News
.Cornerstone announces change in strategy to meet new market challenges
.The global firm will improve its offering in the face of the new challenges facing talent management today. Gestión spoke with company representatives to learn more about the decision.
Strategic talent management companies have big challenges ahead. With the emergence of technologies like ChatGPT – which could gradually replace a variety of jobs in the future – firms in this sector need to adapt to continue to drive their clients’ businesses.
Cornerstone, a global firm with more than 34 years of activity, will change its business strategy precisely to respond to these challenges. In a dialogue with Gestión, company executives explain in detail what this adaptation consists of.
Powering its services
.To provide comprehensive services, since this month headhunter Cornerstone has integrated Career Partners Peru, experts in outplacement (support service that companies offer to workers they decide to dispense with, so that they receive the help they need to return to the labor market), within its portfolio of offers for the management of human talent in companies.
With this, the firm seeks to enhance its services through four specialized verticals with which it intends to address all stages of the employee’s life cycle. The goal is that companies will only have to look to them to address these types of internal needs.
The first vertical is Executive Search, oriented to the search for senior executives and board members. The second is CL Selection, which will cater to the search for middle management executives and specialized positions.
By integrating Career Partners, two more verticals are born: Talent Management, where all talent management programs and solutions are located; and Career Services, dedicated to career and employability programs.
“We have become a single team with shared objectives. Today, while companies have specific needs, with this integration we can address broader needs. If they propose a change, we can analyze its implications for the organization,” explains Paola Chocano, Partner and Managing Director of Cornerstone Career Services and Talent Management, which used to be Career Partners.
“Each vertical has its own specific needs.
“Each vertical has a differentiated objective and, at the same time, specialized consultants. Now if a company has executive or specialized recruiting issues, we can help them. If they are looking for leadership programs, we already know what competencies they need,” complements Diego Cubas, CEO of Cornerstone in Peru.
What are the challenges for Cornerstone?
What are the challenges for Cornerstone?
The decision to integrate and optimize its services also responds to the advances in digitalization, which threaten to affect the labor supply.
With the advance of artificial intelligence, especially with projects such as ChatGPT, it is predicted that this technology will be replacing careers in the coming years. The “Future of Work” report by the World Economic Forum (WEF), published earlier this month, estimates that 2% of global jobs will be lost to artificial intelligence, especially in sectors such as IT and entertainment, among others.
However, from Cornerstone, they believe this will not affect human resources consultancies like them. “It’s a reality. Many positions disappear, but also others are incorporated. Most companies are in processes of cultural, digital or cybersecurity transformation,” says Chocano.
“The human side always has to be the human side of things.
“The human side will always be there. The future of human resources is talent management consulting. That is, how consulting firms add value to the client in terms of planning, career lines, culture and change management,” adds Cubas.
And Peru?
.In the field of human resources, our country has also been undergoing interesting changes on several scales, according to Cornerstone executives.
The most important of these is professionalization. “More than 60% of Peruvian organizations are family-owned. Now they are looking to be more corporate. There are great opportunities there because they start to see people more as talents, they work experiences and purposes that transcend. They want to professionalize,” details Chocano.
Another movement in the national market is in the search for general managers. Peruvian companies are hiring more CEOs outside their organizations. According to Cornerstone estimates, 60% look internally and do not find someone qualified to take on the position, which motivates them to look for candidates outside their payroll.
“Both family-owned and corporate companies are looking for independent CEOs, people who come with out-of-the-box thinking for strategic management. In the case of family businesses, they are looking for people who are not conditioned by that: the family,” Cubas says.
Where this search outside the organization is happening the most, according to the CEO of Cornerstone Peru, are the industrial, service goods and mass consumption sectors.
Minor changes have also been identified in long-term planning, especially in the energy sector. “The market is so changeable that companies have stopped managing a stable strategic plan. It is now more dynamic. They even revise it annually because market conditions or consumer behavior change,” Cubas details.
