MEXICO - Industry
Director General, Randstad
Bio
Andrés Sánchez is Managing Director of Randstad Mexico, global company leader in HR services and specialized in solutions in the field of flexible work and human resources services. He has extensive experience in positions of maximum responsibility, within the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and Customer Service sectors.
The workforce in Mexico is fairly young, similar to that in India and other developing countries. Mexico is expected to have one of the largest workforce in the world in 20 years time and will be one of the top five in terms of growth. At the moment, however, it faces a problem when it comes to informality in the workforce, even though we have a low unemployment rate of around 2.3%. Informality makes up around 50-60% of the workforce, and to create a true solution, the country needs to find a way to transition these informal positions into formal ones. Even many HR companies are not formal themselves. One of our main differentiators is our formality, and we encourage other companies to do the same. We comply with all labor and fiscal legislation.
As a result of technological advances that have greatly improved productivity, for example cellular phones, young generations seek jobs that offer benefits such as more free time Transformation has become an everyday part of the process since we started using computers. Today, some are even working longer than before because technology makes it easier to communicate at all hours of the day. Employees are more demanding, and companies need to make sure they can offer continuous new goals and objectives. It has become part of the culture of the new workforce.
In Mexico, our main business line is staffing, and this is typically outsourced. Our clients want to stick to their expertise, which is their core business, and look for outside help when it comes to recruitment and the administration of employees. These employees become part of our company even though they work for someone else. We provide these services to a wide array of sectors, from pharmaceuticals, telecommunications to the automotive sector. The automotive sector is growing quickly, despite our new trade agreements with the US and Canada. It has its challenges as a sector, but is still extremely attractive. Automotive companies plan to continue investing in the country. Besides staffing, we also have recruitment process outsourcing (RPO). In this line of business, the employees belong to our clients, and we simply manage their recruitment process, particularly for clients that do not want a recruitment department themselves. This allows us to bring quality and quantity to our clients in a straightforward way. In Latin America, RPO is relatively recent and has only been available for five years or so. In the last two years, it has become more popular in Mexico and is our fastest-growing segment.
Employer branding is a strategy companies can use to market themselves as an employer and attract talent. Companies never used to invest much into this matter, but are now putting more effort into establishing their brand. This has to be done consciously; companies need to create their own stories and properly explain to candidates what their journey will look like from the first day to training. Companies need to make sure they are congruent with what others see in the company from the outside. We need to identify what companies need to do to be attractive to young people, especially in the digital age, since they are the future workforce. This is important because it is a challenge to find high-level management and executives. We are always looking to create a great story in each company to attract high-level employees.
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