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TIPS Talks with Artur Moura Queirós | Founder and CEO of Alento

Artur Moura Queirós is our guest in this Tips Talk to understand what a personal and professional development plan is, what tools exist today for people management and how we can and should work on the culture and values of companies. At the end, we will evaluate why all this is important for the success of organizations.

1. What is a personal and professional development plan? And what is its importance for an organization?

It is a strategic and practical tool within people management to develop each person within the organisation, which is supported by different channels and metrics (performance, feedback, motivations, etc.). This tool in turn has a concrete goal of continuous improvement in a constructive mindset, so that each person feels aligned with the organisation.

This improvement is always analysed based on each person's concrete evolution and can include the level of competences, the level of training in a professional or academic area, or the development of a specific potential for a given area.

2. This plan is a recent process? How is it being adopted in organizations?

Today it is much more relevant because the way organisations look at people has changed. People now play a central role in the organisation, where there is an increasing attempt to humanise the process of managing people as well as the organisations themselves.

On the other hand, people now have a more active voice on their own personal career management, to the extent that the career models have also changed and companies are also more available and interested to listen to people's opinions.

3. What tools exist to ensure that People are consistently heard?

It is a very relevant point. To listen to people, spaces and moments need to be created to enable this circumstance to happen. But above all, it is essential to create an organisational culture that is based on listening to and considering people.

This reality cannot be applied lightly, as it is based on the organisation's values and on its genuine concern for people. This process must take place on a day-to-day basis, generating continuous feedback and not just seasonal feedback, without prejudice to formal evaluation moments.

Intentionality brings meaning to what is done on a daily basis. If people carry out routine tasks, they are at the risk of monotony, but if there is meaning in each task, it is very likely that there will be greater motivation.

4. How should an incentive system be designed?

In a personal and non-standardised way, because motivations are intrinsic. People's daily motivations are different. While there is a transversal basis with a set of offers that generate value or well-being in everyday life, there must also be individual care, respecting the uniqueness of each person.

It's important that this process is seen as a culture and not just a tool, in the sense of breaking down the idea that has existed over recent years centred on ‘high-potential elements’, because all people have an important role to play within the organisation.

When we talk about culture, we're not talking about a programme designed only for high-potentials, but for everyone, regardless of the position they hold in the organisation's talent matrix.

5. How is people´s potential developed in a positive way?

By promoting a process of self-knowledge and self-discovery on the employee's side, which may even surprise the employee as well as the organisation. There are people who turn out to be excellent leaders when given concrete opportunities, even though something has convinced them otherwise.

Sometimes there is a labelling phenomenon that needs to be tested: when people arrive at companies they are ‘hostage’ to a first impression, through which an expectation is created that can influence all their actions, so it is important that the process is continuous in order to see people able to transform themselves - ‘Today I am this, but tomorrow I can be completely different’.

6. At what stage is the topic of mental health being held in organizations?

Various studies have reported the impact of mental health on the productivity of people and organizations. There was a negative impact from the pandemic, but also positive aspects such as greater sensitivity to the topic.

It is clear that this issue is no longer a stigma, but has acquired greater relevance for people's health and for the organisation's role in promoting healthy working environments. People themselves have also come to play an important role in interpreting this whole reality and having a positive belief in this dynamic.

7. Are people more determined to live their lives in a more balanced way?

There's a lot of talk about work-life balance, but this concept should essentially focus on life balance. In fact, people are starting to look at themselves in a more holistic and integrated way in their personal dimension, in which it is essential to see work as an integral and rewarding part of life.

It's important to ensure that in these ‘4-day weeks’ - where there seems to be an excessive focus on maximum efficiency - companies will not lose all the effort put into team building processes and in promoting team relationships.

A company that wants to promote a work-life balance culture cannot look at this in a standardised way without taking into account the uniqueness of each person within each team.

8. What changed in career management models?

There has been a significant change because the old models were too closed, linear and with little flexibility in their criteria: without meritocracy and based on seniority in a particular position rather than on the skills developed and what they bring to the organisation.

Today there are models that ensure compromise with the organisation's matrix culture considering higher mobility through various paths, where people can evolve in different ways: in their technical, leadership or management profile (or even mixed).

One of the main critical success factors is the leadership skills of middle managers because these are clearly influential positions. On the other hand, people find it difficult to know their competences (they have become used to a list of competences that the market values) but they don't know how to show where they are competent, for example through stories that become part of the culture of organisations.

9. How can smaller companies implement these models?

It's important to have some solid bases and to use outsourcing to help these companies become more dynamic on the issue, and above all to access knowledge and tools and processes, adapting them to the specific reality of each company to create good practices and principles in people management.

This reality is progressive, leading companies to adopt new tools in line with their needs and growth.

10. What are the trends and what practical advice can you suggest?

Investing in individuality has been a trend in this area. Although it means investing more time at the beginning, it allows us to anticipate future gains in people becoming more autonomous, satisfied, motivated and self-determined.

The aim of the various approaches discussed throughout this talk is not to instrumentalise, nor to put people ‘into a system’ or ‘imprison’ them to a set of rules, but to improve living and working conditions, taking into account day-to-day quality, each person's motivations and the working environment, consolidating the organisation's culture.

The tools develop but the mentality sometimes remains unchanged. It is essential for organisations to develop their mentality as well as the agents of change themselves, understanding the role of psychology in organisations.

Any organisation that wants to develop must consider the tool and the process as being at its service and never the other way around - working with today's tools and tomorrow's mentality.