Managing global remote teams: Insights by Charles Ferguson, Globalization Partners
Remote work facilitated migration and democratized the workplace for many professionals. As employees leave the traditional manifold of ‘static jobs’ and move out as remote workers, businesses need to clue in their legal and HR teams on the compliance, legislative, and logistical rules & regulations that are necessary to protect their company and teams.
Discussing them in detail, Globalization Partners’ General Manager, Asia Pacific, Charles Ferguson joined us on day 2 of People Matters TechHR SEA 2021 to share how anything can be made possible with a little mix of ‘compliance’ and 'culture’. Check out the key highlights of the session below:
The Great Migration
Kick-starting the conversation on what are some of the challenges to reimagine a post-pandemic world, Charles shared that migration would be a challenge for organizations based on corporate taxes triggered by the candidate’s location, the labor laws and more. Migration has led to distribution of resources, so companies need to ensure that compliant business values are being conveyed to their clients as well as employees.
He discussed the timeframe from the first ‘dot com’ boom to current ‘gig worker mentality’. He stated that we are reaching an evolutionary stage where people are re-calibrating themselves to assess what value they can provide and what they can learn by migrating. Migration is important to ponder as we have remote options to consider. He questioned if companies really need to migrate new hires or instead, just set them up as part of their global remote team?
Further, he emphasized that employees would have to contribute to the culture of success at their company.
What does hiring a gig worker mean to your company?
Charles discussed how the first major challenge companies are facing is location, the employee laws of the location and the corporate taxes that trigger on the basis of the employment.
On that note, he shared five questions/challenges that are very important to note while hiring remote workers:
- Does the employee have the legal right to live and work in that location?
- What will be the impact on the business?
- What does it cost to let this employee keep their job, remote working from a new jurisdiction?
- Impact of salary - should companies keep the salary the same or reassess for local compensation benchmarking?
- What if the employee doesn't have the legal right to work where he/she wishes to relocate?
Charles summarized by sharing how these five challenges are part of the essential strategy to devise the proper mechanisms of hiring global remote workers. He ascertained that it's important for the companies to create a proper infrastructure so that the foundation of the culture remains intact. Essentially, the remote workers would also be able to integrate into and feel a part of the company culture, and collectively contribute to the success of the company.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Charles shared that compliant business values are a must for any company to survive in today’s time of virtual teams. A strict code of conduct/policies has to be prescribed by the HR teams so that the company can maintain their culture.
Charles also talked about the ‘Employer of Record’ model, which is the easiest and most compliant method to streamline global hiring and stated that HR teams have to make sure that whatever policies they construct, they have to address three points as core: candidate’s location, corporate laws of the said location, and the corporate taxes involved. This is where firms like Globalization Partners can help solve any company’s global remote hiring issues and aid them in building out their global remote teams in this new virtual world of work.