The doors for global employment swung open as the pandemic forced us to cope with new working conditions.
Since the beginning of the lockdowns, we’ve experienced a sudden change in how we live our lives. From the way we buy our food to how we connect with people, everything suddenly changes. Everything turned remote instantly, leaving businesses blindsided on how to maintain productivity from a distance.
However, this situation only opens more opportunities than ever before. According to Global Analytics, 25 – 30% of the workforce will work at home. With the rise of remote work, tapping into talents from all over the world has never been easier.
In fact, 16% of the companies in the world are already working remotely in 2022. The trend has only been going in this direction, with a 155% increase in remote work since 2009. What we’re experiencing now is an innovation in how we work on a massive scale.
Now, let’s dive into how to make the most of this trend to achieve better business results through global employment. We’ll be understanding what it is and how it can help push your business forward.
What is Global Employment?
Global employment, also known as international employment, can be defined as employing eligible people outside the company’s current country. This process includes hiring employees worldwide and ensuring that employment laws and labor codes specific to their country are adhered to. The organization shall pay the employees according to the market rate or the employee’s preferred salary.
The most critical aspects of global employment are the taxes and requirements of the hiring candidate’s country, which the company must abide by. Circumventing these laws may prove more detrimental in the long run. There are also international employment laws, depending on the country; that’s why it’s essential to understand each country’s background.
More importantly, global employment entails fully remote work. It’s often difficult to grasp because of its difference from the in-office work environment. That’s why it’s important to know the benefits of global employment.
What are the benefits of Global Employment?
As a business owner, you understand that knowledge is the key to growth. Recognizing global employment’s effects helps you make informed decisions on how to invest your company’s resources better.
Understand that the benefits of building a diverse workplace push your business’ competitive advantage to new heights. This push creates an open culture that embraces diversity and enhances creativity. The increased diversity in your workforce assists your business in adapting to new markets with relative ease.
Bolstering your workforce with foreign employees has so much upside that it’s detrimental not to invest in the future. Let’s dive deeper into the benefits of global employment.
1. HAVING ACCESS TO PEOPLE WITH SPECIALIZED SKILLS
In this global world, people separated by oceans can connect with a click of a button. That’s why there’s an opportunity to tap into a lot of talent through different international job portals. Websites such as Upwork (known for their wide skillsets in freelancing), Michael Page (an American employment agency open to the global market), and Multiplier are sources of rich talent that can help you with your business.
With international employment, skills and talents lacking in your area can be outsourced and retained within your workforce.
2. LEADING WITH COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
Having a rich and diverse cultural workforce enhances cross-cultural learning, which can induce creativity within the workforce. Employees are given the opportunity to broaden their horizons with exposure to unfamiliar social customs. These aid them in looking at the world differently, enhancing collaboration and innovation.
In the long run, employees exposed to a multicultural working environment develop important soft skills related to communication, open-mindedness, and adaptability. These little things add up to lead your company in attaining a competitive advantage against your competitors, priming your business to gain a 35% chance of attaining above-average financial returns.
3. INTEGRATING BETTER PROBLEM-SOLVING THROUGH DIVERSE COLLABORATION
Hiring international employees promotes better problem-solving capabilities within your workforce. The friction created by being exposed to people with varying backgrounds enhances individuals’ creativity. Contrasting personal backgrounds and experiences may bring novel ideas that encourage innovative solutions leading your company forward.
4. MOVING INTO NEW MARKETS WITH EASE
Hiring people from other countries positions your company to break into new, unfamiliar markets. With localized knowledge and experience, your workforce has a better chance of rolling out products and campaigns without alienating the local market. Having this adaptability within your workforce is paramount to staying on top of your industry.
5. PROVIDING BETTER CUSTOMER SERVICE
In line with positioning your company to new markets, international employment opens the doors for having diverse cultural teams. This enables you to understand the nuances between countries, regions, and continents. You’re better prepared to cater to your clients with the cultural and linguistic backgrounds your employees have. You can service your customers according to their cultural preferences with a deeper knowledge of your market.
Now that we know how global employment can help your business thrive in this new remote working era, let’s now take a look at the challenges we face with this new opportunity while also providing practical solutions to make this shift achievable.
What are the challenges of Global Employment?
There are risks associated with global team staffing that permeates to co-employment, especially if two or more entities share the responsibility of employing the worker. Risks such as misclassification and communication problems are often the cases that global employment services solve.
However, we will focus more on the upside of tapping global talent, understanding the challenges of building a global workforce, and how global employment enhances the success of building an open, multicultural workforce.
The most common challenges companies face in achieving a successful global employment program are issues around:
- Communication
- Interruptions and distractions
- Isolation
- Career Advancement
- Payroll and Compliance
1. COMMUNICATION
Communication is a constant issue across all working environments owing to language barriers and heavy regional accents. Timezones and flexible work schedules are also natural hindrances in achieving smooth communication.
How can you improve communication in your team?
To solve these issues, employers must first hire the right candidate with a strong command of the international lingua franca or the desired language the company wants to use.
Another aspect is to provide guidance and leadership in setting the communication culture among the workforce. Setting weekly workshops and reiterating the company culture can improve employee communication by leaps and bounds. What’s important is to focus on improving the individual employee’s interactions with colleagues and the company.
Tools and processes also minimize communication issues between remote global teams. Effective using Slack, Zoom, or Microsoft Zoom can bridge the gap in communication between teams.
With enough time, forming the proper organizational habits in communication will yield efficient productivity for your company.
2. INTERRUPTIONS AND DISTRACTIONS
Interruptions and distractions always abound, even within the workplace, and are unavoidable. With remote work, it’s even more inevitable because of the unique environment each employee is in.
So, what can you do to minimize those distractions?
One of the best solutions for minimizing distractions is to provide working spaces for your employees.
How can you do this if they’re all remote?
Providing co-working spaces for clusters of employees living near each other could help set the work environment. This also gives a sign that your company cares about its employees. You’re hitting two birds with one stone here.
One, you’re providing space to help your employees focus. Two, you recognize that every individual is different. Providing a space for work can help your workforce be more productive. But this should not be the norm and can be given in special circumstances.
The most important aspect of dealing with distractions and interruptions must come from your employee. You can solve this issue in the initial stages of hiring. Screen for self-disciplined individuals with a strong mental proclivity for focus to avoid distracted employees.
3. ISOLATION
Working remotely has tons of benefits for the employee.
Having the luxury to work at home and spend more days with the people you love is the best thing that’s happened with the pandemic. However, not everybody has a family or people they can be with. Sometimes isolation is part of working remotely.
With prolonged isolation, mental health decline cannot be avoided and hampers productivity.
Besides isolation from other people, sometimes isolation from teams or the company is also possible. Even though communication lines are open, the interaction quality differs from face-to-face communication.
What can you do to minimize the effect of isolation?
Encouraging your employees to work in communal workspaces like coffee shops, coworking spaces, or open floor plans can provide human stimulation to avoid personal isolation.
One way your company can also minimize the isolation of an individual employee is to over-communicate with the tasks and responsibilities they have. Of course, lending in the human touch, like reaching out and connecting with isolated employees, can also be a solution.
Encourage your employees to schedule a personal time for themselves and get fresh air. Small breaks are needed to keep employee satisfaction and productivity flowing.
4. CAREER ADVANCEMENT
Like regular employees, remote employees are also interested in advancing their careers. Managing a remote working team is a whole other challenge in itself, but individuals must be given opportunities to further their skills and their careers through their work. Even though it’s difficult to conceptualize a structure when working remotely, regular opportunities for vertical growth are still desirable.
How will you assess the performance of your team?
Setting the same standards for remote employees and regular employees is paramount. You can start by creating an employee evaluation program for your remote employees in line with regular employees.
Keep your focus more on the quality rather than the quantity of your employee’s progress. Create key performance indicators to identify who is performing according to your company’s standards. This will help you determine who is suitable to progress within the company.
5. PAYROLL AND COMPLIANCE
As you know, different countries have different currencies and taxes. Each has unique requirements and currencies that may be difficult to track. The rates you have in your country most likely aren’t found in other countries.
Unless you have dedicated personnel for payroll and compliance, you may find it troublesome to keep yourself in line with each country’s strict policies. Failing to do so would spell unwanted fees and legal trouble.
How can you stay compliant with your employee’s payroll?
As stated above, you can hire dedicated employees to cover your compliances. They’ll be in charge of keeping your taxes filed and your international employees paid. However, the added expenditure may not be worth it if you only have a handful of international employees.
An alternative solution is to hire global employment services specializing in international payroll and compliance. They have the experience, personnel, and industry knowledge to provide your needed services. They can also offer HR platforms that can be integrated in your company to optimize your payroll, compliance, and other HR processes.
What matters most is staying compliant and avoiding major penalties that can damage your company’s reputation. By staying on top of the legal aspects of international employment, you’ll minimize the roadblocks you have in the future.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Global employment has taken the world by storm. This pandemic made us realize that working remotely is feasible in our day and age. There’s no excuse for you not to tap into the world’s talent pool.
Any time, anywhere, you have the means to employ talents from all over the world. You can have a competitive edge by onboarding people from around the globe with skills and experience that surpasses your expectations.
This helps you push the envelope forward in improving creativity and innovation within your organization. And with your diverse workforce in place, it’ll be easier for you to launch new campaigns in emerging markets outside your country.
Keep in mind that there are still challenges with global team staffing which are:
- Miscommunication
- Unending interruptions and distractions
- Inevitable isolation
- Unclear career advancement
We can minimize these issues by
- Hiring the right people with a strong command of the preferred language is always a must.
- Providing workspaces or incentives but, more importantly, hiring the right people
- Encouraging your employees to work in outside environments with other people, even without personal interaction
- Providing appropriate KPIs to guide your employees for constant improvement and let them be qualified for the position
On top of all that, always communicate with your workforce and let them provide horizontal feedback through managers and stakeholders. We can’t reiterate this enough – constant communication with your international employees is necessary. As with international employment, you must be clear and concise in your communication style.
See to it that every point is clear. Minimize miscommunication every chance you get. When this is clear, improvements will follow.
Ramp Up Your Global Employment With Multiplier
With all the benefits global employment entails, tapping into the potential is worth the challenge. It is certainly difficult to lead a global workforce, but it’s not impossible.
Don’t let this opportunity to let your business grow to pass you by.
Global employment services can help you get on your way.
We at Multiplier can help you jump-start your international employment journey. We have entities in over 150 countries all over APAC, Europe, and the Americas. We provide an all-in-one payment platform solution with over 120 currencies directly payable to global employees. We have legal and accounting experts to help with local compliances across different countries.
Book your demo today!
