People have always been one of the main drivers of success for businesses, and today they are even more important. No matter what industry businesses operate in: without qualified resources, they cannot compete in the market.
I believe it unlikely that Industry 4.0 and the digital revolution will lead to a decrease in employment: on the contrary, they will lead to an increase in jobs, which will be focused on new professional roles able to impact on business processes.
In professional consultancy firms, human factor is the key to success, and is probably more important compared to other professional areas.
We are perfectly aware of that and so we try to constantly improve our recruitment and training procedures for our people.
For example, we participated to many Career Days at the most important Italian universities (the last one took place on 10 April at Bocconi University in Milan), which give us the opportunity to meet and attract new talents.
On these occasions, we talk about us, but we also listen to students’ opinion, asking them to tell us which characteristics they believe an ideal place to work must have. We analyse their answers and get important information on the issues we should focus on to make our organization more and more attractive.
For the third consecutive year, Bernoni Grant Thornton is also supporting “I Fuoriclasse della Scuola”, i.e. a project aimed at promoting young talents across Italian schools thanks to philanthropic contributions by foundation, associations, companies and individual citizens.
At the same time, we organize some training sessions for our people aimed at strengthening not only their technical but also their soft skills. Today, besides technical skills, multidisciplinary capabilities are crucial so that clients can consider us as “consultants 4.0” who do not merely solve problems or comply with law fulfilments, but who are active and able to anticipate their needs.
Participation in events and training courses organized by the Grant Thornton network are also very important for us: besides technical insights, these courses offer the chance to get know other entities and other teams and to build relationships with our global colleagues.
Moreover, some of our collaborators have the opportunity to work at another Grant Thornton member firm for a certain period: this is crucial to import international best practices to our organization and bring our expertise abroad.
We have still a lot to do, but we think we are on the right way. Investing on people does not discharge any law obligation, but rather the moral obligation to build an innovative environment where people can express their skills and contribute to an economically and socially sustainable growth.