What is an Employer of Record Services?
An Employer of Record, also known as EOR, is a reliable third party that takes care of hiring full-time employees on behalf of your organization. With the EOR solution, you can hire, manage and pay global employees in a seamless way. An international employer of record (EOR) is a third-party service that enables small, medium, and enterprise-level businesses to easily onboard, manage, and pay international employees. It can handle everything from legal compliance to payroll processing for your employees working in different countries.
What does an employer of record services do?
Working with remote teams is a convenient option in many ways. When you build a remote team for your business, demographic limits do not stop you, and you can access a global pool of talents.
When your business operates remotely, you can easily onboard international talents who can meet your company’s requirements efficiently. With this, your business gets more opportunities to enter new markets and grow in multiple directions.
However, you have problems when hiring employees on a global basis.
Yes, each country has various sets of labor laws and tax regulations. Plus, these social norms are subjected to change from time to time.
Given the scenario, you have to ensure that your company complies with these legal structures in order to onboard international employees.
Managing all these on your own is obviously a herculean task. Here is where an Employer of Record comes into play.
An employer of record service can help you with the following HR-related activities.
Payroll
Employer of Record services takes care of everything about payroll, including setting up and managing deposits, taxes, tax contributions, payment schedules, and any other payroll-related functions for your remote team in an error-free way.
Benefits
The employer of record solution administers all employee benefits, including paid day-offs, bonuses, commissions, reimbursements, health insurance, retirement plans, and much more, on behalf of your organization.
HR/legal
When onboarding employees from other countries, you ought to ensure that you maintain compliance to avoid legal hassles. With an employer of record, you can establish channelized and compliant hiring practices within your organization.
Additionally, the reliable third party also handles other HR functions such as registration, tax filing, and more for your organization.
Miscellaneous services
In addition to the above-mentioned responsibilities, an EOR solution also extends professional assistance for other miscellaneous activities such as keeping track of medical leaves and other short-term and long-term absences of employees at work, compensation and termination negotiation.
Benefits of Employer Of Record services
Below are the benefits of using the best Employee of Record services to take care of the HR-related activities of your organization.
Precision
Onboarding and managing international employees demands you to handle complex calculations. So, errors may occur now and then if you handle these HR activities on your own or with an in-house team. Plus, it isn’t easy to identify the source of the error.
On the contrary, when you entrust an EOR to take charge of HR functions, you can quickly put an end to the conventional payroll processing methods. Either way, this is a better option than struggling to handle global payroll with an in-house team that also has other organizational responsibilities to cater to.
Besides preventing unintentional errors, you can expect greater accuracy in everything, including calculating the working hours, paid time offs, deductions, employee benefits, generating reports, tax filings and much more when you go for multi-country payroll outsourcing services to handle your company’s payroll at large.
Time
Global employee management does consume a lot of time. Another problem is it needs constant attention because many of its parameters, including taxes and legal procedures, change without any early sign. If you fail to keep track of these changes in various countries across the globe, you might end up placing the wrong brick, and the entire payroll process will collapse in no time.
Given the scenario, taking care of multi-country payroll on your own or with an in-house team does not sound like a wise choice. It’s high time for a change, and if not, you and your resources will only end up spending more time while missing out on big business prospects that come your way.
Taking professional help from a trusted EOR solution is the first best way to stop all these from dawning upon your company.
When you opt for an EOR, you let a trusted third party manage everything about your global payroll. This way, you save a lot of time, energy, and money for your organization.
On the other hand, this also means you have more time for your core business activities, and you can also encourage your employees to exhibit more productivity at work.
Increased productivity can fetch you more business prospects, and spending more time on the same can translate opportunities into your loyal customers. When you gain more new customers, you can increase the revenue flow of your company and expand into new markets in the days to come.
This way, an EOR can help you to grow your global business while streamlining what is happening behind the actual business scene.
Cost
As you know, it isn’t easy to achieve high precision even when you have an internal team for global HR management.
The question here is, what is the point in handling global payroll on your own when your expectations are not rightly met, but you end up overspending time, money, and your human resources on it?
An EOR can help you save all the costs you spend on these resources. Yes, it is both effective and affordable.
If you compare the costs you spend on an EOR and the total sum of money you pay your in-house payroll managers while taking their total hours at work into account, you will see a big difference there.
With a well-targeted strategy, you can invest the money saved into your core business activities and boost your profit margins incredibly.
Enhanced Security
Global HR management involves handling confidential information regarding your global employees and your organization.
Managing it without proper resources can pose a serious threat to server safety which, in turn. leads to a data breach.
With an EOR, you need not worry about data theft because their advanced technology tools can withstand cyber attacks and safeguard your business data.
With EOR solution, you can rest assured that your company’s payroll is handled efficiently with zero compromise on safety.
Types of Employer of Record Company
Employer of Record companies are of two types — Wholly-owned infrastructure model or EOR companies using consolidator or aggregator model.
Wholly-owned infrastructure model
EOR companies working through wholly-owned infrastructure models have registered entities in the country for which they offer services. EOR companies operating through this model have good local expertise and experience. They provide cost-effective services. They are free to make their policies and contracts as no local partner is involved.
Aggregator model
EOR companies not incorporated in the country for which it provides services and takes the help of local partners come under aggregator model. Often these EOR companies are of small size and lack expertise themselves. The benefit of collaborating with aggregator model EOR companies is that they cover more countries easily and quickly. It can work as a one-stop EOR service provider for employers who want to expand their businesses in multiple countries in a short time and need local experts for this.
Manage Compliance Confidentiality with EORs
PEOs are not entirely responsible for their clients in some situations, such as when they hire someone from another nation or jurisdiction. It is necessary to comply with local laws fully, and some PEOs cannot offer this service.
An EOR solution is far more involved with tax requirements and numerous other perks and compliance issues due to its contractual relationship with the employees. This indicates that an EOR tends to decrease the clients’ “compliance issues” considerably more than a PEO when relieving the time drain/workload through outsourcing.
Handle insurance EORs
It is mandatory to offer health insurance to your employees in most of the countries. As an employer, your employees’ well-being is your responsibility, and you have to provide good health insurance to your employees to cover them and their families. It gives a feeling of security to employees.
EORs make this process smooth for you when you hire employees from another country where you are legally not allowed to offer health insurance.
EORs protect your staff by covering them under EOR’s insurance plans and policies. EORs are good at adhering to all insurance rules and regulations, particularly regarding health care.
Operate without business registration
Business registration is a mandatory process to expand business in other countries. This process usually has complex legal requirements, resulting in excessive legal bills and increased liability. This makes it necessary for employers to have corporate law experts for every location they want to expand their business.
However, most EORs have incorporated entities in the country they are operating. The client company can avoid having to register itself in numerous places in this manner.
How to compare employer of record (EOR) services?
Answers to this question can be unique for every unique situation. However, to choose the EOR service partner that best meets your goals, you should thoroughly study a few essential qualities.
Here are five things to consider while evaluating Employer of Record service providers:
Reputation
Find out how long they have been in operation and who their present clientele is.
An EOR solution takes on duties for various administrative tasks related to your company’s operations. These can include managing local payroll processing, presenting as a legitimate employer in your host nation, sponsoring applications, adhering to international labor rules, and administering benefits for your foreign workers.
Therefore, to maintain worker safety, reduce compliance risks, and give you peace of mind, ensure the EOR service provider you are considering has extensive experience in the required field.
Service Model
Consider the service model your potential EOR service provider is following. Is it a one-size-fits-all strategy, or are their models tailored to the needs of the businesses they serve? Do they communicate largely online, or will you be given a dedicated point of contact to whom you can escalate concerns and seek advice on issues?
It helps you understand what kind of service you can want from an EOR service provider after the collaboration.
Technology
Working with an EOR service provider requires technology because it is necessary for onboarding international employees, tracking hours for payroll and tax purposes, and assuring compliance.
The ideal system enables you to easily manage the employee lifecycle and integrate it with your company’s software. You can request the demo to assess how the user experience will function for you before collaborating with EOR.
You should also evaluate the security infrastructures of their software because you’ll be sharing a lot of sensitive information that you have a legal obligation to protect. It ensures the data belonging to your company is kept secure.
Geographic experience
Employee payroll service is a complex procedure that requires the calculation of tax withholdings, insurance deductions, wage garnishments, and sick and leave accrual.
Make sure the EOR services you choose have a successful track record in the region you plan to expand your business. Federal, state, or local laws vary with locality and region. Such rules frequently include the threat of civil fines and penalties for violations.
So to ensure regulatory compliance, you should work with EOR companies that are conversant with international employment laws.
Employee-related benefits they offer
One most significant advantage of EOR service is the benefit program they offer. As EOR companies work with numerous companies, they get more discounts in the benefits market than individual companies.
As a result, even small business owners can provide their foreign staff with the benefits programs usually found in giant corporations.
Choosing Your Employer of Record Service Provider
Given the involvement of confidential information, there are a few factors you need to take into consideration before you opt for HR payroll outsourcing.
Narrow Down What You Want
When you want someone else to process your company’s HR functions on your behalf, you need to have a clear idea of what you want them to do exactly. Be more precise with the kind of employees your organization comprises, the taxes, and deductions to be taken into account while processing the global payroll.
Doing this can fetch you two benefits. First, you will be able to narrow down the best employer of record services and choose the one that can rightly cater to your needs.
Second, your input will be quite useful to the external party, which, in turn, leads to channelized overseas employee management.
Handpick Your Service Provider
Managing remote teams involves handling sensitive information. Yes, the data comprises the personal information of your employees and some aspects of your company’s confidential information as well.
Given the scenario, you need to make sure in every possible way that your data is in safe hands and that they will maintain confidentiality to the fullest.
Explain Your Requirements
Once you find a reliable external party that can be a good fit for you, get in touch with them so that they can take the burden of international employee onboarding and management off your shoulders. Let them take care of it for you while you go back to fetch more business opportunities that can open up your revenue pipelines.
Why choose Multiplier for EOR Services?
Multiplier is a powerful technology platform that can address and automate everything about payroll processing.
As a trusted EOR, we help companies to hire, manage and pay employees anywhere across the world, all in just a click. The best thing is you can do all of these without a local entity.
No matter if you want to onboard many people from one country or build an international team with ten people, each one belonging to a different country, Multiplier helps in every step of the way to create your dream team in a hassle-free way.
We promise zero complications for the company and let you gain complete ownership over your employees. On the other hand, it also takes care of legal compliance, taxes, and deductions that are problematic for you.
In a nutshell, Multiplier simplifies complex payroll and tax payments for companies, saving a great deal of time and resource use at large. The platform makes it easier than ever before to keep track of payments, and approve and pay employees working for firms from anywhere in the world.
Happy employees make a successful organization. Pay your employees on time by using an advanced, error-free platform and make them even happier while scaling up your business to reach new heights.
Want to unlock the amazing benefits of EOR for your business? Contact us at Multiplier today.
FAQs
Q. Who uses an Employer of Record Services?
Any business that wants to expand in another country without incorporating the company can take the help of EOR services to hire global talent.
Q. How long does it take to onboard or offboard an employee?
This can vary depending on the onboarding and offboarding process a company is following. Where companies usually take 2-3 weeks, some big corporations can take up to 3 months to onboard an employee.
Similarly, the offboarding process for probationary employees is easier and less time-consuming than for permanent employees.
