An overseas expansion is an excellent way to grow your business, as it allows you to access new customers. However, it can take a significant amount of time, money, and talent to expand into new markets. Hiring great local talent helps make this process easier, but you need to find the right people. Here are four simple-to-follow tips for successfully recruiting abroad.
1. Develop an Adjustment Plan After Recruiting Abroad
Once you’ve put in the time and resources to recruit abroad, it’s crucial to ensure your new global employees adjust properly. Having a global team means that your relationship with those employees will be different than with your local teams. Plan to bridge the social distance, make both teams feel important and supported, and provide enough space for the new team to make decisions.
Focus on defining your company so you can communicate those values to new employees. When you bring a local hire into the company, it’s much easier to catch onto the business culture. When someone is far away, even on the other side of the world, it’s crucial to be more communicative.
2. Understand Local Labor Laws
Local labor laws can be complex and counterintuitive. Every country has its own set of labor protections and regulations. They can differ between regions or cities within a country, too. Without an in-depth knowledge of local laws, you can write contracts that are unenforceable, mishandle tax information and collection, and other errors.
Misclassifying workers is a frequent error for companies hiring overseas. It can be tempting to label every new hire an “independent contractor,” which keeps costs down. The employer pays fewer fees, taxes, and has fewer responsibilities when dealing with contractors.
However, most labor systems have strict tests for whether a contractor is actually an employee. Misclassifying someone as a contractor who should be an employee can result in huge expenses and lawsuits. The best way to ensure compliance with local labor laws is to use a trusted partner who is familiar with it so you can focus on developing your business.
3. Learn the Basics of the Local Culture
Geert Hofstede founded a new field of cultural research called comparative intercultural research. In a massive study, he discovered several indicators of how different cultures guide people’s interactions with each other. His research helps people understand that our own cultural assumptions aren’t shared by every other group in the world.
Hofstede identifies six different cultural dimensions that can help someone prepare for hiring an overseas employee:
- Distance to Power Index: How individuals relate to power and hierarchy
- Individualism vs. Collectivism: Whether the individual or group is most important
- Uncertainty Avoidance: How much comfort society has with uncertainty
- Masculinity vs. Femininity: Whether a society tends “tough or tender” values
- Long-term vs. Short-term Orientation: How far into the future most people focus
- Indulgence vs. Restraint: The value of self-discipline in a society
When you understand more about how a culture works, you can tailor job descriptions and organizational plans to set up your employees for success.
4. Recruit Smarter
While there is no shortage of people looking for a job, there is often a shortage of qualified, hard-working candidates. It can be difficult to find workers with the skills you need.
Many companies use their social networks to recruit good workers. For example, a survey of recruiters in India found that one of the most reliable sources of employees was from employee referrals. In an area where competition for qualified talent is fierce, word-of-mouth referral programs helped find better employees than other systems.
You can also expand your reach by engaging with strategic partners that have established international networks to help find qualified employees. With first-class global recruiting services in over 185 countries, Velocity Global helps you source, recruit, and hire high-quality talent, so you can stay focused on running your business.
Expanding abroad is a big undertaking, but you don’t have to go about it alone. Work with a trusted team that has the experience to hire talent overseas, can help you manage compliance, and understands the culture. Get in touch with us today.
