Elements of work attachment in operating personnel in a maquiladora company

Abstract

Most foreign assembly factories in the city compete for local laborers, offering considerable amounts of financial rewards such as hiring bonuses, which are gradually delivered after the first, second, third, or more months of work. This type of bonus has caused many employees to hop from employer to employer, in search of these benefits (El Diario de Juárez, 2023). “There has been a point where we had a shortage of twenty-five thousand employees, although at the moment we only need ten thousand”, says Colin Chavez, president of Index Juarez. Not many studies have been conducted to find out how the factories that cannot compete with these financial rewards can achieve the necessary number of active employees to sustain production, as well as to convince them not to job-hop in the search of more hiring benefits and therefore establish themselves.

In a thermoforming factory in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, a study to determine the current factors or elements that can promote personnel establishment, i.e., that new employees chose to remain after hiring bonuses, is to be conducted. This is a desirable outcome because, given the current economic situation in the city, the employee turnover rate oscillates around 7%, (INDEX, 2022). There is no previous research or parameters to indicate that personnel establishment occurs in this factory, but they do have active employees working since the company’s foundation in 2003, an unusually long commitment in this economic environment. This study aims to identify which of the organizational factors identified in studies on this subject matter are either present or within the possibilities of this factory. Meaning, this study aims to see turnover from a different perspective, inquiring in other factories, and keeping in mind administrative and systemic aspects suggested by organizations that consider their employees as key elements in their principles, such as Great Place to Work®, ISO 9001-2015®, Responsabilidad Social Empresarial (RSE), that within their principles consider workers as key elements.