How One Mexican Company Keeps Its Workers from Crossing the Border to the US Octavio Blanco - CNN Money
go to original August 31, 2015

Struggling to retain employees, Rassini built 850 homes, a swimming pool and community center for its workers. (CNN)

Almost 15 years ago, in the dusty border town of Piedras Negras, auto parts manufacturer Rassini started having a very expensive problem on its hands: workers were running across the border to the U.S. after only a few weeks on the job.

...Each time Rassini lost one of its workers and had to train a new one, it cost the company $8,000 and four months' time. For advanced work, it cost $24,000 and 12 months, the company says. Not only was it tough to keep workers, finding new ones was a challenge, too.

The company was growing so fast that, in 1997, it recruited about 700 workers from the rural state of Veracruz, Mexico. But Piedras Negras, with a population of just 97,000 at the time, was so small it didn't have adequate lodging to house all of the new employees and their families.

So Rassini housed the new workers in dorms - an arrangement that didn't go very well. Many workers returned to the families they'd left behind or left for the States. Employee turnover skyrocketed to almost 11% a year.

...So Rassini started building homes - 850 of them - to sell to its workers for around $10,000 each. To sweeten the deal, it also built a public swimming pool and a neighborhood center.

...The new homes not only sparked a real estate boom in Piedras Negras - they currently sell for about $18,000, the company says -- but they also helped Rassini to retain employees. Today, Rassini employs 2,600 workers and turnover has fallen to less than 2% a year.

Read the whole story at CNN Money

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