Do you know why and how oysters make pearls?

When irritants—like grains of sand—make their way inside the shell, oysters will create a protective coating of nacre around it to reduce irritation. Layers upon layers of nacre will eventually create an iridescent gem called a pearl. 

When launching new features, we take the same approach. We explore the biggest “irritants” to global employment and buff out the problem areas to make them smooth like pearls. (We’re called Oyster for a reason!)

So if you’re an HR or People Ops leader looking for help on: 

• Bolstering your benefits packages
• Providing remote work benefits
• Streamlining the hiring and onboarding 
• Launching or transitioning to a distributed work model 

Then you’re going to love these shiny new Oyster updates. 

1. Global benefits tools

Global employment doesn’t just mean hiring and paying folks around the world. To Oyster, an imperative piece of the puzzle is caring for your international team. This plays a key role in employee recruitment, satisfaction, and retention. 

One way to care for your team is through benefits packages. But for global teams, the question is: How do we define “care” around the world? Get answers using Oyster’s Benefits Advisor and Remote Work Regulations Guide.

a. Benefits Advisor

As you can imagine, what “care” means to your distributed team will vary for each employee. One may define it as extensive healthcare benefits, while another may want more time off or a bigger wellness budget. 

Your employees’ expectations heavily depend on where they live and what they’re used to—which means one-size-fits-all benefits packages aren’t enough. 

Now you may ask: Where do we start with creating competitive localized benefits packages? 

Our recommendation? Skip the lengthy calls with local benefits advisors and down-the-rabbit-hole Google searches, and use Oyster’s Benefits Advisor instead.

It equips you with a list of statutory, basic, good, and best-in-class benefits based on what companies in the top eight hiring locations offer and local benefits advisors recommend. Now, you not only know how to meet employee expectations, but also exceed them—a major advantage for attracting and retaining top talent.

Oyster’s Benefits Advisor is perfect for: Global HR and People Ops leaders who want to level up their global employment by offering localized healthcare, time off, wellness perks, and allowances. 

b. Remote Work Regulations Guide

When creating benefits packages for international teams, remote work adds extra layers of complexity—so much so that we created an entire guide dedicated to it. 

Why? As more and more companies adopt distributed work models, countries worldwide are implementing statutory remote work regulations. With compliance in the picture, it’s essential to have country-specific information that’s up to date to avoid legal risks. 

If you’re formulating your work-from-home policies right now, you may have noticed two things: 

• There’s no centralized location for remote work policies in different countries. 
• Regulations are changing so quickly that it’s hard to know what’s accurate and most up to date. 

Frustrating—we know. But you’ll be pleased to hear that Oyster’s Remote Work Regulations Guide is a dynamic resource that provides up-to-date remote work regulations for over 50 countries. 

Oyster’s Remote Work Regulations Guide is perfect for:  Global HR and People Ops leaders who want to implement remote work benefits that are both compliant and competitive. 

2. Shiny new dashboard

Global employment opens up many doors for your company, but we know it can be tricky to manage. Hiring, invoices, time-off approvals—that’s a lot to track on your own and can eat up loads of time, money, and resources. 

While you may be intrigued by the idea of using a global employment platform to take care of these tasks for you, you may also be concerned about its usability:

• Is the dashboard easy to navigate?
• Will I be guided through the process?
• Is country-specific information consolidated and easy to access?
• Will I be notified of changes, updates, and outstanding tasks?
• Where can I go to find help?

We’ve considered those questions too—and recently updated Oyster’s admin dashboard to ensure it’s user-friendly and intuitive the moment you log in. You’ll find simple navigation links to access Oyster’s core functionality, outstanding admin tasks that need your attention, and related employment tools to guide you every step of the way. 

Oyster’s new dashboard is perfect for:  Global companies looking for a simple, easy-to-use platform to manage their team around the world. 

3. Global HR tools

To many, global employment is unchartered territory. If you’re launching or transitioning to a distributed work model, it can spur a lot of fundamental HR questions, like: 

• What are the total costs for hiring in each country? 
• What are the compensation expectations in each country?
• What’s the difference between contractors and employees? How do I hire them compliantly?
• How can we optimize timezone overlap and find time to connect synchronously?

Finding country-specific answers to these questions can be tricky. Rather than spending hours hunting this information down yourself, you can find answers fast with Oyster’s growing suite of free global employment tools, including our popular employment cost calculator. 

Got a question at 6 PM on a Friday? These self-serving tools are fully automated—so you can get the information you need, whenever you need it. No need to wait until Monday to speak to an expert. 

Oyster’s global HR tools are perfect for: Fast-growing startups interested in global employment and looking for tools to support their new distributed work model and hiring process. 

Did this post make you nod or let out a sigh of relief? Most of these new features are free to use—so make sure to take them for a spin! Get started with Oyster here.

About Oyster

Oyster is a global employment platform designed to enable visionary HR leaders to find, hire, pay, manage, develop and take care of a thriving global workforce. It lets growing companies give valued international team members the experience they deserve, without the usual headaches and expense.

Oyster enables hiring anywhere in the world with reliable, compliant payroll, and great local benefits and perks.