behavioral Health. 2010 Oct 28;25(4):282-95.

Bhagat RS, Steverson PK, Segovis JC. International and Cultural Variations in Employee Assistance Programmes: Implications for Managerial Health and Effectiveness. Journal of Management Studies. 2007 Mar 1;44(2):222-42.

Csiernik R. Employee assistance program utilization: Developing a comprehensive scorecard. Employee Assistance Quarterly. 2003 Jun 1;18(3):45-60.

The last two decades have brought rapid and significant socio-demographic, economic and labor market transformations. Increased longevity and the combined decrease in the mortality and birth rate define the current demographic transition.

The global share of older people (aged 60 years or over) increased from 9.2% in 1990 to 11.7% in 2013, and it is estimated that by 2050 it will reach 21.1%. It is expected that by 2025 there will be just over 98 million persons older than 60 years of age in Latin America, and in 2050, one in four Latin Americans will be over 60 years old. However, it should be noted that there are important differences from one country to another. For example, the growth of the aging population in Bolivia, Guatemala and Nicaragua is not much, while in Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela it is moderate, and in Argentina and Chile, especially in Cuba and Uruguay, it is high. In 2050, the proportion of people older than 60 years will reach 25% in Latin America and the Caribbean, while in Europe and North America it will exceed 31%. In at least 64 countries, the population over 60 years will reach 30% in 2050. This list is made up of developed countries, but also of most countries of Latin America and many of Asia, including China. It is possible that in 2050 the older population (above 65 years old) in some Latin American countries, like Brazil, Chile and Mexico, will be greater than that of the United States.

One of the most important consequences of the progressive aging of the population are changes in orientation of the mid and late stages of the professional career and the need to prolong working life beyond the normal or official ages of retirement. This point raises an important debate for states, societies, organizations and individuals, since it has to do with the pension systems and social protection, the organization of work and the management of organizations, the health and well being of the elderly, and the cohesion and solidarity between generations. Human resources management in organizations must consider these changes and meet the challenges to motivate, lead, achieve the best performance and ensure a healthy environment for older workers. Are organizations prepared?

Opportunities for Organizations

Older workers can be a source of sustained competitive advantage provided they are managed correctly. Greater overall experience, possession of an implicit knowledge derived from practice and coping in very different situations and having higher levels of emotional stability (increasing their resilience in stressful situations and reducing social conflicts at work) are the most important assets of older workers. This resource of experience should be perceived, evaluated and optimized by the organization. What attitude do those responsible for human resources show toward their older workers? Studies have identified two approaches in practice.

First, the “depreciation” approach considers that people are more motivated and make their greatest contributions in the early and middle stages of their career, and decline as they mature and get older. The age at which obsolescence is manifested varies, but this approach considers that “the older worker” is a worker with “deficiencies.” This approach reinforces negative stereotypes and difficult intergenerational relations at work, favors the development of prejudice toward older workers and pushes them to leave the labor market. This view is based on four myths: the myth of age, which sustains that age is an infallible indicator of the state of the person, when in reality labor capacity is more situational than chronological; the myth of declining productivity, based on the belief that energy, interest and motivation inevitably diminish over time; the myth of the professional career, which assumes there is no reason or value to promoting and empowering older people; and the myth of retirement, which maintains that, because of all of the above, the only possibility for older workers is to retire, and that retirement is the final stage of a working life.

The second approach is that of “conservation,” which sees older workers as renewable assets that continue being valuable to the organization. Consequently, human resources managers include them in training and development programs, and give them a place in the promotion and design of the career. At the same time, measures are taken to address the personal and family needs of older workers. These measures include part-time work or a reduced workday, flexible hours, reduced workload, flexible benefits, voluntary sabbaticals, changes in professional roles or task adaptation and work redesign. Studies have shown that the implementation of these organizational practices and the possibility of choosing largely influence the decision to keep working or opting for retirement.

Organizations can also have highly motivated older workers. The myth that motivation decreases or disappears with age is false. In recent studies it has been found that motivation does not diminish in older workers, rather it is transformed. In the early and middle stages of the career, motivation is often dominated by extrinsic motives – achievement and professional development – while in the final stages it comes from intrinsic motives – security and social contact.

Challenges for Organizations

For organizations to maintain and convert their older workers into opportunities, they must face and give effective answers to a series of challenges.

First challenge: changing attitudes toward age. It is necessary to change stereotypes and reduce prejudice against older workers. Their abilities are not diminished or lost, but they change and must be adapted or updated. It is necessary to provide them development opportunities, ongoing training and retraining, especially skills that improve with age, such as the capacity for analysis, integration of knowledge and experience, and advice. To meet this challenge the organization should define a development goal.

Second challenge: assessments of objective and fair performance. The systems of assessment of productivity must conform to the age of employees. Productivity criteria should be variable; and human resources management that is sensitive to the diversity of people cannot set standards for everyone and consider them as identical replaceable parts. Older workers must be given respect and recognition. To meet this challenge the organization should define a goal of assessment and recognition.

Third challenge: to provide the opportunity for the development of new skills. The professional career involves transitions, which represent the possible change in the functions of each stage. Older workers may assume new skills, such as internal consultant, mentor, trainer, etc., with greater dedication and commitment. Offering these possibilities and defining them can help in career transitions. To meet this challenge, the organization should define a goal of negotiation of the professional career.

Fourth challenge: managing age diversity in the workforce. The company has to adapt working conditions and offer flexible schedules, horizontal position changes, task redesign, reduced hours or work periods, and changes of positions or tasks. Redistribution or redefinition of workloads can contribute to stress reduction and facilitate recovery. To meet this challenge, the organization should set a goal of flexibility and recovery.

Fifth challenge: promoting a culture of generational diversity. A cultural change is needed in organizations to recognize the value of each age group for achieving objectives. Fostering relationships and collaborations between younger and older workers and promoting the potential of knowledge can create synergies and increase interdependencies. These policies can be specified in the following message: “Being different is not a problem, the problem is to be perceived and treated as different.” All employees can learn from each other. To meet this challenge the organization should set a goal of fostering a culture of diversity.

The Choice of Bridge Employment 

In addition to the above, human resources management aimed at older adults also has a very attractive option: bridge employment. Bridge employment is the set of forms of work practices between the full-time professional career and permanent retirement. Bridge employment patterns can be considered as varieties of retirement that prolong working life, while the term “retirement” refers to the final departure from the workforce. The transitions that characterize bridge employment occur both in the same occupation and in different occupations, and may occur in forms of wage employment (part-time, fulltime or temporary) or in forms of self-employment or entrepreneurship.

Regarding the factors that foresee the acceptance of bridge employment are the perception of good health, an age around the late fifties or early sixties, greater organizational tenure,, high level of satisfaction and enjoyment of the job, a perception of being very competent or having great skills related to the career, a strong entrepreneur orientation, having a partner who also works and children or dependent relatives in the family (environment), having the need to maintain a level of income after retirement age or to ensure the necessary contributions to receive a pension, lack of compensation and benefits systems or defined pension plans, and the desire to reduce levels of stress and excessive workload of a fulltime job.

In the last 20 years, the modalities of bridge employment in different countries have shown the following benefits to individuals and organizations: improvements in the psychosocial quality of life and life satisfaction during, before and after retirement; increased well being and occupational health; reduction of serious diseases and functional limitations and improvement in the mental health of older workers; increased satisfaction and adjustment to retirement; strengthening the autonomy and financial security and economic well being after retirement; decreasing the experiences of age discrimination in older workers, and promoting flexible employment agreements that allow organizations to retain (and even attract) experienced and skilled workers when they reach retirement age. Finally, although the evidence of the effect of gradual retirement on productivity is still scarce, qualitative data indicates that older workers who hold positions after retirement age are motivated and competent and productive.

In summary, organizations have great opportunities to optimize the contributions of older workers to achieve their goals. There are challenges to face and resolve, but the experiences of success by implementing policies and human resources practices are a guarantee of achieving the desired goals. The challenge of the current and future demographic changes requires organizations to be up to task: We must treat and assess older workers as we would want to be treated when we reach that age.

References

Alcover, C. M., Topa, G., Parry, E., Fraccaroli, F. and Depolo, M. (eds.) (2014). Bridge Employment: A Research Handbook. London and New York: Routledge.

Alcover, C. M., Topa, G. and Fernández, J. J. (2014). La gestión organizacional de los trabajadores mayores y los procesos de mantenimiento, prolongación y salida de la vida laboral. Papeles del Psicólogo, 35, 2, 91-98. http://www.papelesdelpsicologo.es/pdf/2359.pdf

Bal, P. M., Kooij, D. T. A. M. and Rousseau, D. M. (eds.) (2015). Aging Workers and the Employee-Employer Relationship. London: Springer.

Wang, M., Olson, D. A. and Shultz, K. S. (2013). Mid and Late Career. An Integrative Perspective. London and New York: Routledge.

Yeatts, D., Folts, E., and Knapp, J. (2000). Older workers adaption to a changing workplace: employment issues for the 21st century. Educational Gerontology, 26, 565-582.

]]> http://direccionestrategica.itam.mx/el-envejecimiento-de-la-poblacion-y-la-gestion-de-recursos-humanos-oportunidades-y-desafios/feed/ 0 http://direccionestrategica.itam.mx/how-to-communicate-results-from-an-employee-survey/ http://direccionestrategica.itam.mx/how-to-communicate-results-from-an-employee-survey/#comments Mon, 27 Jun 2016 21:42:13 +0000 http://direccionestrategica.itam.mx/?p=8133 By: Ingwer Borg
WWU Münster
Germany

Employee surveys can have many positive effects, but they unfold their full potential only if they are communicated effectively. In practice, communication is often done by distributing thousands of computer-generated reports more or less simultaneously to all managers.

Each report focusses on a manager’s organizational unit, showing what his/her subordinates said in the survey, typically in comparison to the results of higher-order units. This approach has the disadvantage that it leaves many managers and employees in a limbo, wondering what “they” (i.e., executives, top managers) think about the survey results, and what “they” intend to do now.

A better way to communicate is to roll out the survey results in a top-down cascade, beginning with top management, and ending with the working groups at the shop floor. Right after the survey, some very general feedback can be given (e.g., about the participation rate or on some general trends on global job satisfaction), and also information about the next step, but all reports for managers should be held back until top management has seen the results and is ready to formulate first responses to this information. Such responses include, in particular, one or two areas of focus: “The survey showed to us that X is a major issue in the company. Most likely this is also true in your area of responsibility. If so, we expect you [Manager M] and your team to make a positive contribution. Please report by [date] to [M's supervisor] what you have done or plan to do–or that you feel that no action is needed or no action is possible in your area, and why.” The area of focus can even be a field of action, a clearly assigned task. For example, in one large IT company, the executive board said that “the survey showed us that our strategy must be better communicated and sold more effectively to all employees. Every officer will report to the Board by [date] on the actions that are implemented in his/her area of responsibility. And here is what we will do: …”.

The individual managers at the next-lower level of the hierarchy will then receive their survey reports together with such areas of focus. This will align the follow-processes, giving them strategic punch. Middle managers may add one or two additional areas of focus that deal with problems or opportunities relevant for their own areas of responsibility. So, supervisors at the bottom of the hierarchy will receive their survey reports together with a few top-down directions and goals for subsequent activities. This prevents that they simply report just about any action as their response to the survey (e.g., actions that were running anyway or “Mickey Mouse” actions such as re-decorating the rest rooms). Middle managers must also make sure that they have something solid to say when they report to their supervisors what they did in response to the areas of focus. Hence, they will, in turn, see that their subordinates deliver something that upper management likes to hear.

Figure 1. An MDS bubble plot, where bubble size represents percent agreement to item (“favorableness”); halo around index for commitment (the “dependent” variable) shows potential drivers for action planning .

But how can top managers identify powerful areas of focus? The typical PPT presentations on the survey results for top managers consist of a sheer endless series of colorful and animated slides with bullet points and histograms. They exhibit findings such as the company’s global results, often relative to industry benchmarks (where available), and compare the results of various organizational units, strata, and points in time (e.g., Production, Marketing, Sales, etc.; large subsidiaries; blue collar vs. white collar; new vs. older employees; this survey vs. last year’s survey). This is all nice to know, but hard to remember and even harder to translate into a survey “story” of what leads to what and why. Thus, managers are lost in piecemeal statistics that offer no convincing leads for what to do. They then grab what appears plausible, do what they wanted to do anyway, or simply do not respond to the data at all (thereby throwing away an opportunity for strong actions). What is typically missing in such presentations is something that shows, in a compact and accessible way, the structure of the data and information on what drives what. What is needed is a single slide that that supports data-guided discussions on what to focus on in action planning. Figure 1 shows an example. This display is a multidimensional scaling (MDS) plot of the inter-correlations of the items of a survey in a large IT company. Each point represents a question from the survey. The distance between any two points shows how similar the answers to these two items were in the survey: Knowing the answer of a person to item X, you can easily predict what the person says on item Y if the points X and Y are close neighbors (such as, for example, “enjoy my work” and “satisfied with tasks”). Items that are far apart in the MDS plot are unrelated (such as “satisfied with working conditions” and “trainings are good”). Here, a person who is satisfied with one issue, for example, may also be satisfied with the other issue. Or he/she may not. You cannot tell: The correlation is zero. (In the typical employee survey, there are no items with negative correlations. This makes MDS simple.)

In Figure 1 we also have a special variable, “commitment”, shown here as a small square. This variable is an index that shows the person’s tendency to leave the company in the near future. (The index is simply the mean value of items such as turnover tendency (reflected), advocacy, and pride in company). Turnover was a serious problem in this company, and so top management was particularly interested in drivers for turnover. To find them, a cloud is drawn about the commitment point in Figure 1. It shows what items are good predictors of commitment.

Now assume the plot in Figure 1 was made on a rubber sheet. If you were to grab this sheet with two fingers on any point X and pull it up, what would happen? The sheet would first lift off at this point, forming a small cone: Pulling up the sheet on point X would cause the neighborhood of X to go up too. Now imagine you would succeed improving (“pull up”) the item “performance=money” item in Figure 1. Since this is so closely associated with commitment, this would most likely also positively affect (“pull up”) the person’s commitment toward the organization. “Satisfied with chances for advancement” and “Satisfied with pay” are also drivers of commitment.

Our MDS plot also shows by the size of the points (“bubbles”) the extent to which these items were rated positively, and “money=performance” obviously received a particularly poor rating. Moreover, we also know from other data, that this rating is clearly below industry benchmarks and so it is realistic to assume that it can be improved! Hence, improving the relation of high performance to monetary rewards (and to chance for advancement) offers itself as a promising candidate for action. Naturally, improving this relation is not easy, requiring a complex action with changes in the pay system, but also in properly assessing performance by supervisors. So, this area of focus requires efforts on all levels, and by various departments.

Using MDS has been found to be an effective method in practice when working with managers on finding areas of focus. Managers understand such plots quickly, and then spend much time discussing the relationships of the various items and topics.

Further readings:

Borg, I., & Mastrangelo, P. (2008). Employee surveys in management. Cambridge, MA: Hogrefe-Huber.

Borg, I., Groenen, P. J. F. & Mair, P. (2012). Applied multidimensional scaling. New York: Springer.

Values are mental processes that can transform our basic needs (survival, belonging-social recognition, and group transcendence) into core goals that guide our lives and impact our attitudes, behaviors, and decisions.

In this way, a young computer expert satisfies his fundamental need to belong to a social group and obtain recognition by its members: by becoming an expert in a specific programming language, always keeping up to date in the knowledge of his field, and seeking to be a perfectionist in what he does. Or a tenacious social entrepreneur struggles through adversity to operate a SME organic coffee processer that contributes to the sustainable social development of the community where she was born and raised, so that her town prevails and transcends its circumstances.

More than 15 years ago, in order to measure those mental processes as contextualized in the world of organizations, the Work Values Scale (EVAT, its acronym in Spanish) was developed. The main objective was to create a test that was easy to apply (both by its fill-in format and because it could be completed quickly) and based on a solid theoretical model. Although there was already a long tradition of measurement of values toward work, virtually all of the tests created up to that point had arisen in the field of vocational behavior, with the specific aim of helping high school students choose their profession. Moreover, the two most popular tools for measuring work values in employees at the time had certain limitations. One the Comparative Emphasis Scale (CES) was not based on a solid theoretical structure, and used a rank-order scale that required weighing of the values in question. Weighing of values hinders the application of questionnaires to people with a low educational level, increases the amount of time to fill it out, and it restricts the use of some statistical tests. The other popular instrument at that time was the Achievement Motive Questionnaire (AMQ), which, though easier to administer and based on a theoretical model validated in a number of countries, did not consider key values in the world of organizations, such as power, influence, authority, or prestige. Faced with these factors, it resorted to adopting the model from the Schwartz theory of value content and structure – the most widely used in the field of social psychology to study individual values – as a theoretical framework of reference to analyze and measure values toward work.

Schwartz’s model establishes that any value, of any person, can be classified into one of 10 types (or four higher-order values), considering the motivational goal pursued by the value in question. Figure 1 shows the four higher-order values measured by the EVAT, located at the ends of each of the large bipolar dimensions that form the two visible dates, as well as the typologies of specific values that are contained for each high-order value. In one of the bipolar dimensions, two opposite high-order values are clearly identified. One, openness to change, includes all the values whose common denominator is constant change, like the pursuit of one’s own intellectual and emotional interests, and at the other end, conservation, which brings together all the values relating to the maintenance of the status quo and the search for stability in personal and group relationships. The other bipolar dimension contains the high-order values self-enhancement and self-transcendence. The first deals with values that share the motivational goal of the ongoing pursuit of self-interest over the interest of others (i.e., trying to prove that one is above others and that one’s ideas and decisions are the best), while at the opposite end is found self-transcendence, which includes values associated with the ongoing pursuit of the welfare of others above one’s own good. Table 1 shows the specific definitions of each of the values contained by a higher-order value.

The EVAT measures the four higher-order values of Schwartz’s model through 16 items. Each item briefly describes the behavior of a person, which reflects the value being evaluated, and in each description the person who takes the test is asked to rate the degree to which the person described lies on the scale between (1) is totally different from me to (7) is identical to me. The reader is cordially invited to complete the test by clicking here. To get the score for openness to change it is necessary to average the values for the questions 1, 5, 9 and 13; for conservation: questions 2, 6, 10 and 14; self- enhancement questions 3 7, 11, 15; and self-transcendence : questions 4, 8, 12, 16. Once the scores are calculated, the most interesting thing is to locate where scores lie with respect to the large sample of nearly 5,000 employees from all geographical regions of Mexico. To access the table with the national percentiles, simply click here. n the following paragraphs, some of the uses of the EVAT are described, both in the field of research and in the management of human resources.

When people assume a new position or begin to work at a new company, this generates a series of expectations regarding how challenging their new tasks will be, how enriching they’ll find their coworkers, how effective their new boss will seem, and so on. Over time, employees make a comparison between their expectations and what they really experience on the job. If the expectations are met or exceeded, they will experience satisfaction; when reality is below these expectations, they will feel unsatisfied. When making these comparisons, employees they tend to use referents: that is, other employees whom they perceive as equal. Functioning on the assumption that people high in self-transcendence values tend to pay less attention to the cost-benefit analysis between what they give and receive from their company, and that they tend not to be obsessed with comparing themselves with others, a study was conducted of 3,201 employees in Mexico who worked in 30 different companies, to analyze if their work values influenced their levels of job satisfaction. The results showed conclusively that employees high on self-transcendence were consistently more satisfied with their jobs, irrespective of the facet of satisfaction (supervision, co-workers, compensation, development, stability) being measured. Conversely, those with high self-enhancement tended to be dissatisfied, because they constantly increased their expectations.

Although employees with a high level of job satisfaction tend to be punctual and rarely miss work, there is no conclusive evidence to prove that satisfied employees are more productive, do more than their job description demands, or make extra efforts when the company is in trouble, work behaviors that are predictable in employees with high organizational commitment, specifically a high affective commitment. Organizational commitment is the psychological attachment that employees develop toward their company and is manifested in three facets or components: a) I am there because I want to be there and I like working for this company (affective); b) I am there as a mere material-instrumental convenience or because I do not have better opportunities in the job market (continuous); and c) I am there because I feel a moral obligation to remain at my company (normative). In order to analyze whether the work values of the employee could, to some extent, predict their organizational commitment, a study was carried out in eight companies in northeastern Mexico using a sample of 982 employees. The study compared classical factors that have been shown to impact the development of employee commitment, such as the knowledge of organizational objectives, perceived empowerment, the effectiveness of the training received, and the work values of the employee. The results of the study indicated that employees high on self-transcendence tend to have a greater predisposition to develop an affective commitment toward the company. With regard to the continuous, employees high on conservation and low on self-transcendence were found to have the highest levels on this dimension, which confirms that these individuals seek to keep what they have, do not run risks, and have little concern about others.

Some Practical Uses of the EVAT

The EVAT has been used, for example, as a tool to measure the effectiveness of a comprehensive training program on clinical ethics given to physicians and nurses at one of the largest hospital networks in Latin America. The free, online, six-month course was distributed in five modules (for example: medical ethics or methodologies for ethical discernment), and was designed to train health professionals to make ethical decisions when faced with the kind of complex dilemmas found in their everyday working lives at clinics and hospitals. The EVAT was used to identify changes in the priorities of work values of the 973 participants who took and passed the course, applying the test before starting the program and once they passed it. The results of the study revealed important, statistically significant changes in self-transcendence and openness to change, increasing their average and decreasing their variances. Another, incidental finding was that medical personnel with high self-transcendence scores were found to be more satisfied with their jobs, since the values associated with self-transcendence (benevolence, altruism) are aligned with the ultimate goal of medical practice.

The EVAT has also been used to identify priorities of the values toward the work of traffic police officers in the metropolitan area of Lima. The main objective of the study was to compare if the priorities of values toward the work of law enforcers were listed in accordance with the hierarchy shown in the police profile published by the Legal Defense Institute of Peru, in a representative sample of 203 members of this union, and if there were significant, identifiable differences between the men and women who performed the job. The profile of priorities found was the following: (1) self-transcendence; 2) openness to change; 3) conservation; and 4) self-enhancement, which coincided with the ideal profile, with no significant differences found between men and women in either the order or the scores of the four values.

The fallout from the global financial crisis of 2008 triggered a period of severe unemployment in Spain. As a result, Barcelona’s city government, through one of its community service publications, recommended that its unemployed citizens deepen their self-knowledge by taking psychometric tests, including the EVAT, to help them identify their work values and seek greater professional guidance.

Fifteen years since its development, the EVAT has proved to be a useful tool for measuring values at work, both in the field of research (as in the trenches of Human Resource Management), and as a tool for self-knowledge. Its use has extended beyond Spanish-speaking countries, and there is evidence of its good performance in other Romance languages, such as Portuguese and Italian.

Recommended reading:

Altamirano, et al. (2013). Promoting networks between evidence-based medicine and values-based medicine in continuing medical education. BMC Medicine, 11:39

Arciniega, L.M. y González, L. (2000). Desarrollo y validación de la escala de valores hacia el trabajo EVAT 30. Revista de Psicología Social, 15, 281-296.

Arciniega, L.M. y González, L. (2005). Other-oriented values and job satisfaction. Problems and Perspectives in Management, 4, 128-132.

Arciniega, L.M. y González, L. (2006). What is the influence of work values relative to other variables in the development or organizational commitment? Revista de Psicología Social,21, 35-50.

Arciniega, L.M., González, L., Soares, V., Ciulli, S., y  Giannini, M. (2009). Cross-cultural validation of the Work Values Scale EVAT using multi-group confirmatory factor analysis and muldimensional scaling. The Spanish Journal of Psychology. 12, 767-772.

Grimaldo-Muchotrigo, M.P. (2008). Valores hacia el trabajo en un grupo de policías de tránsito de Lima metropolitana. LIBERABIT, 14, 71-80.

When McKinsey & Company published its report, “The War for Talent,” in the early years of the 21st century, several forward thinking organizations redoubled their efforts and adopted initiatives in anticipation to the implications that were announced in that document. The lack of talent with diverse skills would remain a key inhibitor to the development of organizations, especially in the knowledge economy.

In the United States, Deloitte, the professional services firm, decided to make a significant investment in 2007 to address these forecasts as an innovative leader. Professional services firms flourish by acquiring the best talent that their employee value proposition enables them to recruit The great dilemma was whether to invest in a cutting-edge technology initiative, given the desire and intuitive technological knowledge that new generations of professionals bring as part of their lifestyle, or to invest in a space that would become a model for culture and dialogue on the company’s raison d’être. The decision was made in the latter direction and a multimillion-dollar investment was allocated to create Deloitte University.

Today, eight years after that decision was made, Deloitte University has exceeded all initial expectations. The first business case was justified by the savings from learning expenses derived from external learning venues rent, e.g. classrooms. However, the substantial return on such investment has emerged from the differentiation in the delivery of quality service, in comparative advantage in our employee value proposition, which has positively impacted the firm’s attraction and retention of talent, and in the dissemination and engagement of the professionals with the Deloitte culture. Based on this experience, new centers have been opened in Brussels and Singapore, and at this time centers connected to the DU network are being developed in Brazil, Canada, Colombia and Mexico. In addition, there are plans for expansion of the original center site in the United States.

On one occasion, a client asked how a school concept could be so successful? DU is far from being an ordinary school. First, one must examine the training and learning model of the big-four professional services firms. For years they have offered cutting-edge technical courses to all their professionals. However, despite their value, these have never been decisive factors when clients choose the advisory services of one or the other.

A lesson learned is that a corporate university is much more than the reconditioned learning center where a company’s collection of explicit knowledge is shared. The corporate university must be fully aligned with the strategy and the ultimate goal of the organization and in its way of boosting the value creation capabilities of its clients.

A frequent problem of business advisors is that they recur to be are advertised as the best creators of value. This is a myth. Recent theories of marketing, such as Service Dominant Logic or Service Logic, posit that the customer is the only one who creates value and that the advisor only facilitates that creation. Recently, value has also been discussed as an experience that can only be determined by the client.

However, knowledge itself has no commercial value until it is implemented, that is, until a business entity decides to integrate the knowledge into his value chain that creates products or services, such that a customer is willing to pay for them a price that allows for a profit margin in top of their cost.

Organizations take knowledge to their processes of value creation through the skills of their employees, that is, through sets of knowledge resources that are both implicit, in the mind and behavior of people, and explicit. What we should be interested in, is in the development of specific skills that enhance the raison d’être of our business, that is, skills that enable value creation of our customers, i.e. value facilitation.

Everything Is About Our Customers and our Collaborators
If a company does not depend heavily on the skills of its collaborators to transfer value to its customers, it is hard to justify an investment in a sustainable corporate university, steeped in corporate culture committed to excellence in service. Each exposed object, each corridor, interior, classroom, and garden, etc. of DU transmits an experience to its participants. DU has been carefully planned to communicate a powerful message: “This is what it means to be Deloitte and this is the level of service and experience that I hope you will transmit to our customers.”

The idea is for the corporate university not to be a pure learning experience directed internally, but that it should have an outgoing perspective, enticing a culture of quality service to customers, and ready to communicate and interact with them.

The Environment to Encourage Talent Dialogue
Much has been written about the tactics of training and retaining talent. In our experience, there is nothing like hearing viva voce from the great business leaders on the meaning of a program to transcend and influence the business sectors and the public sector that we serve.

Organizations that are heavily based on the knowledge economy have strong organizational cultures. These cultures tend to develop a resistance to learning from external professionals. It is certainly not a resistance to the technical concepts – a field in which the universities have produced state-of-the-art knowledge – but to the great value of the training offered by other leaders, which consists mainly of second cycle or even higher order learning. It has something to do with the formation of abilities to perform technical tasks, but much more with professional reflection on how to use these technical skills to enhance customer value creation.

Only a leader trains another leader. The corporate university should not be directed by pure academics, but by business leaders. An investment in a building, without the leaders who lead and give encouragement, will turn out to be an investment with questionable objectives.

Adults Do Not Learn In the Same Format as Young People
School learning styles (for example, “sit while I talk you through 60 Power Point slides”) have proved to be unproductive in corporate environments, having experientially observed their further poor transfer into the workplace. A public sector client told me that he spent millions each year on training, and the only noticeable result he obtained was having trained a team of “professional students”. In effect, a large percentage of the money that organizations spend on learning is money wasted.

Adult learning, especially if it is to develop abilities (mixture of explicit knowledge with implicit skills) depends on (1) the environment of sensory and spatial experiences during the teaching, (2) achieving small personal successes through learning by doing, (3) the intense, deep and focused practice accompanied immediately by comments and advice from experts, and (4) the social context (social and professional groups) in which learning occurs, which is one of the key ingredients we have observed in adult learning.

References

Argyris, C. 1976. Single-Loop and Double-Loop Models in Research on Decision Making. Administrative Science Quarterly, Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University, 21 (3): 363-375.

Coyle, D. 2010. The Talent Code: Greatness Isn’t Born, It’s Grown, Random House.

Day, G. S. 1994. The Capabilities of Market-Driven Organizations. Journal of Marketing, 58 (4): 37-52.

Grönroos, C. 2011. A Service Perspective on Business Relationships: The Value Creation, Interaction and Marketing Interface. Industrial Marketing Management, 40 (2): 240-247.

Helkkula, A., Kelleher, C. y Pihlström, M. 2012. “Characterizing Value as an Experience: Implications for Service Researchers and Managers”. Journal of Service Research: JSR, 15 (1): 59.

Michaels, E., Handfield-Jones, H. y Axelrod, B. 2001. The war for talent, Harvard Business Press.

Nonaka, I. 1995. The Knowledge-Creating Company., Nueva York, Oxford University Press.

Vargo, S. L. y Lusch, R. F. 2008. “Service-Dominant Logic: Continuing the Evolution”. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 36 (1): 1-10.

Como clientes, pacientes o usuarios, a todos nos gusta que nos ofrezcan un servicio excelente.

Es lo que denominamos “un servicio de calidad”, el cual guarda una relación positiva con la rentabilidad empresarial (Schneider, Paul y White, 1998). Sin embargo, no somos conscientes de cuánto esfuerzo puede llegar a costar ofrecer altos estándares de calidad en el servicio hasta que cambiamos de lugar; es decir, hasta que somos nosotros quienes ofrecemos el servicio, bien sea externo, a clientes que no pertenecen a la organización, o interno, a compañeros de trabajo. La calidad de servicio, entendida como las percepciones del cliente que resultan de la comparación de sus expectativas antes de recibir el servicio con su experiencia en la recepción del servicio (Grönroos, 1984), requiere cumplir gran variedad de requisitos, como proyectar confianza y seguridad, dar una respuesta idónea a tiempo, empatizar con el receptor del servicio (Parasuraman, Zeithaml y Bery, 1988), mostrar autenticidad en la emoción expresada e incluso sorprenderlo con algún “extra”, un elemento no esperado y que será gratamente recibido por el cliente (Price, Arnould, y Tierney, 1995). Así, ofrecer calidad de servicio es complejo y exige un gran esfuerzo, especialmente emocional, durante la interacción con el cliente (Johansson y Woods, 2008).

¿Qué es el trabajo emocional?

Este esfuerzo emocional, mostrar la emoción apropiada conforme a una regla explícita  (Ashforth y Humphrey, 1993), se denomina “trabajo emocional” y surgió de las investigaciones de Hochschild (1983) sobre las demandas laborales de las azafatas de vuelo. Hochschild se percató de que para satisfacer a los pasajeros predominaba el esfuerzo “emocional”  por encima del esfuerzo físico, lo cual, al paso del tiempo, llegaba a producir alienación y agotamiento.

Consecuencias del trabajo emocional

Tras más de 30 años de estudios, el trabajo emocional se considera un arma de doble filo en las organizaciones, porque permite alcanzar altas tasas de calidad de servicio pero puede extenuar al trabajador; es decir, puede llevarlo a lo que en psicología se denomina “síndrome de burnout” (Gracia, Ramos y Moliner, 2015). En resultados recientes recopilados de varios metaanálisis (Hülsheger y Schewe, 2011; Mesmer-Magnus, DeChurch y Wax, 2012) se señala que esta relación positiva entre el trabajo emocional y el desempeño, aunque negativa para el bienestar, no es tan fuerte como se pensaba, pues no se da en todos los casos ni en todos los contextos. De hecho, parece ser que dependiendo de la estrategia de regulación emocional que utilice el trabajador –actuación profunda o actuación superficial–, las consecuencias serán distintas. Así, cuando los trabajadores utilizan la actuación profunda, cuando hacen un esfuerzo cognitivo por transformar la emoción, los resultados en el servicio son positivos y no hay cambios en la salud de los empleados (Hülsheger y Schewe, 2011). En cambio, cuando se recurre a la actuación superficial, cuando se finge una emoción a través de la expresión meramente facial,  los efectos en la salud suelen ser dañinos, además de que no inciden en el rendimiento, siempre que el cliente no perciba que un trabajador ha fingido la emoción (Groth, Hennig-Thurau T. y Walsh, 2009; Pugh, Groth y Hennig-Thurau, 2011).

Así, las teorías y los resultados de las investigaciones todavía no explican por qué la actuación profunda, a pesar de ser más costosa y compleja, produce efectos más positivos. Entre tanto, somos cada vez más conscientes de que el trabajo emocional podrá explicarse cuando tengamos en cuenta toda la complejidad que supone (Gracia y Ashkanasy, 2014). Para dar una idea de dicha complejidad, tengamos en cuenta que el trabajo emocional se entiende simultáneamente como (1) un requisito organizacional, (2) una regulación emocional interna, y (3) una expresión emocional manifiesta (Grandey, Diefendorff y Rupp, 2013). Tampoco se debe olvidar que estamos hablando de emociones, las cuales, tal como argumenta el Modelo Multinivel de las Emociones (Ashkanasy, 2003), se dan en diferentes niveles que deben tenerse en cuenta para entenderlas. Así, por ejemplo, aunque el requisito emocional es una norma establecida por la organización, la cual es compartida por sus miembros y está impregnada en la cultura organizacional (nivel 5 organizacional), la decisión de regular o no una emoción puede depender de si un trabajador tuvo una discusión con un compañero o con su jefe,  de cómo se encuentra en ese momento (nivel 1 eventos temporales) o de lo bien que le cae el cliente al que está atendiendo (nivel 3 interacción).

Al tener en cuenta todos estos factores, en el modelo Multinivel de Trabajo Emocional (Gracia y Ashkanasy, 2014) se entiende que el trabajo emocional comienza tras una activación energética que lleva a un proceso de evaluación en el que se decide si hacer el esfuerzo de regular la emoción conforme a la norma requerida, lo cual, a su vez, determinará la calidad final de la expresión manifestada. Además, en este modelo se reúnen otros aspectos procedentes de diferentes niveles de estudio en cada fase del proceso (Figura 1). Es decir, se tiene en cuenta a la organización, la persona que ofrece el servicio, la interacción en la que lo recibe, el grupo de trabajo y la situación, con el objetivo de captar la complejidad emocional que se da en las organizaciones de servicios reales y mejorar la comunicación y la transferencia de resultados entre las organizaciones y la ciencia.

¿Qué estrategias puede adoptar la dirección para optimizar las consecuencias positivas del trabajo emocional y evitar o minimizar las consecuencias negativas?

Hasta el momento, sabemos que una organización puede ayudar a sus trabajadores en cualquier punto de la gestión de Recursos Humanos (Gracia, Nogareda, Martínez y Salanova, 2007). Son especialmente importantes los procesos de reclutamiento y selección a la hora de contratar trabajadores con un gran registro de expresión emocional. Igualmente hay que cuidar la fase de socialización, así como la relación diádica entre el directivo y el trabajador. Una relación percibida como justa y de confianza puede facilitar la selección de estrategias de regulación profunda por parte de los trabajadores (Shani, Uriely, Reichel y Ginsburg, 2014). También el empoderamiento ayuda a gestionar las emociones (Johansson y Woods, 2008). Sin embargo, cabe señalar que hay una deficiencia en las políticas de Recursos Humanos destinadas a la formación del trabajador en materia emocional. Muchas veces, las organizaciones no ofrecen una formación reglada del trabajo emocional. Por lo regular, la gestión emocional se transmite entre los trabajadores de manera informal, sin ninguna planificación ni descripción del contenido. En otras ocasiones, la formación se basa principalmente en el entrenamiento con “scripts” sobre rutinas preestablecidas de comportamiento que sirven para conducir la interacción pero no siempre generan los resultados deseados (Johansson y Woods, 2008). Una posible explicación es que estos guiones no dejan de ser pautas simuladas de conducta en las que no se tiene en cuenta la complejidad de la situación, lo cual lleva a los trabajadores a elegir una estrategia de actuación superficial, que traerá consecuencias negativas. Por este motivo, todavía hay que avanzar en el diseño de planes de formación reglada en las organizaciones de trabajo emocional con el cliente (Gallo, 2007) que incluyan tanto el reconocimiento de las normas emocionales requeridas por la organización como la selección de una estrategia de actuación profunda que tenga consecuencias positivas tanto en relación con la competitividad de la organización como con la calidad de vida laboral.?

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