Hiring international employees
Businesses looking forward to expand into the global market should be hiring foreign nationals to work overseas. This is because an international workforce may be the cornerstone for the company’s ability to flourish in the competitive global market.
Moreover, being remote-friendly enables the companies to cast a wider net and fish for the right talent from the global pool. This can also assist you with hiring competent professionals from cost centers which helps the firm to stay in line with the overall budget and reduction of total costs. However, this process of hiring international employees could be highly complicated provided the local laws implied for each country and the language barriers.
Benefits of hiring international employees
Recruiting foreign workers who live outside the country in which the organization is located could enhance the global mobility of the firm. Besides this, there are many other benefits associated with hiring international employees. In addition to having unique and varied experiences, foreign employees can also bring international knowledge to the organization thereby, scaling up the firm’s radius in terms of innovation and productivity. Let’s discuss in detail the other benefits associated with hiring foreign workers,
- Venturing towards Global talent: If the nation’s labor force lacks talented professionals in a specific arena, the hiring manager could decide on expanding the role across the globe to hire foreign nationals with the required skillset. One of the big fours, Deloitte surveyed around 450 companies over two years and identified some interesting metrics. Organizations that hire international staff are 1.7 times more likely to emerge as leaders of innovation within the industry and 1.8 times flexible with adapting to evident changes.
- Have a competitive edge: The concept of hiring more international workers improves the diversity fostered by the company thereby contributing towards achieving greater competitiveness. As in, hiring people from diverse cultures and backgrounds would essentially form a breeding ground for strong and innovative ideas.
- Increase in productivity: There are potential benefits caused by hosting a virtual team that works at different time zones rather than just the company’s location. This practice of getting work done round the clock would eventually increase the productivity metrics. This module could also keep the clients satisfied on account of quick turnarounds or just-in-time requests.
- Market exposure: The decision to extend full-time job offers for international employees would enable the company to plunge into the global market. Having a part of the organization’s pilot team operating from other countries could help the organization to familiarise themselves with the local culture and etiquettes. This reduces friction in the transition to a global market by not alienating international clients.
How to hire an international employee?
Although hiring international employees could be highly beneficial per the global trends, it does involve varied legalities and authorizations. The steps to hire an international employee are as follows,
Employment, immigration, and payroll laws:
The employment standards, immigration requirements, and payroll calculations set by the government remain distinct for every country. It is imperative to satisfy the laws of the home country as well as the host country. This is because the payroll is registered in the host country and the employees are entitled to receive their benefits according to the local legislation. In some cases, the laws of the home country may be lenient. However, remaining compliant with the host country’s rules may be quite challenging.
Multiplier allows you to hire the best talents across the world besides assisting with keeping you compliant with the local tax laws. From completing the tax forms on behalf of your organization to filing the paperwork and making the required payments, Multiplier would handle everything, and you can have a hassle-free global team of employees.
Hiring process:
You are expected to follow a distinct hiring process while hiring international employees. This is because hiring foreign nationals to work overseas would consume more time than dealing with domestic workers. Also, while hiring foreign workers, ensure to not expedite the process too much. Make it look like you are offering the job hastily. Do not miss out on describing how and why the employee would be an asset to your company.
Onboarding checklist:
A streamlined onboarding process exposes an employee to the desired expectations and company protocols. Researchers from Glassdoor believe that, an extensive onboarding experience would make about 82% of the employees to work for company over a longer-term thereby improving employee retention. Thus, the onboarding process is bound to improve employee attention. Ensure to develop a dedicated onboarding checklist to provide the international workers with the required space to emerge with relevant questions or concerns.
Create better relocation packages:
Any employee would assess the employee benefits while deciding whether to accept the job offer or not. Since your foreign workers come from various companies to join your workforce, you need to provide them with appealing relocation packages or other similar benefits.
Obtain the certification and work visas:
Before hiring an international employee, the employer would have to provide evidence for the scarcity of resources within the country to serve an open position. While hiring foreign workers, you as an employer would have to sponsor a visa. This process may be time-consuming and incur significant cost overheads.
Common mistakes in hiring international employees:
Misclassification of the employment status:
While hiring a foreign worker, it is common to have a misconception about their employment status, as in, a contractor or a full-time employee. If you pay a fixed amount to an individual at regular intervals, provide work equipment, and gain full access to their work schedule, they are deemed as your employees. This means that the firm owes due contributions and other benefits to that individual.
Multiplier contributes towards keeping your employees motivated by offering country-specific insurance benefits. To enable this service, you could verily assign benefits during the onboarding process and use our dashboard to manage employee details besides updating their benefits accordingly.
Violating the host country laws:
Every country has employment and labor laws in place. It could vary significantly from the laws extended by the home country. Some examples includes,
- Varying notice period durations
- Drafting an employment contract in the local language
- Remaining compliant with over-restrictive clauses and,
- Following the rules around employee rights
With Multiplier, you can onboard your international employees with ease besides generating a country-specific, compliant contract that could be signed by the employee.
Incorrect payroll calculations:
While employing foreign talents, you are expected to run a local payroll since the international hires cannot be added to the home payroll. The process of understanding a foreign contribution list could be highly complex. One erroneous calculation or missing out on a contribution can affect the employee’s take-home pay in addition to the benefits acquired through social security or pension funds. Although you can manage the recruitment and hiring stages with foreign employees, executing a compliant payroll by yourself could be increasingly difficult.
On that note, let’s look at how Multiplier could help you with managing global payroll in a few clicks. Multiplier also extends an inbuilt salary calculator to its clients. Firstly, our platform acquires a one-time payment in your local currency over a single invoice. We further calculate the tax amount along with monthly take home salary based on the country specific laws using the salary calculator application. The final amount thus calculated by the portal is distributed across your global team including all your foreign workers in their respective currencies.
Tips for international hiring:
To source and attract skilled professionals from foreign markets, international businesses should follow a strategic recruitment process. Below are some tips that could be followed while hiring foreign workers,
Network and acquire referrals:
While hiring international talent, ensure to get referenced from trusted sources rather than just dropping the job role in employment sites. Ask for recommendations from local businesses in your industry or your employees who have a global network. This would result in improving the credibility of your firm across the world while also contributing to your global talent pool.
Plan a career roadmap:
Once you hire foreign talent, plan a roadmap for their career. This would include relocation and the specific visa programs that are appropriate for the type of foreign worker you are hiring. To maintain a long-term relationship with these employees, you will also have to consider on-site experiences or relevant immigration programs. Such perks would always help the candidates to assess if the benefits offered would meet their requirements and result in them pursuing the position.
Prepare your company for the Global market
Remember that, by hiring foreign workers you are extending the working territory of your company. Hiring international professionals could contribute to cost reduction or overheads based on their local employment laws and benefits. Thus, it is essential to figure out well ahead as to, which roles should be filled with international employees.
Foreign Labour certification
When hiring foreign workers, it is imperative to admit that no harm would be caused to the local professionals due to the admittance of international employees. As in, the citizens of the country would not face a decrease in job opportunities, wages paid, or working conditions because of hiring international employees.
Expanding your business globally may result in huge benefits but hiring the right professionals to work for you overseas can be quite challenging. Keep the above-mentioned strategies in mind to ensure that your new business expansion attracts the right talent to put together an international team that can work towards success.
How can Multiplier help you with international hiring?
Multiplier has set up legal entities across the world to refrain our clients from the tedious documentation involved with managing international employees. Thus, we offer our clients the capability to hire international employees under our entities and expand the global team much faster and with no compliance risk. Get ready to find international talents and onboard them using Multiplier! To know more details kindly book a demo with us!
