Country Guide Portugal

Where to Work Country Guide Portugal

Viana do Castelo Ponte de Lima

Braga

Guimaraes Chaves

Good Students Still Proving Themselves

Vila do Conde

Jobs are getting harder and harder to come by in Aveiro Portugal, but the country is showing rare stoicism in its battle to make its latest bailout work. Cantenhede

Paredes Oporto

Santa Maria Da Feira

Videu

Guarda

Covilha

The self-styled “good student” of Europe, Portugal last year received its third bailout by an international institution since 1978. A fourth will follow if it is unable to return to the markets by next September, as envisaged by its EU-IMF bailout terms. And with unemployment on the rise and more and more businesses closing across the country, there is a fear that an unpredictable situation will become uncontrollable for its relatively new Social Democrats-led government. And yet to walk the streets of Lisbon and

Figueira da Foz

Leiria

Alcobaca Coimbra

Pombal

Ourem Castelo Branco

Torres Vedras

Sintra Loures Santarem

Portugal

Population 10.555.853

inhabitants

Lisboa

Sesimbra Setubal

Country area 92,3 sq km

World's leading producer of cork and the only authentic Porto is produced exclusively in the Douro Valley

Europe

Portimao Loulé

Official language is Portuguese, with a recognized regional language called Mirandese

Faro

Where to Work Country Guide Portugal

By THRASY PETROPOULOS

talk to business managers is to find a different mood than what you might expect. There is fear and uncertainty, yes. But there is also hope (at least among those who still have jobs) that the ills in the Portuguese economy and political system that have it perennially labeled as one of the poor men of Europe can finally be shaken off. Most notably, there has been virtually no social unrest in light of austerity measures that have meant cuts in pensions and public sector pay, and tax rises.

Europe's Good Students

There is stoicism and the belief that by once again being “good students” – a reference to the efforts made in defying expectations and qualifying for euro zone membership – and following the bailout terms to the letter, they have a chance of emerging from the financial crisis stronger. That is not to say that the effects of the crisis are not evident. Youth unemployment has topped 30% (the figure for the entire workforce is above 14%) and there is a definite brain drain of talent abroad, often to Portuguese-speaking former colonies such as Brazil, Angola and Mozambique, but also elsewhere in the EU. There has been criticism of the government for going further than required by the EU and IMF creditors. Required to bring the country’s public deficit down from to 5.9% of GDP by the end of 2012, the government recently announced its forecast of slightly more than 4% by the end of the year. In 2010 it peaked at 9.8%, with the result that the country’s benchmark ten-year bonds yield reached an astonishing 14%. Borrowing on the open markets had become impossible. The Socialist government at the time resigned and – with support from the Social Democrats and third-biggest People’s Party – negotiated a 78 billion Euro bailout ahead of May 2011 elections. It seemed at the time that the country that was, until 1974, under a near 50year dictatorship, and required to turn to the IMF for bailouts twice before, would once again find itself – both literally and figuratively – on the periphery of Europe. But a degree of perspective is required when judging Portugal. It is different than Ireland and (by a long shot) Greece, the other two bailed-out Euro zone members. A small nation renowned for its spirit of adventure and thirst for discovery, the reversal of the decades-long trend of residents of former colonies moving to Portugal is undoubtedly also an opportunity for some Portuguese businesses to branch out into new territories. IT consultancy, in particular, is currently exploiting this possibility. Those that manage to sell services abroad are providing a rare successful export as Lisbon-based companies are increasingly looking abroad to overcome a crowded local market.

Order Resurfaces

One such example is Mind Source, whose CEO Francisco Lopes da Fonseca is unapologetic for sounding optimistic, even quietly pleased, that the plug has been pulled on a system too often in the past characterized by patronage and poor business practice.

01 02

Siscog is a software company that provides decision support systems for resource planning and management in transportation companies, with special experience in the field of railways.

Founded in 1986, SISCOG uses a combination of Artificial Intelligence and Operational Research technologies, resulting in state of the art optimization software.

01 Eduarda Ferreira, Head of Organizational Development Department at Siscog 02 No barriers at Siscog

The managers’ photos were taken by photographer Tugba Karatop for Work Style. Tugba was born in Istanbul, Turkey in 1987. She moved to Lisbon to study photography at the Ar.Co Centro de Arte e Comunicação Visual. She owns a degree in English and Literature from Istanbul University. While studying she works as a freelance photographer.

“I’m socially aware enough to know what people are going through now and how difficult it is, but I also believe we are living the best moments for Portugal,” he says from his bright and youthful office in northern Lisbon. There are three sets of photographs on the wall of the main corridor within the office, showing the staff number swelling over the last five years. And in another room, a TV game console is set up for staff members in need of a bit of downtime. Four years ago, the consultancy firm had 500,000 Euros of business turnover. In 2009 it rose to 1.1 million; in 2010 to 1.6 million and within the first two months of this year, the firm had already booked 2.5 million Euros’ worth of business. By the end of the year, it estimates its annual turnover will have reached 3.2 million Euros. Bear in mind, also, that IT companies can now charge only around half what they used to. “We might sink a bit deeper but that will only make us stronger and better,” he says. “I love my country but I have to say that this was necessary. The problems are chiefly extended to those who have not done enough to be beyond those prob

Founded in 1911, ISEG is a research oriented

institution, whose mission is to instruct capable business and economics students and to train the most skilled managers, providing each with cutting edge knowledge in the corresponding areas of interest. ISEG is one of the top prestigious and experienced business and economics schools based in Portugal, one of the three top-ranked providers in these fields of education at undergraduate, graduate and executive training levels.

03 Joao Cantiga Esteves, Economist and Professor at ISEG

The Portuguese List

of Best Workplaces

By Sandrine Lage, Founder, Great Place to Work® Institute Portugal

Working with our media partner in 1999, we were the first to publish the Great Place to Work list in Europe. Since then things have changed if we look at the Portuguese situation. The institute’s benchmarks throughout Europe indicate amazing consistency. Yet we're talking about great places to work, not the market in general. We're talking about companies that are amazing in their treatment of young people and women, knowing this is clearly not a trend in the local or worldwide market. The economic crisis has taken a toll; there is a trend of young people looking for jobs abroad. But I believe that whenever a candidate invests himself in his work, the greater his chances are of finding a job where he fits and where the company values him. Where I’ve observed this balance, things go well, independent of sector. We’re observing a smooth but interesting trend of people turning their backs on the corporate world and starting a completely new activity on their own and usually within the country. Sooner or later, freelancing will be much more common than it is now. In Portugal, one thing is certain: the general level of professionalism and efficiency in the market is still far from other countries. But we have fantastic exceptions and most can be found in our GPTW list. We’re specifically talking about multinationals and, in terms of IT, you’ll observe that they consistently present better results than their counterparts in other countries. They have an excellent strategy. Our experience shows more straightforwardness and outstanding examples of great workplaces in the north of the country, with companies that began as family businesses with no guidelines at all. These companies frequently deal with another reality, the industrial one. We must recognize that there is a gap between the service and industrial sectors, yet they often still manage to be great workplaces. We see that employees in firms out of Lisbon value company benefits much more their counterparts in the capital. It feels more genuine, even if it is not always the case.

SANDRINE LAGE

2011 Best Workplaces Portugal

01 Cisco SystemsPortugal 02 Microsoft Portugal 03 Everis Portugal 04 ROFF 05 Chep 06 Mind Source 07 SAS Institute 08 Maksen 09 Grupo CH Consulting 10 Medtronic 11 BMW Portugal 12 Roche Farmacêutica Química 13 Huf Portuguesa 14 Laboratórios Abbott 15 Tabaqueira II (PMI) 16 Janssen-Cilag 17 Teleperformance Portugal 18 Johnson’s Wax de Portugal 19 Diageo Portugal 20 Mercedes-Benz - Financiamento

Special awards

• Best workplace for young people:

Maksen

• Best workplace for women: CHEP

Great Place to Work® Institute Portugal

Escritórios Quinta do Jamor 2790-466 Queijas T +351 214 177 419 [W greatplacetowork.pt]

lems. They expected society to do whatever was necessary to look after them and it's been shown around the world that this just isn't possible. No government or society is capable of paying unlimited healthcare or pensions.” He points out that companies with nothing to hide should welcome the growing transparency. And also that, in a time of doom and gloom, being positive when soliciting clients makes your company shine. “I don't believe the market is saturated here,” he maintains, “but our goal for 2012 was always that it would be the year of internationalization for the company and we are on track to achieve it.” The new government is, he says, supporting companies looking to expand abroad, using Portuguese embassies as a reference point and providing letters of trust. “We had to pass a long and exhaustive test indicating our robustness,” he says.

Looking Abroad

As a very recent player in the market – and, therefore, unaffected by the 2003 dot-com burst that decimated so many other IT consultancy firms, Mind Source can afford to be positive. Perhaps a more important example of the type of company that will survive, and quite possibly prosper, within the crisis comes in the form of ROFF, an System Analysis and Program Development (SAP) firm on the western outskirts of Lisbon. Founded in 1996, the company came up with a novel way of surviving the 2003 crisis. The board informed senior staff that the numbers were simply not adding up. With around half the 100-person workforce idle, the implications were obvious. The staff convened and suggested a 20% voluntary reduction in salaries, something the company was, under Portuguese law, forbidden to impose itself. Less than a year later, it happened again – with similar consequences. The upshot was an overall 36% cut in initial salaries. Only one person refused. Not only have those salaries returned to, and passed, those levels but the ROFF staff has now increased to around 500. “When the market came back in 2004, we had the resources, solutions and expertise that no one else had,” recalls Pedro Gil, the marketing manager. “This is what has made ROFF by far the market leader in Portugal, double the size of the nearest competitor. And it has, essentially, been made with Portuguese talent. We have completed projects in 42 countries, most of them since 2006.”

Others Venture Abroad

ROFF has, naturally, been given considerable media attention as an exporter of Portuguese intelligence. Its rate of staff growth over the past five years matches exactly the country's upwards jobless rate curve. Crucially, it has a staff turnover of less than 2% -- in very large part to due to culture of unity started in 2003, now passed down among workers who were not even with the firm at the time. This is not to ignore the reality of people fleeing the country as jobs in struggling firms dry up. According to local daily Correio da Manha, a total of about 149,000 Portuguese emigrated in 2010, mainly for France, Angola, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The Brazilian embassy in Lisbon said the number of

Jordao was founded in Guimarães in 1982 by a small group of professionals with a large experience in the commercial refrigeration

industry. Since then the company innovates, designs, develops and produces commercial refrigeration equipment: displays, counters, vertical exhibitors, for the Food Retail and the Horeca channels.

04 Isidro Lobo, CEO of J.Julio Jordao 05 Jordao’s employees give back to the community in a team building session 06 Team building in the woods 07 Jordao’s employees ride for team building

06 05 04

Portuguese with work permits in Brazil alone jumped by 52,000 between 2010 to mid-2011, while Portuguese media report that the number of Portuguese in Angola more than quadrupled in the past few years to over 100,000, four times the number of Angolans living in Portugal But here lies another attraction of multinationals in Portugal. “We can offer people an international career,” points out ROFF's human resource's manager, Silvia Gusmao. “We try to integrate younger people here because they want to go abroad. We all have friends who are going abroad because they feel they can't get a job here. You hear about it more and more on the news.” “But last year surprised us,” interrupted her colleague, Pedro. “We are still managing to grow in Portugal. It is true, though, that we are pushing for international business. Our main aim is to offer near-shoring, in opposition to offshoring in India. We have a SAP development factory, developing customer specific code in Lisbon, a team offering maintenance remotely. And another approach is to address markets that are not mature, such as in Angola, or not yet settled, as in Scandinavia. More recently we have opened an office in Morocco.” International business accounts for 57% of ROFF's turnover, and considerably more in terms of profit.

The Third Time

Trying to make sense of Portugal's economy is a tricky business. There are those, notably the Socialist Party, who believe the April 2011 bailout was eminently avoidable as it was negotiated only after its government fell due to the now ruling Social Democrat voting down the so called fourth stabilizing plan. Scratching the surface, however, reveals a more complicated picture. Economist Joao Cantiga Estevez, of Lisbon's Superior Institute of Economics and Business, stresses that the previous prime minister Jose Socrates failed to inform the president or opposition parties of the contents of what would have been a fourth stabilizing plan (the first three failed). Once it had been voted down in parliament, he called elections but was still responsible for negotiating the EU-IMF bailout, albeit with broad support from the other key political parties. “Portugal is different to other countries,” points out Esteves. “The problem here is simply that there has been too much debt across the board for the last 15 years: public, private, family and banks. We have to de-leverage everything at the same time. And we have been late in doing so, waiting until the middle of 2011 for something to be done.” Now that something is being done, Esteves is adamant that the government's rigorous belt-tightening approach is absolutely necessary. And he insists that reducing the deficit quicker than the bailout terms require can only be positive. “There's a will to show the world and the financial markets that, this time, we will fulfill the requirements of the treaty,” he says. “Before this we have always missed our targets and the government believes it's the best way to regain credibility. It does not mean that it will work perfectly but it is an insurance policy. By following the EU-IMF map, we will be able to ask for further help, if we need it.” Critics of the government maintain that

08 09 11

Maksen was founded in early 2003 with the purpose of providing consulting services in four different areas. Their

consulting services are in: business and entrepreneurial strategy; organization, processes efficiency and economic-financial analyses; technology and information systems; and telecommunications network engineering.

08 Antonio Lagartixo, Managing Partner at Maksen 09 Open space at Maksen 10 Dynamics at Maksen 11 Team work at Maksen

the budget deficit may have been brought down, but it did so at the expense of a recently-revised-upwards recession forecast of 3.3% for 2012 and an unemployment rate heading for 15%. Both figures are worse than anticipated in the bailout treaty. Also, the easing of the deficit was achieved as much by shifting bank pension funds into the social security system as by cutting pensions and public sector wages. But Esteves adds, "as an economist, it would be nice to have a measure that would do everything at once: balance the budget, take care of public and private debt and have growth and job creation. Unfortunately, that's not how it works. We need to have a priority and balancing the budget is clearly number one. And we don't have savings that we can throw into the economy.” He also points out that the impressive growth in disposable income per capita in the country over the past decade has been matched almost exactly by the growth of family debt. “We all want to have more money but it can't come completely out of debt,” he says. “And we've had the IMF here twice before in the past 25 years. It's time to change.”

A Reality Check

“It's pretty clear that we won't be going back to the markets in September next year and that will mean another bailout,” observes Vitor Rodrigues Oliveira, a journalist for RTP Antena 1 radio station. “You can be good students but you can't avoid reality. Being very realistic, will the markets decrease their interest rates on the secondary markets if they see a country in a recession of 3.3 percent? The government is counting on growth in 2013 but I don't know which kind of figures they are basing this on. It's probably just wishful thinking and trying to create a positive mood that will encourage internal and external investment in the hope that something will change. But it's fragile.” He also says that the lack of public opposition to the austerity measures is both a positive and a negative. “There's lots of distress here when people talk about politicians but there's also resignation,” he says as to why the March 22 general strike in Portugal was so poorly attended. By contrast, the Spanish and Italians have become increasingly vociferous against their governments, and the Greeks routinely clash with riot police outside their parliament. “There are mixed feelings: the same person who tells you he hates the troika will also tell you he is relieved that something is being done about the problems. The images coming out of Greece tell us that we are not at that stage yet but that we could get there unless something is done about it.” He also stresses that sociologists often mention the effect of nearly 50 years of dictatorship in Portugal. “We don't have a culture of risk. In some ways it's good, but in others it isn't. And it definitely affects how we see the world,” he says.

Being Selective

That said, any potential resignation should not be confused with a lack of desire to work and, if at all possible, stay put. There are tens of thousands of young Portuguese firing in CVs to local companies in the hope of landing a job. One showcase is Maksen, a consulting, engineering and IT management company, which considers 3,000 applicants annually and offers jobs to just 30 to 40 of

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Mind Source is part of SetCom Group, with a sphere of experience in the Information Technology, Electronics, After-Sales Services Management and Logistics Market. The SetCom Group provides all the management support for business development of its subsidiaries. The company specializes in integrated projects and outsourcing solutions for technological projects covering Information Systems, Electronic and Telecommunications.

12 Francisco Lopes de Fonseca, CEO of Mind Source 13 Meeting room at Mind Source

those. The selection process itself takes a year. and involves a filtering system that leaves only those seen as fitting the company culture perfectly. Maksen is, after all, Portugal's best workplace for young people, as judged by the annual Great Place to Work Institute survey. The average age at the firm, based in central Lisbon, is just 28. Even the company's managing partner and head of marketing, Antonio Lagartixo and Ines Silva Nunes are under 40. Together, they offer an insight into what young Portuguese with an appetite to succeed search for in a job, and of course what Maksen looks for in turn. “The key to our success is that we are all very similar. It starts in the recruitment process,” explains Lagartixo. “I don't want the smartest or best-evaluated people at universities who don't fit in with our culture. We live our life to the maximum. When we have fun, we have fun. And when we work, we work for the best. It's a way of being. It's not just an age thing, it's an attitude. We are a people company. We don't have patents or products to sell. What we deliver is know-how, brain power. If we don't have the right people, we will never deliver a unique type of work.” Lagartixo is fortunate enough to be describing a a healthy, outward-looking company that, as a spin-off from the local branches of Arthur Andersen and Deloitte, went from having 25 people in 2003 to a staff of well over 200. But it also represents an ideal for many young Portuguese. “We go to universities, invite potential employees to focus groups and group interviews, and keep filtering,” says Nunes. “When they are recruited they meet their future colleagues to ensure they know what they are getting into. And then we invite them to the annual meeting – two days outdoors, mixing serious work and fun – all before they have signed.” Lagartixo explains Maksen's three different business units: strategy operations and IT consulting, an engineer and telecom practice and an outsourcing unit. There are offices in Angola and Sao Paolo, Brazil to serve those markets and act as a hub for surrounding countries. “Around 50-60% of our total annual income is from international consulting ,” he points out. “Although this year we have grown something like 25-30% in Portugal, but that is due to some tenders that we put in in the past coming through.”

Jobs on Ice

Around Lisbon the story is no different different for job seekers. Positions are hard to come by and when they do so they are heavily oversubscribed. Portugal's key industries of textiles and agriculture have suffered of late – the former due to the economic downturn and the latter due to the long-term consequences of the EU's failing agriculture policy. Added to that, the country is one of the more disparately populated in Europe, with significant populations in the likes of Porto, Coimbra, Aveiro and elsewhere. Indeed, the provinces have been worse affected than the capital in terms of job losses. Isidoro Lobo, the CEO of retail refrigeration equipment producer Jose Julio Jordao, estimates the unemployment in Guimaraes, where his company is based, some 400km north of Lisbon, to have topped 20% already.

14 15 — 16

As the Portuguese market leader in implementing SAP solutions, ROFF runs consultancy projects in all technological areas of business support. With a staff

of 500 and offices in Lisbon, Porto, Covilhã, Paris, Luanda, Stockholm and Casablanca, ROFF was the first

SAP partner operating in Portugal

to cater for the SME market as well as for large Portuguese and multinational companies. ROFF is a Gold Channel Partner and Services Partner.

14 Pedro Gil and Silvia Gusmao, Marketing Manager and HR Manager at ROFF 15,16 Developing ideas at ROFF

17

18

The idea is to take the act of vandalism – the act of

destroying in order to

create – to the extreme, as modus operandi.

Alexandre Farto AKA Vhils

has been writing graffiti and expressing his visual poetry since the early 2000s. He was particularly influenced by the transformations brought on by the intensive urban development which the country underwent in the 1980s and 1990s. As the countryside around Lisbon was taken over by the sprawling suburbs, he saw graffiti as the perfect tool to both explore and express his ideas on the urban environment. Scratching the Surface was started in 2007, it consists of a series of pieces, that have been carved onto the surfaces of walls in chiseled simple contrasts, revealing the rough layers that lie beneath.

The fundamental premise behind this series is the act of working with the city as the prime

material, using part of the urban environment itself, incorporating it into the piece and making the piece a part of the city at the same time. With this series Vhils is trying to express the notion that behind the monotone brick and concrete surfaces that make up the cities we live in, defining the nature of who we are, lies a human dimension which is dwarfed by the immensity of what they stand for. With this series Vhils has been exploring the notion of creating by means of destruction – a notion he first encountered in his practice of illegal graffiti. The main tool is based on the inverted use of the technique of stenciling – by forming compositions through the removal of different layers of matter to create sharp contrasts, instead of creating by the overlapping of layers. It is in essence an art of removal.

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Art by Vhils. Photo courtesy of Alexandre Farto

As with all large regional operations, the 160-person company is a very significant local employer. “It's one of the reasons why we consider the welfare of the employees so carefully, not just with the salary but with health insurance and overall well-being,” Lobo says. “Happier workers make for better productivity and, in the end, happier customers.” That does not change reality, however, and the company has been forced to reduce its staff number from 200 to achieve sustainable figures, even if it is fortunate enough to have 70% of its customer-base abroad. “Most of these were voluntary redundancies,” Lobo stresses. “And the crisis was perhaps good for us. In 2009, the turnover was 20 million Euros but we had been working at full capacity for five years without stopping to think about what we could improve.”

On The Right Track

But it is in Lisbon that most attention will naturally fall. And the reality is that the daily post at most firms brings raft after raft of CVs. “Until last year it was a battle to get qualified people interested in our projects,” recalls Eduarda Ferreira, head of the organizational development department at SISCOG, a provider of transport solutions based in the capital. “Then came the crisis and we now are being approached daily by computer engineers, mathematicians and other kinds of engineers. The emphasis is on financial control and cost-cutting. We are among the few to be swimming against the stream, but generally the first cost is staff and the younger the worker the easier and cheaper he or she is to lay off. Added to that, companies now need to be self-sufficient, with no support from banks or the government.” She points out that SISCOG is due to grow by 10-15% over the next year to 110 workers. Again, the company benefits from having an international presence, having won important tenders in the likes of the UK and Holland, but also with increasing attention turning towards Brazil, China and even the US. “Trying to enter the American market is a huge task,” she points out. “And it's the same in Brazil, even though we share the same language. But it was the same in the age of discoveries. We were a small country with small boats but we had to go somewhere.” “It's crazy,” she says with obvious sorrow. “So many workers are now looking to go to other countries: Brazil, the UK, wherever. There is less money around. Our market has shrunk.” Is there a solution for the country? After a pause comes the answer: “Quality, not quantity. But, even if you look outside Europe, you still need money to develop your product.”•

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19, 20, 21 Photos by Paulo Alegria "Covo's Men Series"

One day, my friend Paulo decides to face the revolving sea and invites himself aboard a trawler with no proven sailing skills whatsoever. Hell, I know he can’t even swim! But I also knew he lived in the city long enough to have heard about the unfortunate sinking of fishermen's boats once or twice. That’s just how he is when he gets an idea in his head. In the end, nothing of this matters to him, he confessed that he never thought of danger and argues that war photography must be incredibly worse. No fear, that’s why he understood what those octopuses being trapped and lifted out from the bottom of the continental shelf were trying to say: once outside their habitat, they may arise to their certain deaths, but maybe for just a second, they can have a glimpse of some of the most amazing things man can do, absolute beauty engraved in a perfect landscape. And that’s something worthwhile.

Paulo Alegria (1970) and Raul Pereira (1981) have worked together since 2008. Their work as appeared in some Portuguese publications and they hope to continue their partnership in the future, focusing on how modern life interferes and brings profound changes to ancient traditions.