How to Maximize the Benefits of International PEO

If you’re looking to add a talented international workforce to your operations, one of the greatest challenges faced by global businesses today involves upholding comprehensive procedures regarding recruitment, retention, compensation, benefits and compliance.

Global employer extending operations? You may run into complexities that your current global HR team may not handle efficiently. In that case, it may be time to consider an international professional employer organization (PEO).

Local PEO vs International PEO

Before jumping into the potential benefits of working with an international PEO, it’s worth touching on the differences between an international professional employer organization (PEO) and a domestic PEO. To that end, you’ll want to consider your:

• Business size – PEOs are generally well suited for small to medium-sized businesses that don’t have the resources to fully handle their human resource needs. While a business of under 10 employees might be too small for a PEO, something closer to 20 employees could be a perfect fit. However, international PEOs will likely partner with larger businesses looking to expand overseas.
• Employee pool – The expertise of domestic PEOs is more locally based. They may have extensive knowledge of local employment laws relating to employee's day-to-day and taxes in numerous states, but likely not across countries. If your employee pool is international or you’re looking to expand globally, you’ll need to recruit the expertise of an international PEO.

1. Leverage International HR Expertise

Expanding your HR team internationally involves various services that will require effective communication within international employees. Fortunately, international PEOs have several systems in place to help your business manage the following:

• Compliant onboarding and offboarding
• Payroll and benefits
• Medical and life insurance
• Compliance
• Tax withholdings
• Government-required reporting

In short, rather than allotting employee management tasks to making additional HR hires and implementing training programs, business leaders can tap into an existing network of experts to streamline their expanding operations.

Read more: Important Things Every HR Practitioner Should Consider when Choosing an International Employer of Record

2. Accelerate Your Expansion

If you’re thinking of expanding your business internationally, you probably don’t want to wait an exorbitant amount of time before you dip into international markets. However, the paperwork alone will probably slow things down considerably. Also, if you have plans to expand into more than one country, there may need to consider additional regulations and requirements. 

3. Avoid Penalties With International Law Expertise

Local employment laws that apply to taxation and hiring can be complicated enough to keep your HR team consistently busy. Just being sure that you have the necessary knowledge to stay in compliance is a full-time job. Now you need to expand that internationally.

The likelihood of an error goes up exponentially as your company expands to more global markets, which may lead to:

• Legal fines
• Non-compliance penalties
• Inability to hire the best candidates

Even the best training can’t equal the years of experience with international laws that you’ll have access to by working with an International PEO. For instance, at Playroll, we’re backed by VAT IT Group, which works with over 50% of Fortune 500 companies, culminating in the expertise of working with over 13,000 companies in over 180 countries. 

4. Save On Costs

International business expansion can be very expensive. If you choose to send an HR employee to a foreign country, rather than work with an international PEO, you may experience costs associated with the following:

• Language and cultural training
• Relocation expenses
• Housing and childcare benefits
• Transportation costs
• Tax equalization

International PEO services can help to streamline and, in some cases, reduce your expenses.

5. HR Operations Assistance

International PEOs have great knowledge of international law and compliance regulations, such as the UK’s GDPR and PAYE tax and National Insurance (NI) contributions. They also have great knowledge of all things HR, which a client company would usually outsource.

These responsibilities may include:

• International Payroll solutions
• Taxes
• Onboarding and offboarding
• Insurance employee benefits

Basically, many of the things your HR team is already responsible for domestically can be handled internationally by a professional provider. This frees up time for your domestic HR team to focus on the tasks they’re experts in, while the provider handles global employees and international compliance requirements. 

6. Access A Larger Hiring Pool

Expanding business internationally allows you to tap into the global hiring market. You can trust your provider to hire qualified candidates in-country and help you manage a global team with expertise. 

Additionally, global employment organizations won’t need to establish a foreign legal entity. Instead, international PEOs can navigate international compliance risks and regulations to ensure your hiring processes meet the requirements and regulations of the new country you choose.

7. Improve Morale

How can an international PEO help improve morale among your employees? The processes they put in place tackle payroll processing inefficiencies and align with international payroll criteria, systems, and procedures. This ensures that automated payroll will be handled smoothly, with minimal to no errors to ensure that employees are paid on time.

8. Better Data and Analytics

The best international PEOs won’t just ask you to trust them when it comes to your international hiring—they’ll give you the tools you need to monitor how their efforts are aiding your HR performance on a global scale. 

At Playroll, we help you track employment contracts and compliance narratives within each new country you operate in to streamline your HR operations.

Find out How to Do Payroll for an International Business.

Should You Work with an International PEO?

You may still be wondering if your company is the right fit for an employer of record partnership to help you expand globally. To help you decide, let’s look at some of the types of businesses that may benefit from partnering with an international PEO:

• Large companies expanding into new markets – If you already have a successful company and you’re thinking of expanding into international markets, an international PEO services may be exactly what you need to cut costs, streamline HR operations, and comply with international employees regulations.
• Smaller startups – International expansion is often considered when you want to tap into different global markets. But what if you want to tap into international talents? Recruiting the top talent is what separates successful startups from the rest, and working with an international PEO ensures your startup has access to the largest global mobility pool possible.
• Businesses expanding into an unfamiliar market – Big, medium, or small businesses may see ample opportunities in the international arena, but you don’t want your ability to tap into these international opportunities to be limited by your lack of knowledge of that market. Tapping into the expertise of an international PEO allows you to expand confidently, knowing you’re abiding by the country’s hiring laws and regulations. 

Expand Internationally With Playroll 

International expansion should be exciting. Tap into that excitement (and international markets) with Playroll.

Partnering with an international professional employer organization. Global peo provides your business with an opportunity to expand to new countries with the ease of knowing your hiring processes are within international employee compliance regulations. Additionally, they may help to fast track your expansion and cut costs of employee transfers. 

Global PEO Services can provide a range of services, including hiring, payroll management, benefits administration, and compliance with local laws and regulations.