CloudWay, a Norwegian tech consultancy that offers Microsoft assessments, training, and technical implementations, uses Employer of Record (EOR) to hire sought-after workers quickly, even in countries where it doesn’t have a business entity.

“To be able to approach those known names—and do that regardless of which country they are in—is very important for us,” says Ståle Hansen, CloudWay CEO and Principal Cloud Architect.

Read the CloudWay success story to learn more about how this fast-growing company has gained a competitive advantage for top tech talent with Safeguard Global's employer of record services.

The challenge

Hiring highly specialized tech talent isn’t easy, especially in today’s highly competitive landscape, amid a global labor shortage. Simply, there’s no time to waste when you find the perfect candidate — even if they live in a different country than where you operate. That’s the situation CloudWay, a tech consultancy, has faced in the past couple of years as part of its rapid business growth. Because of its breadth of offerings — which include Microsoft assessments, training, and technical implementations — he company needs workers with very specific expertise. Many are Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs), members of Microsoft’s influencer program.

“What we’re seeing, and that’s a reflection of the current market, is that when we find the right resources, the window of hiring is shorter and shorter,” says CEO Ståle Hansen, who founded CloudWay in 2016. “We hire people from the highest shelf of competency, and we need to be precise and fast in getting them a concrete offer.

The challenge is that these in-demand experts live all over the world, and CloudWay, based in Norway, doesn’t have the local entities needed to hire them in their home countries.

“To be able to approach those known names — and do that regardless of which country they are in — is very important for us,” Hansen says.

Hansen says CloudWay found two great candidates to hire, but they lived in the UK and Finland: “We started looking for ways to onboard people rather than spinning up a CloudWay in those countries in order to make it local.”

The solution

After much research, CloudWay discovered the employer of record (EOR) solution. An employer of record hires workers on behalf of a company, giving it the ability to bring on international talent even if the company doesn’t have an entity in the country where a candidate lives.

“We looked at the five biggest players in the EOR market,” he said. After evaluating the offerings of each provider, CloudWay decided to go with Safeguard Global 's EOR solution, the employer of record solution from Safeguard Global, to hire its international workers.

“We found that with Safeguard Global, the costs were the most predictable. And they were transparent and did a good job helping us understand the potential of using an employer of record,” Hansen says. “Also, the Safeguard Global platform makes it easy for us and our employees to report on absences and expenses.”

Additionally, Hansen cites the in-country HR and payroll guidance of Safeguard Global as a benefit. He can trust that anyone he hires through Safeguard Global will be done so in compliance with all local labor laws: “We don’t have to investigate the local laws, rules and regulations in those different countries,” he says.

“With Safeguard Global, our hires won’t be victim of us not knowing the laws in a country and us screwing that up. Everyone gets the correct salary, and the local norms for things like pension are followed.” This trust in the local expertise also gives CloudWay confidence in budgeting for new roles. “It’s important for us to have predictable costs, knowing what the social costs are in the different countries,” he says.

The results

CloudWay used Safeguard Global to hire the two workers in the UK and Finland, then came back to Safeguard Global when it found another talented worker in the UK to hire.

Hansen says that because Safeguard Global gives CloudWay the ability to hire top talent from anywhere in the world, it’s unlikely that the company will pursue entity establishment in other countries as it continues its growth.

“Safeguard Global has become a core part of our business strategy,” Hansen says. “We are less likely to open an office in a different country. We just want to hire people and have them be part of our global team and deliver to that team.”

Partnering with Safeguard Global and hiring key members of the CloudWay team has contributed to the company’s impressive growth. For one, the company has increased its workforce 66.7% in seven months, going from six to 10 workers. The CloudWay team is made up of people from Norway, the UK, Finland, Sweden and Ireland. All the new team members are regular employees.

“We don’t want people to be freelancers,”Hansen says. “It’s important for us to have them as full-time employees so that they feel part of the team, and that everything is done by the books.”

Additionally, and in large part due to the continuing expansion of skills and expertise on the team, CloudWay has seen record business growth, earning gazelle status by increasing its revenue at least 20% a year for four years. But perhaps the most notable success since partnering with Safeguard Global has been the capability to grow globally without having to take on the large financial and time commitment of entity establishment whenever the company wants to hire someone in another country.

“We are a small company. We are only 10 people, but we can operate as a global company, which is very important to us,” Hansen says. “And that is the value that Safeguard Global can provide for us.”