Relocating, Reskilling or Terminating Employees’ Contract?

22 February 2021

It was around this important and delicate question that companies are facing nowadays that the students of the Master in Human Resource and Organization of Bologna Business School were invited to give their insight on February, 11th in a International Case-Study Day, in partnership with their peers of the Master in HR from Kedge Business School in France.

Launched by Vodafone, represented by Francesco Bianco, Global Talent, Capabilities, and Organizational Development Director, Vodafone Group, and Francesca Magrassi, Recruiter & Employer Branding Manager, Vodafone Italy, this challenge encouraged students to find a solution that could conciliate organizational needs and ethical considerations regarding the life of many employees.

“It was an opportunity for the students to exchange and complement their knowledge and expertise in HR with their French ‘cousins’” say Marcello Russo, Co-Director of the Master, “moreover, they were invited to work on a topic that incorporates multiple perspectives and that forced students to put themselves in the shoes of HR managers called to cope with such delicate decisions. They had also to interact and work remotely with team members from different countries that they had just met and this was an important learning experience for them”.

Students offered interesting solutions such as the need of conducting a deep competence assessment to all employees in order to understand which were the main strengths of individuals and how those strengths could be reallocated in areas where the companies had more needs.

“In Vodafone” says Francesco Bianco, “we are developing an AI-driven process, thorough which we are capable of indicating which are the business areas where employees’ competences can be valued the most and also which competences are required and need to be developed by employees working in a specific role”.

This has been one of the first consulting projects on which the participants of the Master in HR and Organization have been involved in 2021. Many other challenges will be launched soon, such as the AIDP Bar Raiser project, starting in March with the participation of Montenegro, ING, Vodafone, Lamborghini, Koehler Engines, Capgemini, Tempocasa, Philips and Baker Hughes.