Sylvia Taudien is one of the top Superwomen I have ever met. Born in Cologne, she has set roots in Barcelona more than 20 years ago. An expert in Marketing, in 2003 Sylvia founded Advantage Consultores, an international Boutique Consulting which supports the most relevant companies throughout the talent journey.<\/p>\n
With a special sensibility to anticipate trends linked to people and organisational environments, Sylvia concretises concepts and ideas which will become mainstream in companies. In order to showcase such trends, she created the Barcelona International HR Conference, a platform where worldwide experts belonging to different disciplines and generations mingle with a diverse audience to share their best practices.<\/p>\n
We need several roles to describe Sylvia: business person, digital entrepreneur, career coach, pure networker … She was the first person to tell me I would become my own boss one day. And, taking into account the outcome, I take her predictions very seriously \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
1. Everybody is talking about \u201cthe future of work\u201d, but … What about the present? What are you observing as the main trend, organisationally speaking?<\/strong><\/p>\n There is only one word: transformation<\/strong>. Culture, organisation, people … Everything is changing. No doubt, we are living the biggest transformation era related to work. More than ever, culture eats strategy for breakfast. Culture is the core, the DNA … Many companies are trying to evolve and transform, but if disruption and innovation are not in their authentic purpose, no strategy will succeed. Transformation moves from the inside to the outside.<\/p>\n 2. As an international talent expert, what\u2019s the profile international companies are looking for?<\/strong><\/p>\n Linked to what was mentioned above, everybody is looking for transformational leaders. We all agree that talent retention does not exist<\/strong> as such, those procedures and schemes are past. You need a transformational leader to inspire teams, to create community, only in this way can you create experience. Nowadays, I have the impression there is a kind of race across companies to see who is offering more benefits in this sense. Honestly, often we do not know if they are doing it because they really BELIEVE or if it is mere branding. In the end, experience is made of truly authentic attributes that make companies different and which should be the fundamentals of their employer branding. We are also observing that benefits linked to quality of life are moving up in the rewards ranking worldwide.<\/p>\n 3. There could be a big gap from the birth of an HR trend until the implementation at the workplace. In your opinion, what\u2019s the trend that is more difficult to implement and why?<\/strong><\/p>\n Today, products and projects linked to digitalization, robotization and collaboration<\/strong> are on top, but they demand a 2-3 years implementation roadmap. They need a very deep change of mind-set and a constant focus to achieve the positive impact in the organisation.<\/p>\n 4. What is the role of the new women lobby in the business scenario? What will be the next steps for women in the workplace?<\/strong><\/p>\n Women empowerment and an awareness of the environment are both crucial. Technology and robotization, as well as jobs linked to this industry, will be the biggest trend in the years to come. Repetitive tasks will tend to disappear and many of them, nowadays, are mostly made by women (help desks, assistance positions, etc.). Talking about managerial positions, unfortunately I do not trust to see a big change regarding gender gap. After many coaching sessions, I realised that women, deep inside, feel much comfortable in a low-profile position. There is a consistent lack of exposure and networking, which are crucial to assume managerial roles successfully. We definitely need to keep on working on it.<\/p>\n 5. As one of the biggest advocates of a multigenerational workplace, what is your advice to integrate generations in an organisation?<\/strong><\/p>\n With innovative programmes focusing on making all generations mingle and line up around common goals. The first step is to have a clear picture of the different age shares we have in our company and then blend group and face-to-face integration sessions together with reverse mentoring<\/strong> (companies such as Unilever have been doing it for years). The outcome is amazing.<\/p>\n 6. You are one of the first voices in Spain who talked about AI in the workplace (in fact, Sophia the robot will be one of the speakers at the 5th International HR Conference in Barcelona). Which milestone did we reach in our humans-robots relationship? <\/strong><\/p>\n