Companies looking for qualified professionals and not finding them. Workers with studies and skills who, however, fail to access jobs that take advantage of their full potential. These are two sides of the same challenge: how to attract and retain talent in an increasingly demanding and changing work environment?
This challenge will be the guiding thread of the session Eixample Talks: The talent that the future demands, which will take place next February 25 at 9:30 a.m. at the Pimec headquarters (Viladomat, 174, Barcelona). It will be the first session of the year of the cycle Eixample Talks: the meeting of the public and private world, promoted by Pimec and The New Barcelona Post with the aim of fostering dialogue and collaboration between sectors to jointly address the major economic, social and urban challenges of the city. Seating for the session is limited and requires prior registration through the link.
The day will begin with a welcome breakfast, followed by an inaugural presentation by Sílvia Miró, director of the Pimec Labor Area, and Carme Pagès, professor and researcher; director of the Prospective and Labor Analysis Unit of the Open University of Catalonia (UOC). During their intervention, both professionals will bring attendees closer to the reality of companies, providing recent data from the labor market and demonstrating why attracting and retaining talent is still one of the main challenges for small and large companies today, not only in Catalonia, but throughout the world.
This presentation will expose key data from the latest Barometer of Skills and Occupations of Catalonia, prepared by Pimec and the UOC. According to this report, almost half of the vacancies published by small and medium-sized companies (49.3%) are difficult to fill, with demanding selection processes that can last for months: only 27.6% are closed in less than three months, while 30.3% require between six and twelve months to find the right person.
For the companies surveyed, the causes are clear: the lack of available candidates and the insufficiency of technical skills and transversal abilities make it difficult to select the right personnel for vacancies. Companies therefore point to a mismatch between training and the demands of the labor market, a fact that causes frustration among both companies and candidates. All of this in an alarming context: Spain has one of the highest youth unemployment rates in all of Europe.
For this reason, the Eixample Talks session will conclude with a roundtable that will bring together representatives from academia, public administration, and the private sector to explore joint solutions to reduce the gap between training and talent, in a debate moderated by Elena Busquets, director of The New Barcelona Post.
The academic world will be represented by Oriol Alcoba, Director of Innovation and Knowledge Transfer at Esade Business School, a business school founded in 1958 in Barcelona and considered the fifth best institution in open training for executives according to the global ranking of the Financial Times. Alcoba, a professor at Esade for over a decade and former Director General of Industry in the Generalitat de Catalunya, will analyze how academic institutions —from vocational training to universities— can adapt their curricula and methodologies to align with the real needs of a constantly transforming labor market.
A vision that will be complemented by Lluís Font, director of the Consorci per a la Formació Contínua de Catalunya. This body, dependent on the Department of Business and Labor of the Generalitat, promotes and manages training programs for employed people with the aim of enabling them to adapt to technological and social changes in the market and even reinvent themselves. A Doctor of Philosophy and Letters, Font will advocate, from his experience as a teacher and trainer, how lifelong learning is more necessary than ever today, in a demanding labor market with a growing demand for technical profiles.
Beyond digital competencies and technical knowledge, companies also increasingly value soft skills, that is, transversal aptitudes of the candidate such as the ability to work in a team, problem-solving, or proactivity. To learn firsthand about the needs of companies and the private sector, Xavier Jarque, Chief Revenue Officer at Marlex Group, a consultancy specializing in the evaluation and selection of talent at all levels: from management teams to industrial operators, will also participate in the round table.
As in other sessions of the cycle, Eixample Talks will be held in transmedia format, with in-person attendance and subsequent video-podcast dissemination, to extend its reach beyond the physical meeting. The cycle, promoted by Pimec and The New Barcelona Post, also has the collaboration of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Port of Barcelona, AMB, and Mustmedia.