The Online MBA Job Outlook is Rebounding in the Post-Covid World

Technology, consulting, healthcare and financial services should see the most job opportunities for graduating MBAs

In developed economies across the globe, labor markets are turning a corner as lockdown restrictions are eased. After months of coronavirus-related restrictions, hiring is accelerating and the redundancy rate is falling.

Many professionals had made the decision to pursue an Online MBA at the depths of the COVID-19 crisis, as they sought to upgrade their credentials while hiring and promotions were frozen in many sectors. In a locked-down world, the shift to remote work was especially beneficial for Online MBA programs, which received a bumper crop of applications.

And, now that the jobs market is staging a strong recovery, the employment outlook for the Class of 2021 is looking bright, say careers directors at the top business schools.

“At the start of the pandemic last year, many companies paused, slowed down or reduced their full-time hiring,” says Tammy Samuels, executive director of career and leadership for MBA programs at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School. “As COVID’s impact has begun to shrink due to vaccination efforts, and companies are becoming more adept at virtual recruiting, full-time and just-in-time hiring has started to rebound.”

She expects this rebound will continue into the fall 2021 recruiting season, where robust full-time recruiting is expected to make up for the lack of young talent due to previous hiring restrictions. In addition, there is a workforce deficit caused by seasoned professionals not returning to work, or changing jobs as the pandemic winds down. […]

Online MBA students have had to display a great deal of resilience, adaptability, flexibility and leadership. And careers department heads say such skills have potentially made them more competitive this year than ever before.

“Today more than ever, MBA students are requested to demonstrate strategic thinking and the ability to solve complex problems because it is what employers need to navigate the complexity and manage unpredictable business changes,” says Valentina Di Nenno, senior MBA career consultant at MIP Politecnico di Milano Business School in Milan. […]

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Networking through MIP – external program sources

One of the main reasons for starting an MBA is the possibility for networking. Networking starts in many ways and surely meeting and forging relationships with your course colleagues is the first step. The opportunity to meet interesting new people through additional events organized by MIP can also be leveraged. I’m referring, for instance, to the elective weeks and weekends. There are various weekends and full-week bootcamps on different topics that enable people from different programs united by similar interests to meet. A special mention goes to the relationship that MIP has with other universities and business schools. In fact, some students from other universities for whom a place had been reserved were able to participate in the abovementioned bootcamps, as well as there being the chance for us to join bootcamps organized by other universities and experience the international scope typical of business schools with this mindset.

Interaction with other colleagues starts during classes and work groups, when alongside the reviewing, elaboration and production of presentations and assignments, there is the chance to compare others’ approaches to resolution. Then it also progresses externally. Personally, I called and recontacted a few of the classmates I had met in the online sessions. It was a way of discussing the course topics, and then also of getting an opinion of the full program and an overall view of labor market prospects. In general, it was fascinating to get to know other people who had wonderful stories and were extremely charismatic.

The common need to have a space for talking about inspiring subjects led me to thinking about the further opportunity that, together with MIP, I and other MIP alumni were creating: the SOM Entrepreneurship Club. In many discussions with other students, our chats were leading to topics relating to the difficulties when entering the world of entrepreneurship, both at the startup stages but also in more advanced phases. So, we made a proposal to the Politecnico di Milano’s School of Management and MIP, who were happy to support us. A new community forum has started to collect ideas and share experiences for the benefit of people interested in having more direct and practical links to entrepreneurial subjects.

Being open-minded will allow you to expand your networking opportunities and reach out to motivated and active colleagues like yourself. Building a network of contacts is essential for facing daily work challenges and getting inspiration for alternatives. Let’s not miss the opportunities that can be provided by organized events.

 

About the author
Vito Conversano

Chief Information Officer @ San Marzano Vini SpA with extensive international experience in IT & strategic consultancy for fortune 500 companies. Creative, Curious, Travel lover. Passionate about discovering new concepts, learning continuously and developing new ideas.

 

Sport as an inspiring model and a seat of values

“I am the master of my destiny. The captain of my soul”, as Nelson Mandela said, quoting “Invictus”, a wonderful poem composed by the Englishman, William Ernest Henley. During Madiba’s 27 years of imprisonment, this almost became a mantra, which enabled the South African activist to resist abuse, representing that indomitable soul capable of inspiring millions of people around the world. It is a phrase also taken up by Clint Eastwood in the homonymous feature film, Invictus (2009) [Italian title: Invictus – L’invincibile], in which the story of Mandela is intertwined with that of François Pienaar, captain of the South African national rugby team which won the World Championship in 1995.

Because sport, at every level, has always been a reason for union capable of smoothing out conflicts, overcoming hatred and flags and uniting 43 million people to push their team to beat the “invincible” All Blacks. This is a pattern that has also been repeated on the occasion of Euro 2020, for us Italians a source of great pride thanks to the victory of the national team coached by Roberto Mancini, which represents yet another confirmation of the power of sport, capable of uniting different countries through the first touring European competition.

The 51 scheduled meetings were organised in 11 cities, thus promoting a spirit of sharing which, almost magically, connected Rome with Baku, London with Bucharest, St. Petersburg with Amsterdam. It was an opportunity, also a particularly critical one given the health situation, but which constituted an added value in terms of communication, exporting (also) architectural, engineering and management expertise thanks to the acknowledged visibility of an event with such a following.

In this sense, iconic sports infrastructures such as Hampden Park (Glasgow, 1903) shared the stage with the latest generation of stadiums, establishing a partnership between commemoration and innovation, the latter highlighted by Euro 2020 due to the top-level facilities. By now fundamental issues such as sustainability, considered in the tout court sense, have for example formed the basis of the renovation of the Johan Cruijff Arena (Amsterdam, 1996), currently a real energy hub for its city, or the leitmotif of the entire area in which the Allianz Arena is located (Munich, 2005).

For this reason, alongside Italy, it is almost natural to consider also winners of Euro 2020 the 60,000 spectators who filled the Puskás Aréna (Budapest, 2019), the thousands of people who walked the Olympic Way to Wembley Stadium (London, 2007), or the spectacular vitality that has, since the opening match, illuminated the Foro Italico, where countless tricolours were waved and then, in an unforgettable European evening, featured on Wembley’s arch, able to break into the London night as a radiant symbolic manifesto of the tenacity demonstrated by our country to get out of the pandemic crisis.

Because ultimately, recalling some of Nelson Mandela’s words, it is values, identified in team spirit, in the will to rise again from difficulties, in the ambition to conquer something and even in adapting, that give sport the difficult mantle of inspirer.

This is regardless of the athlete’s talent, which must always be driven by “a desire, a dream, a vision” as the great Muhammad Ali maintained. Someone  ̶  like Madiba  ̶  who was capable of personifying the deepest essence of being a sportsman, not only during those unforgettable encounters, but also – and I would say above all – because of the strength he demonstrated in Atlanta ’96, when, his body now weakened, he still found the will to thrill millions of people, as if to reiterate one of his sayings: “Impossible is not a rule, it is a challenge.”

Bearing this in mind, the Master in Design Construction Management of Sports Infrastructure which I attended, and which is organised by the Politecnico di Milano and MIP, does in fact place sport at the centre of its programme, considering sports practice as an expression of this added value: the transversal nature of passion and sporting values combined with a high level of scientific and multidisciplinary training which offers a highly prestigious educational spectrum and, at the same time, professional and personal satisfaction.”

 

About the author
Luca Filidei

After graduating from the Politecnico di Milano as an architect, I obtained a University Master’s Degree in Design, Construction and Management of Sports Infrastructure at the same institution. I carried out research and assisted the Milan City Council on the occasion of the participatory budget. Since February I have been writing articles on sports infrastructure for the web magazine Calcio e Finanza [Football and Finance].

 

 

Let’s talk with MIP’s Staff: an Interview with Martina Salvi

Are you an MBA aspirant? To help make up your mind, we bring you the perspective of someone with first-hand experience, who has helped MIP maintain its standard of education while enriching it through digital learning.

Meet Martina Salvi, the course coordinator for the International MBA 2020-21, who shares her own experience of managing the coursework for all stakeholders with an interest in the program.

Below are some excerpts from our interview with her on certain aspects that are essential to the journey of MIP MBA candidates.

Tell us something about yourself – what is your experience of working with MIP Politecnico di Milano and your role?

I have been working with MIP for nearly 3 years and my main role has been that of being the course coordinator for the International Full-Time MBA since 2018. I have also had the experience of working on the Executive MBA program for a short while.

So overall, I have had experience of working with professionals with different backgrounds and experience. Right now, I am involved with specialized masters as program coordinators on programs related to Sustainable Management and Media & Communications.

Moreover, as program coordinators, we manage several cross-master projects, where we provide additional activities and services to students; this has been a very interesting part of my work experience, since it has given me a chance to interact with people from different courses and with different experiences. Currently, I am also working on some new master courses that are at the planning stage.

How has the experience of conducting an MBA has been different in 2020-21 from that of previous years?

The experience has definitely been more challenging! It requires a role of co-ordination with a higher demand for flexibility in relation to the constantly changing context. At the same time, as part of our job as the challenges increased, we saw the opportunities increase for all stakeholders and, most importantly, for students. It gave students a chance to be more creative and for us to organize a more diverse set of activities. For example, during 2020, our school launched an initiative called “Keep on Learning”, a series of webinars and workshops which received great response from students, faculty and professionals, and helped us provide a consistent and high-quality experience.

Any particularly challenging moment you can look back at?

The period right after the beginning of the pandemic was quite challenging. As things went into a lockdown, we had to manage entire course deliveries online. This is where our previous experience with our Flex EMBA and other online courses came in handy. It was necessary to redesign all the activities considering the online setting, and this required a lot of effort and coordination. Even though the process of redesigning the activities continued over time, we had to convert all the courses online within one day immediately after the lockdown, and that was the real challenge.

Any fond memories from your experience?

Developing interpersonal relationships and keeping them strong despite the pandemic form some of my really pleasant memories. Having one-to-one calls with students, in order to guide them and help them, is something I really value. At the beginning of this experience, I feared that it might be difficult to maintain this aspect with the hybrid model but even with the online mediation, these interactions have become the best memories of my experience so far.

Would you like to share a message for the intake?

As students, I think it is crucial to try and build strong interpersonal relationships and develop a strong network. The ability to learn from peers and to be active listeners are skills that are going to make a real difference in the long run.

 

About the author
Rakshit Behel

A results-oriented marketing communications professional helping brands achieve objectives with integrated marketing campaigns built around branded content. From creatively developing and implementing digital marketing and content strategies to measuring performance with analytics and providing insights into useful data, aligned to brands’ business goals; experience of working with clients from different industries: Hospitality, IT, Fintech, Media and Healthcare.

 

Cybersecurity: the in-house expert is coming!

From home banking, to online purchases, to the management of entire industrial processes: today access to the network is essential, both in the personal and professional fields. However, this powerful tool, in addition to having enormous potential, also conceals risks. Which ones? We talked about this with Prof. Paolo Maccarrone, Director of the International Master in Cybersecurity Management.

If we want to summarise the types of risks that companies are running today, we can say that there are typically three: confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data.

The “attackers,” in fact, may have an interest in acquiring the data not only to communicate it to third parties (confidentiality), but also in compromising or destroying it (integrity), or making it unreachable (availability), typically by asking a ransom in return.

All of these risks have grown enormously in recent years due to digitisation, which has increased the amount of data exchanged exponentially as well as the growing interconnection, mainly due to the Internet. Just think of an area, such as that of a company’s operating processes, where automation used to be managed by stand-alone servers. No connection, so virtually no risk. Today, however, machinery and plants of various kinds continuously exchange information. This is valuable data, which enables, for example, predictive maintenance to be carried out or the real-time reorganisation of production flows, but the exchange of which opens the door to new vulnerabilities that did not previously exist.

There is another aspect to highlight. The situation we are experiencing has dramatically increased the number of workers who connect to corporate servers remotely.
In the past, those who did so did not access sensitive data, or, if they did, they received a minimum of training on these issues and often used appropriately configured company devices.

In the last year and a half, however, as a result of the pandemic, more and more people are working remotely, perhaps often on personal PCs, frequently shared by family members as well. The indiscriminate use of personal devices and poor awareness of the subject has exposed – and is still exposing – workers and organisations to considerable risks.

Risks that companies seem to be aware of now. What effects is this perception having on the labour market?

For many years, we have witnessed a dual track situation, where very well-informed organisations, such as large companies  ̶  particularly those operating in certain sectors, such as telecommunications and energy, banks and insurance, stood in contrast to others who were less aware of the risks or less active on this front.
Over the last 2-3 years, however, the situation has changed: everyone has realised the importance of cybersecurity, so much so that the issue is at the top of the agenda for the majority of CEOs and their close associates.
This is linked both to the increase in the frequency of attacks of various kinds – from social engineering to data encryption with ransom demand, to intellectual property theft – and to the fact that such attacks, as mentioned earlier, also affect “core” operating processes, often leading to interruptions in production or the provision of services.
This new focus is reflected on the one hand, in an increase in investment on this front, and on the other, in some organisational changes which have led, for example, to the fact that, in several major businesses, the Head of Cybersecurity will now respond directly to the senior management, and no longer to the Chief Information Officer.

This growing importance and “pervasiveness” of cybersecurity inevitably leads to a search for professional profiles with specific skills, both by companies, to strengthen internal organisational units, and by consulting firms, which often play a key role both in setting up the security governance system and in implementing technological and organisational countermeasures. There is a growing demand that is not reflected in the market supply, as emphasised by various human resources managers and several companies specialising in recruiting.

How is MIP trying to bridge this gap?

Our Business School’s commitment to this area is not new. Indeed, last year we launched an Executive Path dedicated to those who have already gained experience in the cybersecurity sector and want to upgrade and broaden their skills to accelerate their careers.

This year, however, we wanted to expand our training offer with a Master – the International Master in Cybersecurity Management – designed for a more junior target group, those just out of university.
Our Master grew out of listening to the needs of companies, first of all our educational partners – BIP and SETA – as well as companies that have worked closely together on its design as members of the advisory board, such as Accenture, PwC and Intesa-IBM.
We therefore decided to create a programme that would give participants the tools to get a holistic view of cybersecurity.
In fact, what has emerged from the ongoing discussions with companies is that a technical understanding of vulnerabilities and how to address them is not enough: it is important to be aware of the impact these can have on the entire organisation. We are therefore turning to young people who want a career that is not purely technical, but who aspire to taking on roles of responsibility soon. This is why the Master deals with organisational and management issues as well, and also pays attention to the development of soft skills.
In light of this, it should therefore not be surprising that the Master is also open to  less “conventional” profiles, such as management engineers, graduates in business administration or in scientific disciplines  ̶  or even lawyers who have specialised in IT security regulations and who wish to go into more detail in order to enter important professional practices or join the legal staff of large organisations.

As with many of MIP’s programmes, the experiential component is fundamental. This is reflected in the composition of the Faculty, which is characterised by the presence of numerous professionals who work alongside lecturers with an  academic background, as well as in the teaching methods used. In addition, the Master includes a final project work that will be carried out in one of the many companies that have given their availability, during which the students will be able to put into practice what they have learned in class.

Finally, what advice would you like to give young people interested in the world of cybersecurity?

A very simple piece of advice – at least in appearance. To have a clear idea about what they want to do “when they grow up”. To have a precise picture in their mind of the path they envision for the next 5 or 10 years. If they are passionate about the topic and they have managerial aspirations, then this is the right path for them.

Our School placed in the top 40 for its International Full-Time MBA in the 2021 Expansión Ranking

Our International Full-Time MBA is placed 29th in the world in the latest rankings by Expansión.

If we analyse the parameters used in the rankings, we can see that our programme performed particularly well in the area of salary increases. Indeed, compared to last year, the average increase in an MBA student’s salary is about 13%.

This ranking is based on a student survey and takes into account variables such as career advancement, composition of the Faculty, but also GMAT (Graduate Management Admission Test), the multiculturalism of students, knowledge creation and social responsibility.

Career advancement (25%): this takes into account the average salary range for the most recent generation of students, measured at the end of the programme, as well as the variations in the salary received at the beginning of the programme.

Composition of the academic faculty (20%): this considers the lecturers’ academic grades and is based on the percentage of those who have a PhD.

GMAT score (20%): praxis of the student profile that the business school attracts.

Multiculturalism and territorial diversity (15%): the greater presence of foreign students as a proportion of the total is considered positive.

Knowledge creation (10%): the production of knowledge by the lecturers.

Social Responsibility (10%): this takes the percentage of teaching hours accredited in the programme which are dedicated to issues of social responsibility, with respect to the programme’s total number of teaching hours.

Tommaso Agasisti, Associate Dean for International Relations and Quality says: “This positioning confirms the appreciation of our programmes also in Latin America: being part of our business school means connecting with a wide network of educational institutions, companies, visiting professors and students from all over the world.”

Download the magazine at this link to read the full ranking

Top 10 Budget Online MBA Programs in Europe

Even amid massive uncertainty in the coronavirus pandemic, many Online MBA programs have thrived. Many of the best courses are in Europe. A great number are clustered in the UK, some in London with access to the commercial and cultural capital of the country. But there is great international diversity among course providers, from Switzerland to Scotland.

Crucially, Online MBAs are often a fraction of the cost of their full-time counterparts, and our list reflects both the tuition fees but also tuition assistance from course providers in Europe and the value for money.

The location may matter less to prospective students who will be tuning in to virtual classes from across the globe. Budget-friendly Online MBA programs in Europe attract a diverse cohort, with many achieving a good gender balance, too, thanks to the flexibility of studying part-time remotely. And such cohorts will become powerful global alumni networks.

Helping to strengthen bonds between classmates, most of the courses include residential modules in vibrant, multicultural cities across the European continent, whether in Barcelona, Geneva, Montreux or Munich. […]

At MIP, Online MBA students pay affordable tuition fees and the course has been designed in partnership with leading employers like Amazon and Microsoft, ensuring graduates are ready to enter the job market. The course is delivered fully online, ensuring flexibility and accessibility.

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Top 10 Online MBA Programs for Residential Modules

Many Online MBA programs now include a variety of periodic residential modules. This blended format helps students forge valuable connections with students and professors, but without having to sacrifice personal and professional commitments.

The “bricks and clicks” format has been adopted by many of the world’s leading Online MBA programs.  At some institutions, core courses are competed on campus, while in other cases, online students have the option to take electives on campus and deepen their knowledge in diverse fields such as finance, real estate, or entrepreneurship.

Students often study alongside candidates from other degree programs including the full-time MBA and Executive MBA courses. There could also be executive speaker sessions too, and a variety of social events.

These experiences are sometimes rolled into the tuition fees, but other programs charge students extra for them. They are generally available on a first-come, first-serve basis, with limited availability for places.

Typically, residential experiences are offered at the beginning of the Online MBA so that students can build up a rapport, or at the end as part of a capstone course where they put the theory into practice. Sometimes, they are offered in multiple global locations as well as the school’s main campus. […]

Students on the Online MBA program at MIP, which is focused on digital transformation, visit the innovation centers of the business school in Milan. They also go on company visits to leading technology companies such as Amazon and Microsoft. There’s also a bootcamp on digital transformation, while students can also go on international exchanges to visit the campuses of other business schools across the world.

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MIP Politecnico di Milano in the city’s Navigli district

Milan-based university has concluded the purchase of new premises for its Graduate School of Business. The 2,000 sq.m facility will welcome students from all over the world.

Inauguration expected in the first part of 2022.

This 10-million-euro operation has involved MPS Leasing & Factoring (financing), Carnelutti Law Firm (legal and fiscal matters), GVA Redilco (locating the property) and Il Prisma (planning and execution)

MIP Politecnico di Milano, the Milan-based Graduate School of Business, has expanded and found a new berth in the Navigli district, a 2,000 sq.m site in the heart of the city. The new campus, to be inaugurated in the early part of 2022, will occupy an area between Ripa di Porta Ticinese and Naviglio Grande.

The investment in new premises was triggered by the School’s need to cater for growing numbers of students, managers and professionals who see MIP as a leading light for advanced training courses, underpinned by a portfolio of excellence containing 40+ Master’s programmes, including 7 MBAs and Executive MBAs, plus 200 open programmes for executives and many training courses made to measure for companies. Every year, 2,000+ students from 70 nationalities study at the School’s main campus in the Bovisa district, a site inserted within an urban landscape in deep transformation.

The Navigli campus will provide much needed space for 300 students to study, work and interact, as well as room for the School’s faculty and staff. The architecture of the new three-storey campus will be both innovative and versatile, and the interior spaces have been designed as places that encourage people to meet and exchange ideas, and to bring a sense of collectiveness and propose solutions that change with changing needs.

“This operation dovetails perfectly into our nation-wide campus project, which has already produced local hubs through partnerships with the Consorzio Universus at Politecnico di Bari, La Salle International Campus – Istituti Filippin in Pieve del Grappa (TV) and Rome’s John Cabot University”, stated Vittorio Chiesa, President of MIP Politecnico di Milano. “MIP works hard every day to train students, managers and professionals, helping to make a positive impact on society through innovation and partnerships with companies, institutions and the world of universities and business schools”.

Life in the new campus will be grafted on a zone known for its unique atmosphere, Ripa di Porta Ticinese, where the spirit of old Milan meets a vibrant array of cultural events and green urban spaces. These distinctive aspects are reproduced perfectly in the new building’s architecture, which evokes the informal atmosphere of the Navigli, with its nod to industrial and underground culture. The campus will be sweepingly digital, in line with the Business School’s intense interest in technological innovation. Lecture rooms are designed in a perspective of flexibility, space, technology and functionality, and will offer students a truly unique learning experience, geared towards abolishing distance and encouraging “connections” between students.

“This is a historic and decisive step for MIP. With our expansion to the Navigli, our students will soon be able to experience teaching of excellence while being fully immersed in life at the heart of the city, steps away from the design district and others of Milan’s symbolic places”, said Federico Frattini, Dean of MIP Politecnico di Milano. “SoM’s nerve centre will still be its traditional site at Bovisa. The Porta Ticinese hub will be that extra something to strengthen our offer and address the needs of an international and multicultural public”.

MIP secured the property with an investment of about 10 million euros through a joint effort involving MPS Leasing & Factoring for the financing, Carnelutti Law Firm for the legal and fiscal matters and GVA Redilco, who acted as advisors to identify the spaces and manage the process through its various phases. Il Prisma carried out the technical due diligence, and is in charge of the planning and building work to renovate the building, due to start in September 2021.

“This was a wonderful opportunity for MPS Leasing & Factoring to offer its support to the Business School at Politecnico di Milano, an academic institute of excellence in Italy, recognised and accredited internationally, and so be part of their work to train students and managers in topics of innovation, entrepreneurship and technology management”, concluded Giovanni Maione, Head of Leasing at MPS L&F. “Our Bank has always been interested in topics of technological innovation and progress, and this financing will lead to the creation of an impressive and highly digital hub, which will be used by future generations and create added value for our collective society”.

“We have been working with MIP – Politecnico di Milano for years on a range of projects, and are very proud to have been of service in this major operation. The Business School will be able to expand its horizons, welcoming more talented students from every corner of the world”, said Leonardo Spina, partner in Carnelutti Law Firm, which coordinated the team working on this project.

Giuseppe Carone, partner in Il Prisma added, “Designing MIP’s new premises for us meant translating the School’s DNA into a place of coalescence and a community epicentre. We started by asking ourselves: ‘How can a business school sustain growth that is both professional and also personal and based on the relationships that someone creates?’ Our answer was a hub, a thinking, beating laboratory bursting with ideas and inspiration, full of real projects and true relationships. A place where people put themselves into play to reinvent the future – a better future for us all”.

Sustainability: are we as employees doing it right?

In 2019, 181 CEOs of the largest American companies signed a document in which the primacy of shareholders was questioned, and the fact was highlighted that in order to create value, it is necessary to focus on three pillars: the ecological impact of the business, the respect for customers and the safety and happiness of the workers. Similarly, in the same year, another 32 international companies signed the first “Fashion Pact” by sharing a series of objectives around three key themes: stopping global warming, restoring biodiversity and protecting the oceans.

It is clear that corporates all around the world are going from a “profit first” objective to a “sustainability first” vision. And this is of course an answer to the huge awareness and attention of the customers in relation to ethics and shared value creation. Especially after the pandemic we have been facing, it is estimated that 9 out of 10 citizens, globally, wish to live in a more sustainable and equitable world.

But the choice to operate differently, respecting the pillars mentioned above, is not free of charge. It means that we need to act responsibly internally but that it is also necessary to control the whole value chain, paying more for different materials, only having relationships with suppliers that give employees good working conditions and who, in turn, control their own value chain and their own suppliers. At the same time, companies should also control the downstream use of their products (or services), instructing customers in the correct use and recycling of the goods.

How should we cope with this complexity? Surely now more than ever companies need to hire (and let themselves be led by) purpose-oriented people. I see it as a two-way circle: top-down and bottom-up.

CEOs (pushed by entrepreneurs and/or shareholders) need to update their policies, adjust the ways of incentivising people, take care of their supplier’s behaviour and, at the same time, the employees have to respect the new policies, give their contribution to something bigger than solely profit and, in turn, hire people with a vison that includes paying attention to social responsibility.

There is also the other way, when the organization is slower and less disposed to social change: we, as employees, could make our contribution by highlighting different ways of doing business, proposing new materials or changing tender characteristics for new suppliers, suggesting external pro-bono activities, evaluating both the short-term and long-term impact of the marketed products. In my opinion this is the tougher route to follow, a sort of “call to arms”, especially if we are in an “ancient” environment where profit is the only keyword that rules. But this is the way that leaves a really valuable and remarkable impact; starting from the base always makes the final result more considerable and significant.

If it is true that companies do not hire only for skills but also for attitude (or they ought to), I think that now more than ever it is important, during internal meetings, head-to-head discussions, or external interviews, that we, as people − rather than as employees − should demonstrate our life purpose and any contribution to all kinds of social activities. This is tricky, because it is easy to fall into the “moral hazard” trap, feeling “forced” to do something only because of the final incentive; it should come naturally from within us. Furthermore, showing interest in the societal, cultural or environmental field with personal insights or practical activities is an important differentiating feature that might improve our chances of being hired by the company we really want to work for.

As citizens, we have also another “duty”: to give our time and energy to companies, schools and institutions that show (or at least, are starting to show) a sustainability vocation. In 2006, three friends created an organization dedicated to making it easier for mission-driven companies to protect and improve their positive impact over time. We see the results of their efforts every time we come across the term B-Corporation, in other words, companies that have received a certification administered by the non-profit B Lab, based in part on a company’s verified performance in a benefit impact assessment. I am glad that MIP, the school I have decided to attend, is one of the over 3,500 Certified B Corporations all over the world. It means they are using business as a force primarily for good. For example, one of the activities MIP is going to implement this year is to help four non-profit organizations to efficiently improve their processes and, consequently, the impact in the real world.

As an analogy, I think that corporate social responsibility is becoming the “website” of some years ago: in the past, it was something special that only a few companies could afford; after some years, it became something important to have, also for enterprises of other sizes to be able to sell globally; then became a must-have, and now it is simply taken for granted: soon, companies will not have a business unless they pay real attention to sustainable themes. We need to demonstrate our vocation to these topics, first as human beings and then as excellent employees to hire.

 

About the author
Luca Bianchi
National Account Manager for a multinational logistics company and part of the young group of the Freight Leader Council, I would define myself as curious, ambitious and continuously disposed to improve. A strong supporter of cross-functional experiences, job rotation, teamwork and lifelong learning, my objective is to be constantly able to see challenges from different perspectives and to be adaptable in this ever-changing environment..