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How to Hire Overseas Employees: A Step-by-Step Guide

How to Hire Overseas Employees: A Step-by-Step Guide

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4 min read
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Key takeaways

  • Overseas employees can work remotely from their home countries, or come to your country through work visa sponsorship.
  • How work visa sponsorship works: Work visa sponsorship can be a complex process — and it doesn’t always guarantee you will have access to the workers you need.
  • Hiring overseas employees that stay in their home country can be a quicker, easier, and more cost-effective alternative to work visa sponsorship.
  • Using an employer of record (EOR) is one of the most commonly used ways companies hire overseas employees, because EORs are easy to use and take on the legal risk for the companies they partner with.

Hiring overseas employees

From companies experiencing global growth to NGOs with local contracts, there will always be a need for overseas employees in a global world. But how do you hire overseas employees? What is work visa sponsorship, and how does work visa sponsorship work? How do you pay global employees in compliance with local laws? Read on to learn the basics about hiring overseas employees — whether you need to bring them to your country or have them work from their own.

1. Determine if you need remote or in-country workers

Today, remote work makes it easier than ever before to hire employees overseas. If your business or organization is experiencing global growth but doesn’t require on-site work, hiring remote workers who stay in their home country can be advantageous for several reasons: access to a global talent pool, lower employment costs, and a diverse, international workforce that speaks multiple languages and works from time zones around the globe.

Having team members work from their home countries also gives you more options for employing these workers legally, such as partnering with an employer of record (EOR).

If your organization requires that workers be on-site in your country to perform their jobs, bringing them over through work visa sponsorship is usually the only avenue. Depending on your country’s immigration laws, this process can be long, confusing, and expensive for both talent and their sponsoring companies. Most nations also restrict the number of foreign workers coming in, especially from particular countries — this means that there is never 100% assurance of obtaining the work visa necessary for a particular employee.

2. Recruit the workers you need from ideal locations

If you aren’t in need of on-site workers, you have the flexibility to hire employees from countries that meet your unique needs. This might mean regions where the labor is less expensive, where a large number of skilled workers in your industry live, or where government regulations make operations particularly cost-effective. A global recruitment partner like Safeguard Global can provide the knowledge you need to determine what country is best for hiring overseas employees — whether you’re looking to hire for full-time, part-time, or interim work.

3. For in-country workers, determine eligibility and type of work visa sponsorship.

When it comes to work visa sponsorship, many employers are starting with basic knowledge. So what is work visa sponsorship, and how does it work? Sponsoring a work visa varies from country to country, but in general, workers apply for a permit to work in your country on a temporary or permanent basis, and your company supplies the certification that you will provide the foreign worker with a job along with other details. For many visas, you also must certify that the worker is highly skilled, has skills that you can’t find in your home country, or other prerequisites. Workers often have to meet other requirements such as background checks, residency length requirements, and in-country character references.

What type of work visa sponsorship your employee will need depends on what country they’re going to and (usually) what country they’re coming from. The visa process can be complicated and confusing, and because many countries only issue a small number of visas each year, competition for slots can be tough. Financially, sponsoring companies are often required to pay application fees and administrative costs for work visas. Extra work permits are sometimes needed. And in many countries, laws or quotas can change suddenly. In other words, the visa sponsorship process can be burdensome for companies that don’t have long timeframes, expert knowledge, and extra capital.

4. For foreign remote employees, determine how you will legally employ them.

Hiring overseas doesn’t always require work visa sponsorship. By hiring employees who work from their home countries, you can bypass the onerous processes and fees that come with sponsoring a work visa. 

However, overseas workers come with their own set of challenges in terms of legal compliance. That’s because you have to make sure to follow the laws and regulations of the country that your employee lives in, which can be drastically different from those of your home country.

Here’s a closer look at the types of employment for overseas employees, and the pros and cons of each:

  • Contractors: Contractors can be a good choice if you need part-time or temporary work, but the risk of misclassifying a contractor who should actually be a full employee under a foreign government’s laws is high. 
  • Establishing your own entity: Establishing a legal business entity in a foreign company can be an option, but this complicated and time-consuming process is usually not cost effective for companies unless they’re looking to hire a large number of employees in a particular country.
  • Employer of record (EOR): EORs have become one of the most popular options for employing overseas employees. Under an EOR model, workers are legally employed by a partner company who already has an established entity in that country. The EOR provider not only provides payroll and local HR services, it takes on the legal risk for remaining compliant with local laws.

5. Administer global compensation

If you opt to have employees work overseas instead of bringing them to your home country via work visa sponsorship, the terms of their employment are governed by the country they live in, not by your company’s home country.

Not following regulations around employment type, tax withholding, and employee benefits can have dire consequences. Businesses that rely solely on money transfer apps like Zelle or Venmo to pay foreign workers may find their accounts suddenly deactivated, and their employees unpaid. In some regions, businesses can face steep fines or even lose their ability to do business in that country for simple infractions like miscategorizing employees as contractors when they should be full employees.

If you’re using an EOR provider, legal compliance — as well as the legal risk — is handled by the EOR. But if you’re using contractors or have your own entity, you may still need support administering global payroll in a way that’s fully compliant with local laws. In this case, a Global Pay provider can help.

Get started today

Want more information on how to hire overseas employees? No matter what kind of foreign worker solution is best for you, Safeguard Global can help with your global growth. Whether you’re using our EOR solution or setting up an entity, need to legally administer payroll in a foreign country, or want a way to pay contractors in their own currency, we can work with you to make sure your employees are compliantly hired and paid in nearly 190 countries. Get in touch today.

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