6 Benefits of Hiring International Employees and Contractors
With the rise in remote work, companies can now find talent anywhere and reap the benefits of global hiring. We looked at the many benefits to hiring across borders.
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Published on July 7, 2022
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Read Story →Thanks to remote work, your team no longer needs to all work from the same office or even the same country. Gone are the restrictions of having to work at the same time from the same place. Talented people live and work all over the world, with business happening at all hours of the day. It makes more sense now to hire internationally to stay competitive in an increasingly global market.Secure the most talented workers for your company, no matter where they live, by hiring international employees and contractors. By doing so, you’ll reap the many benefits, including a more diverse workforce, increased productivity, and potential cost savings.
Access to a global talent pool
There’s plenty of fish in the sea — and if you’re not hiring internationally, you’re missing out on some great catches. After all, there are over 7 billion people in the world, with no guarantee that the perfect person for a role lives in your country. Every company wants to hire the best person for the job, but you can’t hire someone who isn’t able to apply. When you remove limits on location, you hire the best talent based specifically on their skills and suitability for the role, not where they happen to live.Cast a wider net to invite applicants from all over the world, including highly skilled workers whom you’d otherwise miss out on. For example, great developers don’t just live in Silicon Valley; they’re everywhere, including Mexico, India, and Canada. Just hop on any remote job board and you’ll find hundreds of international workers with the many years of experience and exact certifications you’re looking for in a top candidate.You’ll receive more applications by advertising fully remote positions that are open to international hires. More applications mean more qualified candidates, so you can actually choose the most qualified person for the job.Ability to expand your business
Explore new markets and create new opportunities for growth with the help of your foreign workers. Hiring international contractors and employees is a highly strategic move for businesses expanding internationally.Local workers are more familiar with their regional markets. This sets your business up for greater success than if you were to send a domestic employee to work in a foreign country instead. Locals already understand their country’s culture, norms, trends, and standards of conducting business. They’re also fluent in their home country’s official language and can overcome any language barriers or cultural differences on the company’s behalf.Increased diversity
A diverse workforce where team members all come from different cultural backgrounds makes the organization that much stronger. Hire international workers to increase the diversity of your team and strengthen your company’s culture.Culturally-diverse employees from many different countries contribute unique perspectives that would otherwise be missing. An international workforce has more opportunities for cultural exposure and learning, which makes your entire organization more culturally informed. Research shows that diverse management teams boost innovation and creativity within their organizations, which in turn increases profits.Hiring a global workforce shows that your organization can attract and retain employees, especially those from underrepresented groups. A Glassdoor study found that nearly one in three (32%) employees and job seekers wouldn’t even apply to a company whose workforce lacks diversity. On the flip side, a Deloitte study showed that companies with more inclusive cultures report “22% lower turnover rates, 22% greater productivity, 27% higher profitability, and 39% higher customer satisfaction.”Potential savings on payroll costs
Hiring international employees and workers can sometimes be less expensive than hiring domestic ones. International hiring may help you save on employee compensation while still attracting and retaining top talent.Hiring internationally allows you to set your salaries independent of location rather than based on it. It also means you don't have to raise your total compensation to compete with the high expectations of expensive markets. For example, you don’t have to hire a developer living in San Francisco at a salary on par with San Francisco’s cost of living. Instead, you can set a salary that’s less pricey than the San Francisco standard but still competitive with the regions where talented developers often live.In addition, the costs of providing benefits to US-based full-time employees add up quickly, from paid leave and insurance to worker’s compensation. According to a study from the US Department of Labor, benefits accounted for about 31% of employee compensation costs for civilian workers in the US. International workers — contractors, especially — are often less expensive to employ because you may not need to provide as many benefits for them. This depends on the country, so it’s best to check local labor laws to determine what benefits you’re required to provide workers.You should offer competitive and equitable employee benefits to all workers no matter where they live as a company best practice. However, even factoring in the cost of benefits, the total cost of hiring international employees and contractors will likely be less than the cost of hiring domestic workers.Accelerated transition toward asynchronous work
Hiring international workers helps your organization transition more smoothly to asynchronous work as a company policy that benefits everyone. Asynchronous work means that everyone works on their own time instead of during set business hours. When your workforce lives in different countries across a variety of time zones, it becomes a best practice, if not a necessity, to lean into asynchronous work.It often doesn’t make sense to force your international workers who live on the other side of the world to adhere to your time zone’s nine-to-five schedule. When you hire internationally, you can do away with these set work hours for all of your employees and contractors. Instead, establish core hours for collaboration while still accommodating all of your workers’ time zones.Flexibility benefits everyone, whether near or far from your company’s headquarters. Employees feel more supported by their workplace when given greater flexibility in their workday. Asynchronous work removes time limits on productivity, allowing everyone to fit work into their lives instead of scheduling everything around work.You should still schedule meetings when they’re absolutely necessary for collaborative projects — as long as they’re held at times that are convenient for everyone involved. But defaulting to an async remote work culture helps accommodate all your employees — whether international or domestic.Flexibility in hiring as either contractors or employees
To hire as contractors or as employees... that is the question. And the answer is good news: You don’t have to choose just one or the other when you’re hiring internationally. You can hire international workers either as employees or as contractors, depending on what’s more convenient for both you and them.Hire international employees instead of contractors if you want to have a long-term working relationship with them. This also helps your company establish a more permanent presence in a foreign country, especially if you intend to keep hiring in that country.On the other hand, hire international contractors instead of employees if you have short-term needs or don’t want to commit to hiring extensively in one country. Hiring contractors also requires less paperwork and lower expenses than hiring employees, especially since you don’t have to withhold their taxes.Of course, whether you hire international workers as employees or as contractors depends on their preferences and their local labor laws. In some countries, it could be more beneficial to your international workers to be paid as contractors rather than employees, depending on their tax obligations. In other countries, workers may prefer to be hired as employees for the extra stability and guaranteed paid time off. Make sure to consult your international hires to find out if they’d prefer to be hired as employees or contractors.Easily grow your international team with Pilot
Hiring international workers isn’t always easy; there are many challenges to hiring international workers, such as legal compliance, taxes, competitive compensation, and employment contracts. Pilot is here to help you overcome all of those obstacles so that you can focus on hiring your dream team. We help companies hire and pay their international employees and contractors in over 240 countries, with a team of legal experts on board to answer any of your compliance questions. By working with an international payroll and HR platform like Pilot, you can hire international talent as either contractors or employees without the costs associated with opening a local entity first.With Pilot, you don’t have to worry about the logistics of international HR and payroll; we take care of it all for you. Try Pilot out today to find out why we’re the best hiring partner for companies that operate internationally!
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The information contained in this site is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be construed as legal advice on any subject matter.
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