Guide to Hiring Global Remote Teams

Guide to hiring remote employees

In this guide, we provide tips on how to recruit and hire remote employees, plus guidance on how to manage payroll and compliance according to local laws and international laws.?Hiring remote employees?can benefit your organization by bringing in skills that are scarce and or expensive in your location. In turn, remote work benefits employees by offering them the option to pursue the work they want, without the need to relocate. But, attracting and retaining remote workers brings its own set of challenges including managing payroll and compliance.

There's no question that work is becoming more globalized. Global expansion and hiring remotely have become the norm for many employers. With advances in technology combined with the Pandemic, businesses are recruiting talent from all over the world to work remotely on their teams.

There are many benefits of engaging and hiring global remote talent.

Some of the benefits include:

-A larger and far more diverse talent pool of applicants to choose from

-The ability to tap into a global market of top talent

-You can find candidates that are a better fit for your specific needs

-Generally, it is less expensive than traditional hiring methods.

Getting started with hiring global remote talent.

The process is not dissimilar then traditional recruitment methods.

First, you need to identify what skills, outputs, and outcomes (outcomes are very important) you need for your project. Take some time to consider what would make someone a good fit for your company, culture, team, communications stack (synch or async comms), and your specific needs and the output/outcomes you desire. Once you have a clear idea of what you're looking for and what you require and a clear understanding of your budget, you can start your search.

There are a few different ways to find remote candidates.

You can use online job boards, social media, or even networking events to share open positions. These are typically high quantity- low-quality options with limited ability to target and filter. There are millions of freelancers and contractors on many platforms. Linkedin has 3m+ people looking for remote work, Fivver, Upwork, Turing, Angellist, and Dribble are some of the more popular platforms.

The hiring process and interview process for remote global talent is very similar to hiring local talent. You will still want to have a clear opportunity brief (JD or project brief with very clearly defined outputs and outcomes desired). You will still need to assess their skills and qualifications and conduct video interviews. The main difference is that there are a lot of modern tech tools to enable this.

How to assess global talent & remote workers?

Cultural Fit:

Take some time to consider what would make someone a good fit for your company, culture, team, communications (synch or async comms), and your specific needs. Understanding and appreciating different cultural differences are critically important. The style and method of communicating from a western point of view could be very different than someone from another country.

Assessing technical fit for global remote workers?

Utilizing online code challenges and tests for potential job candidates has become very popular. Have candidates perform their stated expertise either in a live conversation and/or live coding challenge or by having them complete a challenge and share the results with the hiring managers. Some of the more popular providers are:

-HackerRank

-Codility

-Topcoder

-LeetCode

After you've identified and assessed your remote global talent, the next step is to interview them. Just like with any other interview, you'll want to prepare a list of questions in advance. Utilizing a variety of video conferencing platforms for video interviewing is the default. These include zoom, google meet, etc.

When you find the right person, it's important to think about how you will pay them and be compliant with local, regional, and federal compliance regulations.

The compliance challenges of working in global environments

Global HR compliance (international laws) and local employment laws for distributed teams?

Human resources compliance and labor laws refer to rules and procedures for multinational corporations which are aimed at ensuring their employees are protected in all aspects of their employment in a particular jurisdiction. So if you employ someone from Manila, they should get the same treatment as other workers in the US. However, these laws are different in different countries. In addition, global change means that HR policies change quickly, which poses challenges for leaders implementing new legislation.

It's extremely important to understand what rules apply to your company. Compliance in the USA is challenging as each state carries different laws regarding workers. The legal challenges of managing payroll, taxes, and benefits for a remote workforce in different states are difficult.

To ensure your business is compliant, you should:

- Understand the laws of the countries where your employees reside.

- Register your business in each country where you have employees.

- Determine whether your workers are considered employees or contractors.

- Withhold and pay taxes for each employee in every country they work from.

Hiring remote employees from around the world

For organizations that hire employees outside the US, organizations have typically engaged a Professional Employment Organization (PEO). A PEO is a company that provides HR, payroll, and other employment-related services to businesses to meet domestic and global compliance standards. They also act as an Employer of Record (eor services). PEOs and EORs have provided a great service to companies for decades. They have largely been utilized by large corporations as they are very expensive (sometimes as high as 35%+ of the candidate's annual compensation).

There are new and modern PEOs and EOR services that have sprung up in the past few years to address onboarding remote workers that ensure compliance across international borders. They are good solutions that utilize a modern tech stack, reflect a more modern way of working through digital platforms, and are generally less expensive than a traditional PEO. Some of these new platforms include Deel, Remote, and Oyster, and they all help with the compliance process in any given jurisdiction.

These new modern platforms are still expensive and remain largely out of the reach of earlier-stage companies and those with limited budgets.

Summary

The hiring process for a remote team or remote workers has become far easier and less expensive than in times past. Several emerging platforms help you filter, quality, and pay remote teams and be in compliance with local and international laws.

Hiring remote employees for remote jobs, ensuring compliance with local laws, maintaining company values and creating work-life balance for a distributed team has never been easier. Finding great candidates and being compliant are just a few clicks away.

If you're looking to hire a remote worker, we've made the process super simple and very affordable at Intrepid.

Join our private beta at: https://www.tryintrepid.com/ and start finding, hiring and paying remote workers from anywhere in the world.