What "placing the person at the centre" produces in a difficult environment such as construction: the experience of Argentinean entrepreneur Jorge Demagistri in times of the pandemic
by Lourdes Hercules
In the construction industry, the workers' economy operates mostly on a "day-to-day” basis. Workers are paid every weekend and, in a sense, companies are also run on a short-term basis. Jorge Demagistri is an EoC entrepreneur who has worked in the construction industry for 13 years. He lives in the city of Tucumán, Argentina, where he founded the company Ávita. Like any other entrepreneur, in the face of the pandemic crisis he was worried for the functioning and sustainability of his company, but he was even more concerned about the payment of his 67 workers during the entire period of confinement, because those were high figures and the company reserves were low. "You work, you pay. That's the way it works in construction. Right now what's happening in this industry is that workers are not getting paid. Even companies bigger than mine have suspended payments to day workers during this period," says Jorge.
Already at the beginning of the pandemic, when the most stringent measures had not yet reached Argentina, Jorge was looking for solutions, and one day, foreseeing that quarantine would eventually come, he gathered his staff
to warn the workers of the complicated financial situation that was emerging. However, something happened that same day that Jorge calls "providential". "A person had searched us on Google, came to visit us that very afternoon and, without having any reference, proposed to develop a project with us. After a consultation, he decided to proceed and the next day we signed the contract for which he paid an advance". Jorge continues: "Returning home in the evening, I thought that having acquired this unthinkable and concrete order so quickly was a very concrete response so that the 67 families of my workers would not be affected in their economies, given the impossibility of earning their daily wages.
The contract concluded that day was certainly an incentive and although it was not enough, the company has seen the fruits of the relationships created. "Investors are making strong efforts not to default on payments so that the payment chain is not interrupted, something that is not happening to day workers in other construction companies. I have a very good relationship with my people and I understand that this will also improve this relationship. This social group has been hit and injured many times and it is in these difficult moments that trust is strengthened".
Jorge tells us that these days of pandemic and social quarantine have been lived in the company with calmness, trust and gratitude. This atmosphere is not a random thing, but the result of an experience of communion: "When you look at others the way that the experience of the economy of communion proposes, economies multiply and you can progress in times of crisis. It is a giving and receiving, a virtuous circle that we have trained ourselves to live in these 13 years. We have concrete proof of this when we practice giving in times of pain and difficulty because we receive even more". In fact, even in times of economic crisis in Argentina Avita has grown, "but those were also the times when it gave its best,” Jorge concludes.
"I've always tried to pay special attention to the other one," Jorge emphasises. "And who are the others for my company? They are all the people Avita is in contact with: its clients, suppliers, the state, its employees, partners, the families. Many times economic realities cause wounds that remain open over time, but when you experience another kind of relationship and another way of doing business, these wounds heal quickly and some greater things are built".
"If this lesson from the crisis was learnt and put into practice by businesses in a general manner, if we really understood that putting people at the centre is the right way for everyone it would undoubtedly also bear fruit for the economy," Jorge concludes.
