Randstad 2022

Abstract

Founded in 1960 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Randstad has grown to be the largest recruitment firm by revenue in the World. After strong initial domestic growth within Holland was repeated in the wider European market, the Company embarked on a large scale global expansion program, mainly through M & A activity. This growth reached into almost every part of the world and resulted in a significant presence in Japan after several acquisitions. Randstad has evolved to be a major supplier of both temporary and permanent staff across the whole of Japan. Today, Senior in-country leadership are non-Japanese nationals, and the workforce within Japan contains a significant proportion of non-Japanese employees. The Global nature of the business means that Randstad must be cognizant of and compliant with widely accepted information security standards. Management recognized that the organization was not up to date in this area and recruited externally for a new information security leader. This case focusses on the actions of Matt Hopkins, the newly hired information security Manager in the IT Department of the Company back-office, and follows the impacts of his attempts to introduce an updated training program that is intended to upskill the technical knowledge of the IT staff and ensure the Company can comply with these IT standards. The case examines the different reactions of various groups within the employee population and seeks to explore and understand the potential contributing factors that may be attributable to cultural factors. The motivational drivers of training and development can be investigated under a cultural lens that will allow the students of the case to discuss these and other variable factors that impact the equity equation in the workplace and provide insights into a Japanese working environment that may be new and unknown to them.

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