This first blog at this stage in the history of Punto de Cambio is, in addition to being a matter of personal satisfaction, a good excuse to show what we have been doing since it all started back in April 2003, especially in connection with the changes being implemented to expand our range of Programs and Services and our geographical coverage, which for now includes Argentina, Chile and Uruguay.

All this has been possible thanks to a team of excellent professionals who accepted the invitation to join Punto de Cambio with a networking concept, a shared vision of the complexities of job transitions, a set of values to guide our profession, and enthusiasm to meet new challenges in a field of work where a lot remains to be done.

Globalization, technological innovations, and new forms of production have demolished concepts that had become clichéd when describing the lives of previous generations. One of those concepts concerns work “as the axis of social integration, that gives meaning to the life of a person, a privileged space for civic engagement, the engine of material progress” (Martín Hopenhayn).

These changes had an immediate impact on the labor paradigm that was in force at that time. In the new employment paradigm change is viewed as a constant (in the old paradigm, job stability and security were assigned core values) and flexibility is viewed in multiple forms (hours, positions, tasks, objectives, modes, place of work, responsibilities, salaries, contracts).

We are witnesses to a world of increasing competition, not only among Companies based in the same city but also among countries that are not even adjacent, with recurring crises and economic cycles that demand an ever faster need to adapt, and greater unemployment among the economically active population, to whom social welfare systems have failed to provide suitable and permanent solutions –even in the so called “central countries”.

Still, “… it is around employment that an essential part of the social destiny of most of the population turns… The generalized mobility of employment situations and career paths puts uncertainty at the center of the labor world” (Robert Castel).

It is in such a complex and challenging scenario that we conduct our business. Through specific programs we counsel people faced with a transition, whether employment or entrepreneurial, so that the passage is a personally rewarding process that will help them to find new challenges and facilitate decision-making to get access to new and satisfactory employment opportunities.

We believe and hope that this new phase of Punto de Cambio will help us consolidate and expand the road we have been travelling to counsel, in a personalized and caring manner, each and every employee of Companies and Organizations.

Alejandro Licht

General Manager