The world has undergone significant changes over the last few years, many of which are evident in the current employment landscape. Since 2019, the percentage of employees working remotely has jumped significantly, and experts predict that trend will continue into 2023. Shifting toward more remote work gives businesses more opportunities to recruit internationally. Many top companies have already started to expand their teams across borders, so you may be wondering why.
Why consider hiring international workers?
Finding the right candidate
Finding the perfect candidate for your job listing in your home country can be difficult for any number of reasons. By opening the applicant pool to international talent, your company has a better chance of finding the ideal person to fill the position.
Being willing to hire foreign workers allows you to find someone will the skills and talents you need. The right candidates might be refugee talent in developing countries, for example—and if you don’t look internationally, you’ll miss out on those qualified professionals.
Moving into new markets
If you're expanding your business into new markets, having people from those regions on your team can make a huge impact. Local workers will know the language and cultural practices better than anyone from an outside country. Recruiting people from other countries when your business is expanding internationally can be the difference between a successful expansion and a rocky start to your new venture.
Increasing productivity
When your team members are all in the same place, your business isn’t operating at peak productivity. You miss out on many potentially productive hours of the day, like when workers are asleep. Hiring foreign workers eliminates this problem because a globally distributed team can provide coverage at all times.
Not only will this increase the overall productivity of your organization, but it will also help cut down on delays your customers may experience. Your business can get more done and build a stronger reputation in the process.
Gaining new perspectives
While business goals can be met with a homogenous workforce, adding new perspectives to the mix creates more opportunities for creative thinking, awareness of potential problems, and solutions to existing issues. When all your employees come from similar backgrounds, you’re missing out on a variety of other perspectives that could enrich your organization.
Hiring foreign workers brings new points of view on how your product or service is perceived around the world based on first-hand experience. You don’t even have to hire international workers as full-time employees to reap these benefits. Hiring an independent contractor in another country has the same positive impact.
Reducing costs
Companies in countries with developed economies can often save money by hiring foreign workers from countries with less developed economies. Part of this cost reduction is related to the advantageous conversion rates between strong and weak currencies.
Although your employees are the most valuable parts of your organization, they can also represent some of the biggest costs of doing business. Saving money on compensation can have a notable effect on a company’s bottom line.
Why do U.S. companies hire globally?
The advantages of hiring foreign workers certainly apply to companies in the United States. Even though the U.S. is a large country with a sizable domestic talent pool, companies can still gain a lot from adding foreign workers to their workforce.
Several major employers have already introduced efforts to hire remote workers from other countries. Amazon, Xerox, and Adobe are all open to hiring remote workers overseas.
For U.S. companies, hiring foreign workers can enhance their corporate image by creating a more inclusive environment. Given that American customers care about diversity and inclusion, hiring internationally could greatly improve a company’s brand reputation.
Challenges of hiring internationally
When you hire internationally, you’ll need to make sure your business meets the legal requirements for employers in each country where your international hires reside. The more locations you have employees in, the more complicated it gets to keep track of all those laws and regulations.
The onboarding process for foreign workers can also be more complex than for domestic workers. Luckily, you can take advantage of free global HR tools to make international hiring easier.
And when it comes to offering benefits to your new team members around the world, Oyster can help with that as well. Oyster Health enables you to provide health care options for all your team members, no matter where they are.
Get started hiring international workers and managing global employment with Oyster.
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 distributed workforce. Oyster 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.
