Hiring Abroad: Top 10 Tips for Foreign Employment

Hiring abroad may seem like a tricky business. But if you develop a clear foreign employment strategy, you can build and manage an incredibly diverse distributed team. Though not all businesses feel the same way about it, our recent report has shown that remote working is definitely here to stay. 

Online job hiring abroad requires a number of considerations, like how to advertise foreign employment opportunities effectively, what traits to look for when employing foreign workers, and how to interview virtually. Here we take you through the next step - how to employ abroad correctly after you’ve found the right candidate. We’ve listed our top 10 tips to make foreign employment simple and effective for companies of all shapes and sizes.

Employ Compliantly

You absolutely need to be employing foreign workers according to their countries’ employment law. Some key considerations when hiring abroad are income tax, social security contributions, maximum working hours, and mandatory paid leave among many more.

Know Where Your Employees are Based

Employing foreign workers means your employees could be working anywhere in the world. You need to know where they are working from so you can employ them compliantly and ensure they have the right to work wherever they are. You can do this easily by adding a tick-box question in a new starter form.

Respect Public Holidays

Employees working abroad are entitled to paid leave on public holidays in their countries of residence. Respecting this not only ensures your compliance, but also shows that you value your team members’ cultural contexts. This is a great way to foster a sense of belonging within your team and retain foreign employees.

Be Aware of Permanent Establishment Risk

Online job hiring abroad can trigger Permanent Establishment (PE). PE makes you liable to pay corporate taxes in a given jurisdiction. Your foreign employee can trigger PE for your company depending on their activities. We’ve put together a detailed brief on PE risk and how you can avoid it.

Fair Salary Benchmarking

There are a number of ways to benchmark salaries when employing foreign workers. Whatever you decide, ensure you are paying salaries that are compliant, commensurate with employees’ qualifications and experience, and calculated the same way across your team.

Know How to Pay Your Foreign Workers

Unfortunately, there is no one system from which to pay all salaries, as well as taxes and contributions to the authorities when employing foreign workers. Many countries have specific systems in place, like PAYE in the UK. We’ve created a step-by-step plan on how to pay your employees working abroad.

Streamline Online Onboarding

When hiring internationally, set up a streamlined online onboarding process for an easy start to your employee’s new job. Give them access to all necessary online tools and allow them to onboard independently and asynchronously if needed. We also recommend scheduling lots of 1-on-1 meetings in the first month. Introduce them to the whole team within their first week to foster connection to the wider team.

Support Remote Office Set-Ups

One of the key questions for companies is whether foreign employment will hamper their employees’ productivity. You can easily keep your foreign workers engaged by helping them build a healthy remote office. Consider providing a remote work allowance. You can also use services like Vitrue VIDA’s virtual desk assessment to ensure your employees working abroad have the best remote office set-up.

Set Your Team Up with the Right Remote Technology

Remote working tools are incredibly helpful for maintaining communication across internationally distributed teams. They can help facilitate external meetings, task management, socialising, and ad hoc brainstorming. New software programmes like Slack or Monday are also helping teams work remotely across time zones. Be selective - choose the tools that suit your team’s needs.

Offer Learning and Development Opportunities

Virtual development tools can help your foreign workers do their jobs better. They can also further employee resilience and adaptability through up- and re-skilling. Companies like Learnerbly are helping businesses create bespoke training for all employees working abroad.