Chapter 7: Socio-Economic Approach to Management Within Mexican Public Organizations

This section concerns my experience with the socio-economic model and its implementation in the unit of Human Resource Policies of the Federal Government of Mexico Ministries. Before implementing the SEAM model in Mexico, I had worked with ISEOR in the Yucatán State government and Ministry of Administration. That first implementation resulted into SEAM certification by ISEOR. As I later went to work with the Federal government, I saw an opportunity to implement the model to improve efficacy.

The Unit of Human Resources Policy is a department of the Federal Government Ministry of Public Administration. It sets up and implements public policies on human resources for 282 institutions counting more than one million public employees. The unit is composed of a director of general offices and five general directors. In 2010, the unit suffered a severe downsizing, with a decrease in the number of employees from 128 to 88. Moreover, the remaining public servants were kept far from their duties, assigned to other areas of the ministry. This change had a widespread, negative impact, causing a lack of integration of the entire administrative and operational staff. It also resulted in a decrease in its attraction to the general public, resulting in a poor external image of the unit.