Management jobs, Jobs-To-Be-Done

La nota es de The Economist: agencias de empleo temporal para cargos de gerencia (y los respectivos ejecutivos). No es una exoticidad, no es tampoco cuestión de moda, ni mucho menos carece de justificación; aquí ejemplos de los Jobs-To-Be-Done que resuelve el "producto":

Extracto 1:

"The trend raises two obvious questions. Why would a company choose to hire a part-time boss? The boardroom is, after all, one place where you need a measure of continuity. And why would a high-flying manager accept a temporary job rather than holding out for a permanent one? Groucho Marx once quipped that he would never join a club that would have him as a member. The world of temporary managers is surely full of people who possess his exacting standards without his self-awareness.

Companies tend to employ temporary executives to cope with a crisis: the chief executive mucks things up or decamps to a rival, or the chief financial officer turns out to be innumerate. Traditional search firms can take six months or more to fill a sudden vacancy, not least because they only look at people who already have jobs. Temporary talent agencies can fill a gap in a couple of weeks. BTG provided the Carlyle Group, a private-equity firm, with a boss for a packaged-goods firm it owns when it needed one in a hurry. It has also provided chief financial officers at the drop of a hat for such tech firms as Internet REIT and Axcient."

Extracto 2:

"Another common reason to take on managerial temps is to tackle a short-term problem without acquiring a long-term obligation to an expensive executive. Companies only go public once. So why hire a permanent chief executive when you can hire a temporary one who has a long track record of taking companies public? The time it takes to launch a new product is shrinking as fashions shift more quickly and product cycles get shorter. So why not bring in a group of temporary managers who will disappear as soon as the goods hit the shelves? When Fox Mobile wanted to develop new screensavers and videos for its phones, for example, it hired a temporary creative director."

Extracto 3:

"The new talent companies boast legions of people with MBAs from the best business schools and spells working in the best consultancies and banks. Some have no doubt been forced to take up the temping life after being downsized in the recession. Temping carries quite a stigma, judging by how few firms or executives admit they are resorting to it. But there are reasons to embrace the new regime, which allows senior managers to work part-time, in effect, and pick and choose the jobs that appeal. Firms such as Eden McCallum and Axiom Legal, which offer freelance consultants and lawyers for hire respectively, and which were both founded long before the recession, provide professionals with a respectable way to control when and how much they work. The growing demand for temporary executives simply extends the same opportunity to senior managers."

Extracto 4:

"Advocates of temping also argue that the traditional market for managers—and particularly for chief executives—is hopelessly inefficient. A growing number of companies have been hiring bosses on the open market. Yet nearly 20% of those bosses depart within 18 months. Temporary talent agencies can give their customers a chance to “try before they buy” as well as filling the job immediately. BTG reports that a quarter of the bosses that it has put in temporary jobs have been offered permanent positions."