At the age of 90 on July 26 Frits Goldschmeding deceased, one of the richest people in the Netherlands. Goldschmeding earned his billions in fortune with temporary work: when he started, in the early sixties, it was a novelty from the United States and not much better than human trafficking and exploitation.
Goldschmeding, of reformed descent, came from a family that he himself described as ‘upper middle class’. His father had a business in pianos and organs, his mother came from an entrepreneurial family. When he had just started his own company, she asked him all kinds of ‘smart business questions’. For example: do you have to pay temporary workers when they are sick?
His professor of economics at the Free University in Amsterdam, Freek van Muiswinkel (1904-1969), suggested to Goldschmeding and his fellow student Gerard Daleboudt to do some research into this temporary work. They wrote a thesis about it and discovered a new market at a time when working for the same boss for a lifetime was still normal.
Together they started a temporary employment agency in 1960, located in Amsterdam-Zuid. By chance a very convenient location: there were many students living in that area and they were looking for temporary jobs. His first client brought Goldschmeding to work by bike. ‘Then I knew she would be on time,’ he said. He graduated in 1963.
Goldschmeding – his partner left to write poetry – first called his company Uitzendbureau Amstelveen, then Randstad. Deliberately not after himself, because then people might first think of his father’s pianos and organs.
Oil slick
He quickly developed a testing system to match job seekers and work as perfectly as possible. He also saw early on the possibilities of automation to bring supply and demand together.
In the first year of the agency’s existence, income was low: profit was 9 guilders and 8 cents – or 4.12 euros. Eight years later, things looked very different: annual turnover was then 20 million guilders (9.1 million euros) and there were twenty branches, also in Belgium, Germany and England.
The expansion was carried out in a way that Goldschmeding first called the ‘oil slick’ and later, more picturesquely, the ‘water lily’ principle. In practice, this meant that the company would establish itself somewhere and only expand once it had gained sufficient name recognition.
Company code
Goldschmeding, a fan of Roxy Dual cigarettes, was busy with his company day and night, according to his secretary Hielkje Beeksma. The bigger it got and the more branches it had, the more important it became that everyone worked in the same way and according to the same values. To achieve that, Goldschmeding introduced a company code: ‘knowing, serving, trusting people’ – that was what it was all about.
He described his management style as ‘not a shout here, a shout there. But see if you can explain to people what needs to be done.’ He did not advertise, he found it too expensive, except for the illegal radio station Veronica. There the well-known jingle sounded: ‘Randstad employment agency-ho!’
In the early years of his business, Goldschmeding was viewed with great suspicion by the government. In particular, a civil servant at the Ministry of Social Affairs made his life miserable. He did not let this discourage him – on the contrary. This opposition made him sharp.
Moreover, the sixties and seventies were a period in which entrepreneurs and the business community were suspect anyway. Nevertheless, Randstad’s turnover grew by leaps and bounds: from 1972 onwards by an average of 20 percent annually and profits also increased steadily.
IPO
In 1977, the phenomenon of temporary work was so well established that the initially suspicious government, together with the social partners, started its own employment agency, called Start. Unemployment was high in that period and as many people as possible had to find work, no matter what.
Two years later, Goldschmeding was able to open his hundredth branch. In 1990, the stock market flotation followed. Not for the money; he had enough money, according to Goldschmeding. But this way, the staff could also become a bit of owner of the company. Moreover, the entrepreneur wanted appreciation for his work.
The IPO, supervised by ABN AMRO, was a flop, much to Goldschmeding’s annoyance, and the bank was left with 700,000 shares. Those shares did become worth something later: between early 1991 and late 1997, Randstad’s share price rose from 45.50 guilders to 384.74 guilders (from, converted, 25 euros to 192 euros), a more than reasonable return.
‘It must be in my nature to want to jump further than someone else,’ Goldschmeding once said about himself. Friends called him ‘sociable, amiable, idiosyncratic, vain, paternalistic’. He saw his shortcomings: for example, he did not consider himself a good manager. ‘Let me be an entrepreneur.’ He considered himself quasi-pathetic. ‘I am a pathetic figure, because I started and ended as a director and therefore never got a promotion.’
Foundation
At 45, he considered quitting – he had long since stopped working for money – and going into science. But that seemed too abstract to him.
Goldschmeding calculated everything. If a new elevator was needed in his head office, his mind would start to rattle. Do I use the expensive one that goes really fast? Or the cheaper, slow one? What does it cost me if my employees have to wait a long time for the elevator and can’t work?
The fast elevator turned out to be cheaper. The company offered lunch at the office. That way, most employees were back to work after half an hour.
In 1998, the then 65-year-old Goldschmeding left the company he had founded. But he did not live quietly or devote himself to his hobby, ocean sailing. Goldschmeding believed that the money you earned is not yours, but everyone’s, because without others you could not have earned it. So it had to go back into society, via the Goldschmeding Foundation for People, Work and Economy. He always remained involved with his foundation.
Charity
This also gave him the opportunity to proclaim his (economic) wisdom and insights into life. Like more successful, wealthy people, Goldschmeding wanted to show that there is more than just making money. This foundation is based on three pillars: humane economy, sustainable work and an inclusive labor market.
The most important thing for him was love, that was all-determining. But especially the variant agapeGreek for charity. Devotion to others, that is what it is all about. That makes the world a better place and is ‘profit for everyone’. The economic is only one aspect of man and society.
Goldschmeding was married three times and leaves behind three children. On the website of his foundation, in the spirit of the founder, his death is modestly reported.
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