Javier, the Foundation is holding the 1st International Congress on Quality of Life and Business Competitiveness in February. What are the objectives of this event?
The Alares® International Congress is the first international event to be organized on Dependency, Diversity, Equality, Work–Life Balance, Social Responsibility, and the impact of all these areas on improving people’s quality of life, as well as their strategic influence on business competitiveness.
For the first time at an event of this kind, these issues will be addressed from a business perspective.The presentations are practical in nature and will provide an opportunity to analyze the different experiences and results achieved by both governments and companies. Renowned researchers, companies from different countries presenting their experiences, and government representatives explaining the policies implemented in each of the areas covered by the congress will take part.With attendees from more than 20 countries and the participation of leading national and international speakers and lecturers, the Congress is a meeting point and a reference for the business, civil and institutional communities.
This 1st Congress will bring together internationally renowned experts. Can you tell us something about the participants? Where can we find more information about the Congress?
The speakers, from Spain and various parts of the world, will share their research, policies, practical experiences and results, so that attendees, who will likewise come from different countries, leave with a clear, current and comprehensive view of the topics discussed.
International strategic positioning experts will explain how the main concepts studied and debated at this congress—equality, work–family balance, dependency and diversity—influence the social and economic competitiveness of companies and countries. Advanced societies are becoming increasingly sensitive to social and quality-of-life issues.
Only organizations capable of responding to these new demands will have the opportunity to develop and achieve leadership in this new social environment. Mr. Javier Benavente Barrón, President of the Alares® Foundation; Mr. Ian McDonald, Director of CSR at the Royal Bank of Scotland (United Kingdom); Ms. Eleanor Tabi Haller-Jorden (Switzerland); Mr. Jack Trout (USA), a marketing and strategic positioning guru; Mr. Mark Hollingworth (Canada), a strategy expert; Mr. Juan Antonio Sagardoy (Spain), an expert in labor relations; Mr. Bruno Arbouet, from the French Government; and Ms. Nuria Chinchilla, professor at IESE–University of Navarra, are among the more than 40 speakers.For more information:
In France, the 2005 Borloo Law represented a bold reform of personal services. Javier, do you think it could also be applied in Spain?Without a doubt, something similar is essential in a country like ours, where we have also passed a law such as the Equality Law, whose aim is to eliminate any possible workplace discrimination between men and women and promote work–family balance programs that enable people to pursue their working lives without abandoning their family responsibilities.
If we want to encourage both spouses to work and therefore become more productive, earn more, consume more and pay more taxes, we will have no choice but to regard the family as a kind of small business, with taxes paid on the difference between income and the necessary expenses incurred for family assistance in order to earn that income—home help, domestic workers, gardeners, caregivers, home tutors, and so on—so that people can work. These should be tax-deductible expenses. But companies can also contribute, and they want to help reconcile people’s personal and professional lives. If they contribute to this effort, generating greater equality, wealth and employment in the country, we should create tax conditions allowing them to deduct these contributions or forms of assistance from their corporate tax.
This is a problem that society as a whole must solve, not just companies. Companies should channel the resources needed to make it possible, but it is not fair for them alone to bear the burden as though it were simply an expense, as usually happens.The same applies to people who currently provide private in-home services to families.
The contributions that an individual or family must pay to hire a domestic worker are so high that they ultimately cannot afford the service and turn to the informal economy, hiring people who are entitled to receive all the free services—healthcare, education, and so on—that a country like ours provides universally as an example of the welfare state, but who, because they are not officially employed, contribute nothing to maintaining the system. A minimum contribution system should be created so that it does not make the service paid for by private individuals excessively expensive, and the applicable VAT rate should be reduced, since private individuals cannot deduct it.
This would bring several hundred thousand people out of the informal economy. They would pay contributions and taxes, and provide security to those who hire them because they would be insured. All this would undoubtedly lead to significant employment growth and ultimately higher state revenues.And that is what the Borloo Law has achieved in France. The modernization of society and the evolution of labor markets are shaping a new services sector aimed at individuals and families, whose regulation is becoming increasingly necessary.
The Borloo Law of July 26, 2005, was introduced in France with ambitious objectives: recognizing the need to structure this new market, guaranteeing universal access to services for all citizens, and aiming to create 500,000 new jobs within three years. The results of the law’s first year of implementation were very positive and indicated that this new sector had considerable potential for development.There is nothing separating us from France; in fact, Spain has a number of circumstances that may make it even more urgent than our neighboring country to establish a regulatory framework in which this universe of new services can develop.
At the Alares International Congress “Quality of Life and Business Competitiveness,” which will be held in Madrid (IFEMA – North Pavilion) on February 20 and 21, we will have the opportunity to hear firsthand from one of the senior officials responsible for implementing this law in France, Bruno Arbounet, Director of the National Agency for Personal Services at the French Ministry of Labor. He will tell us about the actual experiences and results of implementing this law.
