Being part of Afi

Be curious, dig deeper, explore new areas and look at the big picture

This premise contains two different elements. On the one hand, curiosity drives us to provide significantly more value than our competitors, going to the root of knowledge to offer rigorous and robust solutions and, when necessary, innovative ones. This curiosity often pushes us to go beyond our theoretical field of knowledge to explore and delve deeper into others. This brings us to the second element: ‘breadth’.

Do not limit yourself to ‘your’ field. We put ‘your’ in quotation marks because no one belongs to a single field of knowledge. We love to know, but above all, we love to learn and teach.

Cross-disciplinary knowledge, lateral thinking and the ability to see the big picture are essential for professional growth. Much of what we learn comes from colleagues in other areas. We never stop asking them questions, and we never stop explaining and teaching those who ask us questions.

Some of us have been working at Afi for several decades. One of the main drivers that keeps us excited about this project is the feeling of constant evolution. Settling for what you know, in the long run, leads to boredom, no matter how comfortable it may be.

At Afi, there are very few secrets. We zealously guard the personal information of our employees and clients, as well as the confidential information entrusted to us, but the rest of the information is valuable insofar as it is shared. All joint reflection initiatives are open to anyone who is interested in attending. We allow access to anyone, even if they are motivated by simple curiosity.

Excellence in delivery

An excellent professional puts their skills at the service of the client in a useful way and, therefore, makes intelligent use of their talent.

Every project or task involves a compromise between the quality of what is delivered and the cost invested. We ensure that we optimise this trade-off. We do not overload the client or ourselves when we reach diminishing returns, unless it is a conscious decision on the part of the client.

At any level of responsibility, we expect our employees to deliver as if no one were going to review their work. This is the most efficient way to work, to minimise errors and grow professionally. The role of a manager is not to correct mistakes that could have been avoided, but to help improve and correct those made due to a lack of training or experience.

Talent is always welcome

Bringing talent into an area always has a positive effect on the rest of its members. In some organisations, the effect is one of rejection, because employees think that the arrival of someone with more knowledge, more experience or more skills may limit their career path or that, if the person is of an equivalent level, they will have to compete with them for a better position. At Afi, this reasoning makes no sense. Talent does not limit our careers. Those who think this way are limiting themselves. Limits to professional growth are set by a lack of ambition or talent (one's own or that of peers), not by the structure of the company, and certainly not by the addition of talent.

Since our foundation, the most successful partners have been able to create new avenues of work and income, regardless of who their colleagues were at any given time. In addition, the organisation makes a significant effort to identify the most talented employees and to provide them with the means to develop their skills to their full potential, without taking into account considerations of quotas, age or concentration by area.

A company like Afi, where even the largest departments have only a few dozen employees, cannot harbour fears that talented individuals will find their professional growth limited. Our size relative to our market and competitors is very small, and negligible relative to our potential. The more excellent employees we are able to attract, the greater our chances of growing together, not the other way around. We are far from falling into the laws of diminishing returns. We have much to do and much to grow.

A word of caution about this principle: technical excellence is not enough for us. Experience has taught us that individual skills are of little use if they cannot be combined with the skills of the rest of the team. Disrespect, selfishness, arrogance or the inability to generate synergies and positively influence others create enormous disadvantages and are incompatible with professional success at Afi.

You are Human Resources

Human resources management is everyone's responsibility.

Every interaction with customers and competitors is an opportunity to attract talent. It doesn't matter what our level of responsibility or area of work is. We all have an obligation to be sensitive and proactive to opportunities to attract talent.

Our school is an extraordinary source of talent attraction. We know our students well and try to attract the best. We strive to offer them the best training: one day they will be part of our teams or, better still, grateful customers.