Our Story
Learn our story, leadership, and mission shaping manufacturing in Mexico.
HR and Payroll Administration for Manufacturing in Mexico
When you operate on a Tetakawi Manufacturing Campus, the people who staff your plant are employed by Tetakawi: recruited to your job descriptions, hired on your instruction, paid by us and working under the union agreement we hold. You choose them.
The Problem
Why Employing People in Mexico Is Its Own Operation
In Mexico, hiring the first person is not the hard part. Being their employer is, because the payroll, the union contract, the bus route and the severance formula each run on a law your handbook was not written for, and the plant manager is the one who finds out.
An Active Union From Day One
Since the 2019 labor reform, Mexican unions are far more likely to answer to their members. A manager used to a passive union can walk into a dispute they did not see coming.
Recruiting Is a Field Operation
Operators in Mexico are not hired off a job board. They are found in the neighborhoods by people who are there every week, at job fairs and through referrals, and a new plant has nobody there.
Your Hiring Radius Is the Bus Route
Most operators do not drive to work. A plant can hire only as far as its buses reach, so a company building its own routes hires from the streets nearby and pays for the routes it builds.
Our Solution
Employer of Record, From the First Hire Onward
Tetakawi employs the people who staff your operation under its own Mexican entity, holds the union contract and runs the payroll. You choose from the candidates we present to your job descriptions. You control production, process and quality. Tetakawi carries the employer’s side.
The Search, Where the People Are
We turn your job description into a requisition you authorize and go where the people are: the candidate database we have built here, field recruiting in the neighborhoods, job fairs and the referral channels around the Campus. We pre-screen against your profile and present the ones who fit. You interview and you select. Recruiting beyond the towns around the Campus is an additional service.
The Offer, the Contract and the Enrollment
When you say yes, we make the offer and the person goes on our payroll, on a temporary or permanent contract under Mexico’s labor law. We run the checks an employer makes before a hire, open the personnel file under Mexico’s privacy law, and enroll each person for social security, housing, worker credit and tax. Our induction covers Tetakawi’s terms. Yours covers your rules and your culture.
A Payroll You Approve Before It Runs
We collect time and attendance and calculate wages, overtime, premiums, withholdings and deductions, and you see and approve the payroll before anything is paid. We deposit the pay, issue each person’s stamped receipt, and make the employer’s filings for social security, housing and payroll tax. Benefits by law, by union contract or by your choice all run through it. You fund the payroll.
The Union Agreement, Managed Every Day
Tetakawi is the signatory to the union agreement for the Campus and manages that relationship every day, with the stewards in your plant and with union leadership when a worker raises something. Wages are negotiated each year on the regional cycle, and demands reach our HR team before they reach your managers. Corrective actions and terminations are your decisions. We administer them; severance is your cost.
Buses, the Clinic and the Brigades
We plan the bus routes from the shifts you give us and the bus cost is yours. In Mexico the bus route is the hiring radius, so a shared network reaches neighborhoods one plant’s buses never would. Our medical service on the Campus runs new-hire exams and consultations, and as employer we run the emergency-response program Mexican law calls civil protection, with brigades from your plant.
Benefits
Recruiting, Payroll and HR, Run Beside Your Plant
More of Your Managers’ Hours on Production
Contracts, pay periods, stewards and buses have an HR team on the Campus, and in your plant when headcount calls for it, so those questions reach them and not your floor.
- The payroll to approve before each pay period is paid
- A personnel file per employee, kept under Mexico’s privacy law
- Attendance reporting with causes and proposed actions
- A severance calculation you see before you decide a termination
Onboarding
Your First Requisition and Every Requisition After
Your people are one workstream in the single launch plan your Tetakawi project lead runs. This Campus’s HR team, recruiters, payroll and clinic, joins at your first requisition and stays as you launch, operate, and grow.
1.
Roles and the Hiring Plan
You send us the job descriptions, the headcount, the shift pattern and the pay ranges, then authorize the first requisitions.
2.
Search, Screen and Present
We recruit and screen against your profiles, then present only the candidates who fit them. You interview and you select.
3.
Offer and Enrollment
On your instruction we extend the offers, sign the employment contracts and enroll each new hire for social security.
4.
Pay Periods and Reports
You approve each payroll. We run it, coordinate the plant buses and report attendance back to your team each period.
Testimonials
HR and Payroll Administration in Practice
Manufacturers on a Tetakawi Campus, on hiring and employing people in Mexico, from the first shift to the people who are still with them years later.
“Tetakawi’s network of people is huge. When we moved some of our new hires from Mazatlán to Minneapolis, they had the right connections in the right places in Mexico to help us get things like visas and passports and set those people up to be successful. They are up to date on the regulatory requirements.”
Jeremy Main, Senior Vice President, Consolidated Precision Products
“Until I ran a company without a shelter partner, I didn’t understand how complicated it is to operate in the legal and HR ecosystem: getting your people to work safely, running your own bus systems, managing daycare and medical services. If I had known at the beginning how good I had it, I would have rethought some things.”
Jon Jensen, Manufacturing CEO, repeat Tetakawi client since 2001
“Tetakawi does a great job with recruiting, whether it’s hourly workers or the specific skills we need. They also help us with transportation and the paperwork that keeps us meeting all of the Mexican regulations and laws. Day to day I deal with their HR team, who are really good people and very knowledgeable.”
Brian Berich, Director of Operations, BAE Systems
“Our business is dynamic, so when we need more people we go further out in the region if that is what the ramp takes. For me it’s satisfying having this very healthy relationship with Tetakawi: bringing people, bringing talent, and keeping people here. Daycare, medical services and transportation are a big part of why people stay.”
Ricardo Gómez, Director of Operations, TE Connectivity
Integrated Services
The Integrated Services Behind Every Campus
Our on-site teams help you launch your operation, keep your building running, employ and pay your workforce, move your materials across the border, buy what your plant consumes, and keep your permits, filings and registrations current.
FAQs
HR and Payroll Administration in Mexico FAQs
The questions we get most often from manufacturers looking at Mexico.
What do you do, and what stays ours?
We employ, pay and administer. You choose and direct.
Tetakawi’s Mexican entity is the employer of record. It recruits to your job descriptions, makes offers on your instruction, runs the payroll you fund and approve, and manages the union relationship and the buses, whose cost is yours. You write the job descriptions, interview and select, set the standards and the conduct rules, and run the floor. Corrective actions and terminations are your decisions; we administer them, and severance is your cost.
What do you need from us, pay period to pay period?
Your approval of each payroll, and your decisions on your people.
You see and approve the payroll before it runs. Overtime, corrective actions and terminations are your decisions; we administer them on your instruction. Training on your process and your equipment is yours.
What happens when there is a problem with a person, or with the union?
It reaches our HR team first.
Our HR staff sit inside your plant. Union demands and grievances reach them before they reach your managers, and they work with the stewards day to day. An attendance or conduct issue comes to you with the facts and a proposed action, and the decision is yours. When you decide a termination, you see the severance calculation first, and the cost is yours.
What happens when we add a shift or a new role?
Recruiting keeps running, against the plan you update.
You update the headcount and the roles and authorize the requisitions, and the search runs in the towns around the Campus as it did for the first shift. A new role gets a pay range from the same local market data. Recruiting beyond those towns, and immigration and relocation support for staff you move from home, are additional services.
How do we explore running our operation on a Tetakawi Campus?
Four steps, in order.
1. Get in touch. A conversation about what you are hoping to achieve in Mexico, and why now.
2. Measure ROI. We build the business case with you: the full cost of running your operation on a Campus, the risks and the trade-offs, and which Campus fits.
3. Site visit. Walk the Campus, meet the people who would run your account, talk with manufacturers already operating there, and meet the HR team that would hire for you.
4. Launch and grow. When you give the green light, the same team that helped you build the case guides the launch.
