Global hiring: The need for speed

With a widening skills gap to industry requirements, a shortage of talent, and borders not fully opening any time soon, the war for eligible employees is intensifying. New research by RMIT and Deloitte Access Economics shows the lack of digital tech workers alone could cost Australia $10bn in growth in the next four years.

But there are ways to succeed despite these gloomy outlooks. The solution – hiring overseas – is paying off for a good chunk of Australian operators. According to Australia’s International Business Survey 2019, 41% of companies’ operating teams in international markets saw their revenue increase.

Of course, recruiting overseas is not without its challenges. An important factor for success is speed, not least because your competitors may be planning, or already setting up, in your target markets. Which is where outsourcing to an Employer of Record comes in.

First challenge: market testing. “Market testing can be prohibitively expensive and present high risk,” says Craig Goldblatt, Vice President at Globalization Partners, whose global employment platform supports international borderless hiring in 187 countries.

“Hiring via a global employment platform allows companies to dip their toes in a market with little risk, without the large upfront costs and time delays in setting up a local entity. They can either expand the team and incorporate if the testing is successful, or swiftly wind down operations without the headaches that entity shutdown can present. This also ensures a kind and fair offboarding of employees in that market, with low risk to the company.”

Next challenge: market entry – also a time-consuming and bureaucratic affair. Entity setup can take months to years, and will often require cash down payments, learning local laws and tax regs, plus in-person visits to set up bank accounts, union agreements, and government processes.

“Companies can skip all of this because Globalization Partners has the infrastructure to support hiring, and there is no entity setup needed,” says Goldblatt.

“With our platform, companies simply choose their candidate, and we take it from there. We also provide in-country HR support, and our full stack technology takes on all the admin to make global team management easy.”

Your third challenge may come at the hiring stage. Speed is once again of the essence. Imagine, for example, you’ve pinpointed your amazing talent, but you have no legal way to hire them as a full-time employee.

“The best candidates will rarely risk accepting a role as an independent contractor. They want to be hired by a respected entity, which can give them employee status and country-compliant benefits,” says Goldblatt. “Globalization Partners’ technology means you can hire one or many candidates in a matter of days. This stage can be time-consuming for companies.  Even those with in-house legal teams.”

A fourth challenge happens where you do have contract workers, and need to ensure they’re classified correctly. Responsible global and regional management can avoid a potentially costly scenario and reputational damage. If your contractor has strayed into the area of being classified as an employee by local compliance regulations, you may need to act. To avoid fines for worker misclassification, to minimize disruption to operations, and to ensure a great employee experience, you may need to convert them to an employee status quickly.

To do this, you need full stack technology that generates compliant contracts in minutes and onboards new global employees rapidly and compliantly. Hiring these professionals via Globalization Partners puts them on a single, globally compliant platform. This also makes for a smoother, faster, and more engaging user experience all round – one platform protecting data and reducing the risk of privacy breach, which is essential.

Last but not least, your fifth challenge relates to securing a valuable candidate long-term. Once you’ve found your superhero employee, you want to hang onto them with good pay and benefits packages.

“Globalization Partners has all these relationships, contacts, and contracts set up, so you can offer life or travel insurance, medical, pension contributions, and any other benefit that’s considered standard in that country – no research required,” says Goldblatt.

Full stack tech also means prompt payment, in local currency, and with the tax processes taken care of.

“This makes new hires trust you have formal, professional mechanisms in place for their employment. Trusting your company is doing the best they can for you contributes to long-term engagement.”

See how easy it is to onboard, pay, and manage your global team — all in one place. Experience Full-Stack Global Employment Platform"