Article: Prepping U.S. Employees for Mexican Success

SHRM Global Forum Library - International Assignment Management, by Maureen Minehan

The outward trappings of life in Mexico may ring familiar for international assignees, particularly those from the United States. Under the surface, however, experts say there are many factors employers must consider to ensure that their employees are well-suited to work and live south of the border.

“It’s deceiving here,” says Jon French, managing director of business risk consultancy IPSA International, who works out of Mexico City. “There’s Wal-Mart, Domino’s Pizza, Ford cars and McDonald’s, so you think you’re in a First World country. But, scratch the surface a bit and you find that you’re in the Third World.”

Still, French says, for U.S. expatriates the cultural differences between the U.S. and Mexico “are not as striking as they are in Asia or elsewhere.” For this reason, he says, “Mexico would make a good first assignment.” Still, there are substantial differences between the ways people live and work in Mexico, the United States, and elsewhere.

With that in mind, below are four characteristics experts say can help assignees work effectively in Mexico:

• An understanding of Mexican culture and history. The long history between Mexico and the United States continues to shape expatriate experiences. Lisa Johnson, director of international consulting services for Cendant Mobility, says American assignees need “a real understanding of the historical, long-term effects of the relationship between Mexico and the United States. They need to understand that as Americans, they have some baggage.”

“In general, their Mexican colleagues will have a lot more knowledge of the U.S. than vice versa,” Johnson says. “They need to know things like election results, national holidays, major cities. Not knowing these things can really impede relationship-building, especially if the person is coming from the home office because there will already be issues related to trust.”

• Interpersonal skills and flexibility. Americans in Mexico can be perceived as arrogant and inflexible, experts say, and assignees must take care to cultivate personal relationships if they hope to be professionally effective. “In Mexico, relationships are paramount,” says Johnson. “People in Mexico obey people, not rules In the U.S., people obey rules, not people.”

According to Sheida Hodges, director of cross-cultural services for language instruction firm Berlitz, Mexicans may presume that Americans “are blunt, come to business right away, and … don’t pay enough attention to the human side of the equation.” Such an approach, Hodges says, may belittle Mexican coworkers. A willingness to engage coworkers on a personal as well as professional level, however, can help counteract this.

So can some flexibility in the workplace. “Someone who is rattled when things don’t happen the way they are supposed to happen won’t be happy here,” Johnson says. “Meetings may follow an agenda in an entirely different way than Americans are used to. It can still be very effective – it’s just different.”

• Language proficiency. While Spanish may not necessarily be needed to conduct business, it can help assignees forge and develop interpersonal relationships.

“Many people in Mexico are bilingual, and the expatriate community’s social milieu generally includes people with excellent English language skills,” French says. Still, “it behooves expatriates to learn Spanish because speaking the language goes a long way in helping you gain respect.”

“Even if your Spanish is not good enough to conduct business, it’s good to know at least a little,” agrees Hodges, who urges professionals studying Spanish to mind distinctions within the language and avoid using slang or casual constructions. “If you use very common, low-level Spanish, it brings down your reputation in business situations,” he says.

• Willingness to deal with increased security measures. Crime is a serious issue in Mexico – recent data, for example, suggests that the per capita murder rate in Mexico is three times that of the U.S. -- and expatriates must be willing to adapt to whatever security measures are required to keep them safe.

Importantly, however, while kidnapping and extortion are high-profile crimes, a bigger danger to international workers is street crime, which has seen a significant increase over the past decade. “There is a popular perception that foreigners are targeted in Mexico,” French says. “But while foreigners may be just as likely to be victims of a crime, they are not sought out as targets.”

And while Americans may be accustomed to depending on the police for safety and order, most expatriates depend on their employers or private companies for security briefings and specific protections. “In the U.S. culture, the police are there to protect and serve,” says French. “In Mexico City, it’s not like that,” he says, though the government is working to improve the situation.

In the meantime, Hodges says, expatriates must balance safety with work and life concerns. Expatriates often live in gated communities outside major cities, she says, but may find themselves, their spouses and their children isolated as a result.

This is an edited version of an article originally published in May 2002. Maureen Minehan is a Washington, D.C.-based freelance writer specializing in human resources management.