Barcelona, 21 March 2022. With the help of the Beauty Business School, the Beauty Cluster was holding the first HR Beauty Forum at the Hotel Paxton Barcelona. A meeting space dedicated to HR professionals in the beauty industry. In this first edition, they were able to enjoy a day marked by the return to face-to-face events, by looking to the future and by focusing on topics that shed light and useful learning to face the challenges of the present and the future for HR professionals in the sector.
The meeting, a pioneer in the sector, had two distinct parts. In the morning, the Professional Forum took place and hosted valuable presentations on topics of great interest such as team management, internal communication, leadership and the new challenges of HR in times of remote and hybrid work. In the afternoon, the Employment Forum took place, a point of employment generation thanks to the vacancies offered to previously registered candidates.
The Professional Forum, dedicated to inspiring HR professionals, began punctually at 9am with “Brainshaker, transforming companies from the heart” by Juan Bartra from Propósito y Compromiso. He spoke about the importance of coherence, something so necessary for transformation, as this becomes naturalness and in turn authenticity, something very relevant in our sector. Bartra commented on the importance of “putting people at the centre as this is the way to make everything more effective“.
Next came “The challenge of internal communication” by Meritxell Jordana from Both People & Comms, who focused her speech on how to reconnect teams in times of pandemic. She commented that there is a lot of uncertainty in organisations and nervousness among employees after these two years. In fact, it was reported that 50% of people are considering changing jobs, so “the biggest challenge facing companies is engagement, and to achieve this, internal communication has to be a great ally to overcome this“, asserted Jordana.
Internal communication makes it possible to manage these moments of change, and to do so, people’s emotions must be taken into account. It was discussed how companies must cover the needs of the worker in order to achieve recognition and self-fulfilment, one of the highest rungs of Maslow’s pyramid, which only 15% of professionals reach. Finally, it was commented that due to the pandemic we have moved on to the confidence of teleworking and therefore structures must become flat, agile and provide workers with tools for self-management.
“From working on skills to authentic transformation” was the talk given by Julián Trullén from Max Estrem, a company that bases its methodology on neurocreativity, and he was accompanied by David García Simancas, from Laboratorios Ximart as a case study. The talk focused on why there are companies with good business models that do not evolve because they do not have good leaders to make them grow.
Max Estrem emphasised that anyone can lead and that the “key is that this talent, this person, this leader, relates and interacts, as this is the only way for organisations to transform themselves“, said Trullén. “The culture, ideas, practices and values of employees is the most important thing and what makes a company progress“, said David García Simancas, from Laboratorios Ximart.
Ready for the future of work? From reality to the metaverse was the presentation given by Caro Salazar from Design Thinking Sweden. A transgressive talk in which he stated that “the pandemic has taken us to the future, just like that“. In the face of this resounding statement, emphasis was placed on eradicating digital illiteracy and having agile teams.
The metaverse is a space where the internet and augmented reality mimic each other, and from that moment on a parallel world was opened up to those attending the event in which they could enter and live a new experience. Currently there are already 25 companies that work in the form of avatars from the metaverse, such as HP, Dell or BMW. It is a remote and decentralised work, a parallel world in which the avatar is connected to the robot and the robot is connected to the production line. There are already professions that are disappearing and that is why we need to learn and train quickly in the metaverse.
Nil Ibáñez from Roots for Sustainability and Pau Virtudes from Acció shared hand in hand the presentation “Generating value for B-Corp teams and its implications for Human Resources“. They talked about how necessary BCorp companies are, as they are the companies that are building a more inclusive and sustainable economy for people and for the planet.
The B Corp movement is a community present in Spain since 2014 and that in 2021 has been consolidated, growing 63% compared to 2020 and with a total of 110 companies. “If a company wants to be competitive it has to be sustainable and incorporate these certain values in its DNA, as well as develop an agenda of activities and initiate the process of holistic transformation“, said Virtudes. B-Corp “is a movement of companies, but through people and it is a management tool that certifies collaborative work not only at cluster level but also at company level“, said Ibáñez.
The morning session ended with a round table discussion on “The health of remote professionals“, moderated by Melissa Torres, General Manager of al Beauty Business School, with the participation of Mireia Carcole, Chief People Officer at Martiderm, Juan José Hita, partner at Augusta Abogados and Oscar Calaff, Communication Technician at Somos FP Dual.
Interesting conclusions were drawn about the changes that have taken place over the last two years in terms of work development and how it has affected the health of professionals. Teleworking had its believers and its detractors and the controversies that have arisen around it because of the demands it makes. The flexibility that many companies adopt towards teleworking was discussed, as well as the need to formalise in writing the responsibilities involved in teleworking so that there are no comparative disadvantages compared to those who do not do it.
The emotional side of the worker is the part that needs to be taken care of the most, and working remotely is more complicated. Self-management, self-planning and being equipped with good tools are essential to develop good teleworking and “if you are motivated and willing to work, everything goes well“, said Oscar Calaff, a newcomer to the field. He also talked about neuroarchitecture and how important it is to understand how the environment influences our emotions, how we feel and our state of mind, something that many companies take into account when it comes to getting the most out of their employees.
The Employment Forum took place from 4pm to 7pm with a great reception of people interested in the offers that companies related to the beauty sector such as Quadpack, Bella Aurora, Rituals, Martiderm, Lluch, Mesoestetic, Amita, VVa consultants and Proacai were offering. Nuria Selma, Talent & Development at Bella Aurora “was grateful to have direct contact with the candidates again after these difficult years also for job selection“. Arnau Casanova, Head of Recruitment at Mesoestetic Pharma, praised the fact that “in a short time you can see several candidates and know what they are looking for in case new offers come up in the company in the future“.
