The lingering challenges that have touched every region on the planet economy have exerted a mix of financial pressures on businesses in Mexico. The street to economic recovery and sustainable prosperity will need Mexico to decide just how to stimulate its national economy in the face of the worldwide recession, to deal with the devaluation from the peso, and to balance its dependency on manufacturing exports towards the United States. Add to this challenge the rising security issues related to Mexico’s ongoing drug war, and one starts to appreciate the implications on business growth and also the flow of future foreign direct investment into the country.
The good thing is that Mexico has undergone several economic catastrophes, which appear to give it an edge psychologically. Some sectors, for example pharmaceuticals, energy and certain consumer goods sectors, did well, or have at least maintained sales growth, despite the economic downturn.
The present economic challenges – felt most acutely within the financial services and automotive sectors – have previously ushered in certain important structural changes that will help it compete long into the future. These reforms are forcing Mexico to design a strategic economic development program which involves the participation of government and also the private sector. The government has had steps, through public investments, to preserve jobs and improve to safeguard employees. And firms are attempting tough to take advantage of their existing resources and also to be more productive.
Considering the fact that human resources remain the single largest intangible assets on corporate balance sheets, you will find that some Mexican companies see potential in creating workforce efficiency and making their teams and leaders more productive. Mexico as a country, with its closeness towards the Usa and Canada, in addition to being one of the gateways towards the remainder of Latin America (particularly the northern countries), needs to develop internationally oriented leaders to improve its competitiveness.
Finding leaders who’re fully bilingual and multicultural and who are able to fully understand and adapt to a U.S.- or European-owned organization is not easy. However, there are more executives available in the market, there’s still a demand for multicultural, multilingual, executive talent with experience working and/or studying beyond Mexico. In the C-level and one step below, few want to risk a move to a business that’s less economically stable. And because Mexico’s population is young, even fewer have had the expertise of managing or leading inside a severe economic crisis, even though they might have been working during the previous downturns.
Companies across Mexico could be well served to remember that simply because there are more candidates obtainable in the job market does not necessarily mean the talent pool has increased in depth. In an economic environment like this one, where there are multitude of quality unemployed executives, there are also the usually underperforming executives on the market. Companies cannot risk making bad hiring decisions. For this reason, organizations need to have a methodical and comprehensive executive search and buying process, which ensures an attractive and successful partnership for the company and candidate.
The companies which make hiring global talent their priority, in addition to including among their key objectives programs to build up global leaders, will have an advantage over their competition. To achieve that edge corporate “C-level” management happen to be weeding out the ‘B’ and ‘C’ grade managers and hiring or promoting the so-called ‘A players’ whom they are able to depend on to lead in times of crisis. This can be a consequence of top executive leaders having to identify key executives, build strong teams and get higher productivity of managers who are in possession of fewer resources.
It appears, however, that decisions about upgrading talent in times like these is, within many organizations, a matter of individual decision-making rather than a thoughtful, consistent method of improving organizational performance. Most companies doing business in Mexico don’t have well-defined talent management strategies and/or succession plans, which remains one of the leading human resources challenges in the united states.
Aside from a few multinationals that are more closely aligned using the tricks of the home-office, most organizations are losing talent because there are no defined retention programs, career tracks or leadership development programs. Typically, the Mexican business culture has produced leaders having a more autocratic leadership style, a number of whom remain and clash with up-and-coming, high-potential talent. In Mexico, it is now time to align human performance with business strategy.
Today, more than ever, it is increasingly important to establish effective communications within teams; inspiring and involving all associates to concentrate all of their efforts towards a common goal within the most productive and efficient ways.
Looking ahead, if the current recession and financial crisis rebounds out of the box expected by early 2010, a lot of companies may be caught lacking key executive talent in the near future once we have already seen gaps in organizational structures where management positions that would normally be filled internally do not have the adequate talent pool and need to become sourced from the market.
The pace of future business growth will continue to hinge about the region’s ability to develop, attract and leverage the best business leaders who are able to drive talent equity and sustainable business advantage. For employer organizations across Latin America now, driving toward sustainable business advantage should be a few vision and a resolve for discover the next opportunity.
