By: Luis Manuel Hernández G.
When it comes to investment-related topics, we are all familiar with certain factors: rapid technological advancements, shifting markets, additional regulations, value chain reconfigurations, and, above all, inflation.
How do we respond to this? We can organize a seminar, a workshop, or an exercise to identify what is working and what isn’t. But we must also ask ourselves how we are going to develop new skills in our people, new mindsets, and new ways of operating.
Baja California quietly hosts top-level design centers that go against common perceptions. It also possesses state-of-the-art fixed assets that drive continuous training and development for its workforce.
The real challenge in learning is not to increase training hours but to make work itself the natural source of learning. Employees shouldn’t have to leave their work area to acquire new knowledge; learning should be a continuous process, not an isolated act.
The key question for Human Resources leaders should evolve into:
How can I ensure that our talent continues learning while working?
Below are some key elements for developing skill progression, organizational agility, and performance-based compensation systems:
Skill Progression.
This answers the question: Are our employees’ current activities preparing them for the business challenges of the future? In over 80% of cases, the answer is no. Jobs are typically designed to address immediate needs, not to anticipate future ones. Therefore, talent experts must determine whether they are reacting to the market based on skills or merely on job functions. As long as the latter prevails, it is vital to view functions as progressive rather than fixed.
Organizational Agility.
This occurs when skills are used to improve profitability. Baja California inherently possesses a high level of “talent redistribution,” which we rarely take full advantage of. Many employees in our companies have experience across industries, medical, commercial, and aerospace; and can adapt and transfer knowledge between them. However, very few people manage to quantify and document this value.
Performance-Based Compensation.
This remains a topic few business leaders are willing to promote. Today, we see two financially strong generations coexisting, yet with very different goals.
On one hand, there is a generation preparing for retirement, those who created and consolidated business lines and value chains. On the other hand, a new generation must integrate performance-based compensation as a tool to measure, improve, and motivate productive behavior.
If they fail to do so, inherited profitability will inevitably diminish, not due to a lack of effort, but because lower-cost competitors will turn value into a simple “commodity,” where everyone pays the same and productivity ceases to be a differentiator.
If we consider that the United States is now reshaping the very economic system it once designed, we must adapt at the state level to new business lines emerging within our existing value chains.
Encouraging training is no longer an optional task, it is one of the main drivers of products and processes across nations.
Much of what we do today focuses on maintaining businesses rather than growing them. Yet, building requires vision, consistency, and strategy. Destruction is easy; what’s truly difficult is sustaining and evolving.
The future of Baja California and its position as an investment destination will depend on how effectively we manage and develop our talent to remain a region that not only produces but also learns, adapts, and leads.
In summary, the regions that manage to integrate learning into daily work and innovation into operations will be the ones that maintain relevance in such a volatile global environment. Baja California has all the right ingredients: talent, infrastructure, vision, and a strong binational vocation. The next step is to connect these resources under one guiding principle: investing in knowledge not only shapes people, it builds regions that prosper.
