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When approaching the process of hiring salaried employees in Mexico, many foreign hiring managers are baffled at the complexity of Mexico’s compensation structure. This whitepaper will attempt to outline and define the various components of Mexican compensation. If you have additional questions after reviewing this whitepaper, please contact Fernando Espinosa at (619) 421-7134 or (619) 921-1798. In Mexico, companies pay employees a base salary and benefits. Some of the benefits are mandated by law and some are discretionary. Read more »
Archive for January, 2011:
Cross Cultural Considerations for Americans Hiring in Mexico
FOREWORD
We have prepared this white paper as a very general guide to North American hiring managers that are looking to hire leaders, managers and staff in Mexico. This guide may also be found to be useful as a reference for other Western-oriented cultures but it’s important to note that this paper was prepared with the perspective of the US or Canadian hiring manager in mind.
It is also important to note that these are “considerations” and are not hard and fast rules
about cultural norms of human behavior. Much of the recruitment and hiring activity that Americans undertake in Mexico is focused on Mexico’s maquiladora industry followed by consumer products, service and the hospitality industry. We have strived to make this guide as general and inclusive as possible. However since the bulk of cross cultural technical and middle management hiring activity is centered on Mexico’s maquiladora industry, we have elected to prepare this white paper from the perspective of the maquiladora industry. Key take aways will be abundant and applicable to other industries as well.
Read more »
Transitioning to a New Country of Employment
I had an interesting discussion with one of our clients recently that’s worth sharing with our friends and clients. She had spent fourteen years crossing the border on a daily basis and working full-time in Mexico where she held several middle-management and executive positions. In our discussion, she reflected on the truth a consultant told her early in her career as she was just beginning to work in Mexico.
She relayed three natural steps to cultural immersion as the consultant described them to her: 1) I’m right, and they are wrong; 2) They are right, and I’m completely wrong; 3) We are both right in some ways, and we can learn from each other in other ways. The consultant emphasized to her (a member of an American management team headed for work in Mexico) that these three steps are very natural and can take up to a year for discerning and open managers.
Unfortunately, she said her experience showed that not all leaders from another country can face the reality of steps 2 and 3. She states now that as she’s screening potential leaders in her organization, she now conducts simple exercises in her interviews to determine which candidates have the maturity to handle steps 2 and 3.
QualiFind partner named to Board of Directors of National Assn of Personnel Services (NAPS)
QualiFind Executive Search is pleased to announce that Senior Managing Partner – Fernando Espinosa has been invited to join the Board of Directors of the National Association of Personnel Services (NAPS).
The NAPS Board voted unanimously on Monday January 24, 2011 to have Fernando join the NAPS Board of Directors and serve as the District Director for District VI. NAPS District VI encompasses California, Nevada, Hawaii, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Arkansas, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Colorado.
The National Association of Personnel Services has been the search, recruiting and staffing industry educator since 1961 and enjoys the reputation of being the oldest industry Read more »
I Think We Can Help Each Other
Being in the search profession for so many years has put us in the front seat on a daily basis to organizational challenges and conflicts. Here’s a story about two parties on opposite sides of the divide between sales and manufacturing and how they learned to help each other succeed by walking in each other’s footsteps. We’d like to share it with you.
A National Sales Manager and Plant Manager were increasingly at odds with each other arguing, “Why can’t you tell me when sales orders are coming in?”, and, “Can’t you just build product when I need it?”. Something had to be done, or customers would flee based on poor delivery, and shareholders would begin to squeak about poor inventory turns.
The Plant Manager invited the sales team to hold their next meeting in the factory, which included a tour, sitting in on the daily production meeting, and a review of how the factory was leaning its supply chain to make it more responsive to orders. Later that quarter, the Plant Manager attended multiple sales calls which made him much more empathetic to the impact of poor delivery and the unpredictability of orders in that very seasonal industry.
After walking in each other footsteps, these executives greatly improved communications and customer service by discussing the sales funnel on a fixed, periodic basis, and further leaning out the supply chain to respond more rapidly to orders.
Anything Is Possible
The senior business leaders that we work with encounter difficult challenges every day, but it seems about every quarter or so a challenge or lofty goal emerges that tests the mettle of their extended team. EMPATHY helps this situation. The group or individual tasked with solving great challenges or delivering on stretch goals needs to hear their leadership verbally express an understanding of the difficulties facing the team. Hearing this and knowing that the leadership is empathetic can boost their confidence by knowing that management isn’t out of touch. Think about Kennedy’s charge to NASA when he said, “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
No Historians Allowed
The QualiFind team collectively speaks with a myriad of hiring managers and leaders on a daily basis. We work with them to solve their problems through enhancing their organizations with the best and brightest people. Here’s an example, we’d like to share with you….
We know of a freshly minted executive who took over a campus of factories in Mexico that were in dire straits – angry customers, dissatisfied upper management, lost time accidents, and rising costs. The leader adopted the staff meeting format of his predecessor for the first meeting and was aghast at two things: most of the information presented was weeks or a month old, and most in the room were nonchalant about the horrible results. He made sure things changed quickly. No critical information shared was allowed to be older than yesterday, and accountability was moved closer to where the action was, rather than in a conference room. Cavalier managers were reformed or replaced, and the site was recognized by customers and senior management for its excellence within 18 months. Where do you think this manager found his new management team?
Compensation Structure for Mexico
When approaching the process of hiring salaried employees in Mexico, many foreign hiring managers are baffled at the complexity of Mexico’s compensation structure. This whitepaper will attempt to outline and define the various components of Mexican compensation. If you have additional questions after reviewing this whitepaper, please contact Fernando Espinosa at (619) 421-7134 or (619) 921-1798. In Mexico, companies pay employees a base salary and benefits. Some of the benefits are mandated by law and some are discretionary. Read more »
