Last week I told you about the lights of Haro that you could see from the train. About companies that were once up there with Paris and London, and a few years later nobody could see them shining. And I left you with an uncomfortable question:
“Will your company’s lights be visible from the train when the next big change comes?”
Today I want to give you the other half of that story. Because asking is all well and good, but what really changes things is having people to look up to: the ones already doing something about it.
A few days ago, at the round table the Clúster food+i and Grupo Binternational put together in Logroño, we listened to three of our clients, all running very different businesses. Susana Martínez, Head of Innovation and Sustainability at Aldelís; Pepa Jiménez, Director of People and Organisational Development at Auxiliar Conservera; and Emilio Latorre, CEO of IPLA. Three businesses with nothing in common on the surface: fresh produce and ready meals; innovative metal packaging for food; and palletising automation. Family-owned, all three. And all three with the same underlying diagnosis.
I’m telling you this because I reckon it’s the most useful thing I can share this week. Not theory. Real cases. Companies that had people stuck in the bottom-left quadrant of the matrix and have started to climb.
The matrix I keep going on about: contribution and wellbeing
Before we get into it, a tool. We see a company as a living system, with nine organs you have to keep healthy and the connection with your people as the backbone. When that connection breaks down, the symptoms show up: turnover, absenteeism, conflict, burnout.
To see it clearly, we plot two axes: contribution and wellbeing. When someone feels good in their role, their contribution goes through the roof. The sweet spot is top right; in companies with high turnover and absenteeism, almost everyone sits bottom left. The whole job is about moving people upwards.
And this no longer lives on a slide: we’ve taken it into software. One client who saw the potential is integrating it into their ERP to measure, at every point of contact with their customer, where each person sits on that matrix. And to move them, with our support, towards the upper quadrants. What you don’t measure, you manage blind.
What they had in common: the problem wasn’t the talent
The problem is almost never the talent. It’s how the company is designed. And all three said as much, each in their own way.
Susana put it with brutal clarity: when you grow, you focus on the product and “what’s behind you doesn’t keep up”. Then one day you can’t make it to the Christmas campaign because you’re short of teams. “What on earth is going on?”
Pepa summed it up in a line I’m keeping:
A lot of strategic plans are “built on wishful thinking.”
We’ve got no real measure of the team’s actual capacity. As we say around here, every person carries a rucksack that comes with them inside and outside work, and they never perform at the ideal level we used when we crunched the numbers at ten at night.
And Emilio, who’s got his company down from 13% to 3% absenteeism, realised he was facing a challenge he’d never had to handle before: either we manage our people, or we drive the business into the ground.
Three different starting points. The same hole in the barrel.
What each of them did
None of them fixed it with the garnish (no fruit baskets, no gym, no team-building away day of the week). Each of them went to the system.
Emilio (IPLA) handed the ball to his people. They ran a survey and gave him both barrels; they were right. Today every manager sits down with each person on their team at least every six months, and he has a coffee with everyone at least once a year. Out of that come improvements to the production processes themselves, suggested by people nobody had ever thought to ask. And here’s the nuance most people miss: when you listen, hand over the floor, build awareness and give people the tools, then you can hold them to account. IPLA holds people to account now like never before, with the clarity of someone who’s been explicit about what’s tolerated and what isn’t.
Pepa (Auxiliar Conservera) started with the structure, the most basic and the most strategic thing of all. She redesigned an org chart that only existed to satisfy the ISO audit, took on a generational handover with the whole company against her, and built a talent programme with an in-house MBA for the high potentials, followed by others. No more one-size-fits-all: a different approach for each group. They went from believing everyone was committed to actually measuring it and failing, at 46%; today they’re at 57%. They’ve still got challenges, like everyone, but permanently monitored, because as she says: “This is a road with no end.”
Susana (Aldelís) started from a diagnosis closely rooted in the reality of the shop floor: a demanding production environment, with absenteeism and turnover challenges, and a highly diverse workforce, with more than 40 nationalities living side by side day to day. They analysed which part of the discontent had to do with physical, organisational, emotional and cultural factors, and understood that internal communication had to get far closer to the reality of their people. Through initiatives like cultural ambassadors, adapting messages into more visual formats and an internal communication plan to strengthen a sense of belonging, they’re working to recognise the daily graft, look after people in a genuine way and turn diversity into a strength. There’s progress already and, above all, a more deliberate way of connecting the business strategy with the people who make it possible every day.
What I take away: talent attraction starts on the inside
Three ideas for you reading this. Before you act, diagnose: none of them jumped straight to the solution. Without the data, you’re managing blind, like a winemaker making wine without checking the fermentation temperature. Connection, wellbeing and accountability aren’t opposites: they need one another.
Here’s the thing: the round table was called Talent Magnet, and what worked for all three was the opposite of going out to hunt for people elsewhere: looking inward and shoring up the ones already there. Hiring comes afterwards. As Emilio said, it’s enough to put yourself in the other person’s shoes. Or as Pepa put it:
You can buy machines; commitment, connection and people, you can’t.
And back to the train
I told you last week and I’ll say it again today, because after more than 600 talent searches and fifty-odd organisational transformation projects I’m more convinced than ever: if the system pushes people out, putting more people in fixes nothing. It just makes you lose money faster.
IPLA, Auxiliar Conservera and Aldelís aren’t perfect, nor do they claim to be. What they’ve done is stop pouring wine into the barrel and fix the holes first. They’ve understood the company as a living system (those nine organs I keep talking about) and started with the connection to their people as the lever. Not because it’s nice. Because it pays off in productivity, in a company where people actually want to work, and in the real capacity to execute the strategic plan.
If you’ve got roles you can’t fill, high turnover or rising absenteeism, maybe you don’t need to start by hiring more. Maybe you need to look first at where your system is losing its grip. If you’d like, let’s take a look together.
Right then, let’s get to it. Take care.
Frequently asked questions
Does attracting more talent solve turnover? No. If a company’s system pushes people out, bringing in more only makes you lose money faster. Before you hire, it’s worth looking inward: how the work is organised, how people are led and what experience your teams actually have.
Where do you start to reduce turnover and absenteeism? With a proper diagnosis. Measure real contribution, wellbeing, commitment, absenteeism and turnover before launching any initiative. Without the data, you’re managing blind.
What results did the companies in this article achieve? IPLA brought absenteeism down from 13% to 3%. Auxiliar Conservera lifted measured commitment from 46% to 57%. Aldelís, with more than 40 nationalities, improved its climate and communication through cultural ambassadors. In all three cases, by redesigning organisation and leadership, not by hiring more.
Missed the first part of this story, the one about the lights of Haro, Paris and London, and the leaky barrel? You’ll find it here: Will your company’s lights be visible from the train?
