We are among the most successful companies in Hungary! - The Work Force success story

Csákvári Róbert, A Work Force Kft. Alapítója és tulajdonosa.

In 2016, the Budapest Stock Exchange launched a series of publications called BSE50, which presents successful Hungarian-owned and Hungarian-linked companies operating in Hungary that have established a sustainable market position in the long term and have proven themselves in their own field.
We are proud to be among such great companies! It hasn't been an easy 20 years, but with a lot of perseverance, hard work and humility, we have been able to grow and expand even in difficult times. We invite you to read our story in BSE50!

Despite the crisis, a Hungarian temporary employment agency has achieved record revenues.

Work Force HR Services started as a Budapest-based company, but quickly built up a national network following the example of its international competitors, and is now a certified temporary employment agency, bringing in workers from the Philippines, for example.

Temporary agency work was introduced into law 20 years ago, but it was not yet widely known to companies. It was mainly used in the manufacturing and production industries, but almost exclusively in international companies, where a ratio of own and temporary workers was required. Therefore, initially the placement was also done by companies with a multinational background, but several Hungarian entrepreneurs also recognised the business opportunity, one of them being Róbert Csákvári, who then founded Work Force Kft.

„Back then the labor market was different, it was easier to recruit, but on the employee side it was harder to convince people of the benefits of hiring. They didn't know the process, so it was difficult to gain their trust," says the company's managing owner. The situation was not made easier by the fact that, according to Csákvári, many companies did not initially choose the legal route, and perhaps the market has now reached the point where temporary work is now in the minds of operators as a high value-added, atypical form of employment.

Temporary agency work is mainly used in manual jobs, and one of its biggest advantages is that it is a good tool for large manufacturers to manage seasonal effects: in the automotive, electronics and assembly industries, they may need to hire up to 400-500 workers for 3-4 months. If a company has not yet had an HR department that could handle this in-house, HR service providers can be used. In the beginning, not many Hungarian-owned companies were involved in temporary agency work, but Work Force was a pioneer in this field, and was able to be more flexible than the multinationals in dealing with client needs, making decisions quickly and responding to new market demands.

The latter proved crucial after the 2008 crisis, because although the initial reaction was to send temporary workers away from everywhere, the trend reversed within six months - everyone wanted to hire: „At first companies were scared, but then they realized that this stock was flexible; if any problems arose, it was more mobile. This approach later led to an increase in the number of staff on loan rather than in the number of their own staff. This is exactly what happened during Covid," said Csákvári.

Although the company started with a head office in Budapest, it has steadily expanded its network of offices, recognising that rural companies prefer intermediaries that are local. Therefore, following the strategy of the multinationals, they started to build a national network and also offer other HR services such as recruitment, headhunting and student recruitment. For the latter, a separate student union, Job Force, was created in 2013.

A Work Force indulása óta már közel 100.000 embernek talált állást, ha ők egymás mellé állnának a sor Budapesttől Siófokig érne.

In the meantime, they have kept a close eye on the needs of the domestic labor market and have been able to offer more and more extra solutions in addition to the basic service. For example, when there were not enough workers available in Western Hungary and they had to be mobilized from Eastern Hungary, they provided bus services, accommodation, medical examinations and work clothing. The next professional milestone was the emergence of the need for quality selection by companies: when clients no longer asked Work Force for a certain number of workers, but for a certain number of pre-screened candidates, selected on the basis of interviews and tests, in order to reduce fluctuation.

 

In the last five years, the labor market has changed significantly, with many workers emigrating abroad and major rental companies starting to recruit from abroad - from Ukraine, Serbia. „First Ukrainian companies started to appear in Hungary, hiring out their own workers, but this was a problem for the clients, because these companies often did not bring the best workers and did not comply with the legislation," said the managing owner. Work Force recognised this and was one of the first to expand into Ukraine and import large numbers of workers from there.

This involved a lot of work: setting up the right processes, administration and compliance with the law, which required a lot of administrative support. Not to mention the services that differentiate the company in the market: in addition to good quality accommodation, for example, they provide groceries for employees and 24-hour medical on-call. However, in the last year, this market has also shrunk, and Ukrainian workers have started to choose between countries and jobs, going to Western Europe with higher wages. In 2021, the government introduced an amendment to the law that made it much easier for citizens from 9 countries to work in Hungary, in addition to Serbian and Ukrainian workers. The facilitated labor leasing also made it possible to employ workers from Vietnam, Mongolia, the Philippines, Montenegro, Belarus, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Northern Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kyrgyzstan. „It has also been accepted at government level that foreign labor will have to be brought in over the next 3 years to make the Hungarian economy work," Csákvári added. This requires a certified temporary worker status, which only a few companies currently have, including Work Force, which already lends foreign workers in the hundreds, mainly from the Philippines.

This is a service that requires a lot of financing, since the customers are typically multi-taskers who have different payment deadlines, up to 90 days, while the wages of the thousands of hired staff must be paid by the given day of each month. Work Force covers this partly from its own funds and partly from overdrafts, this does not cause the company any particular problems, since last year it achieved a record sales revenue of 10 billion, and for this year an even more impressive growth of 40 percent has been forecast.

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