The pandemic, despite its role in forcing the world into a standstill, acted as a catalyst for change. Amidst the global timeout, remarkable progress was witnessed in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond, marked by the rapid adoption of practices and technologies, such as remote working and project management tools.
This brief era in history has fundamentally shaped how businesses operate and how employees regard their work life and made many re-evaluate the importance of having efficient and effective HR infrastructure in place.
It also brought various business benefits for both employers and employees, including making communication easier with global teams, enhanced flexibility with hybrid working, global recruitment and accessibility to new markets.
Despite recent mass layoffs by large technology companies as traditional businesses increase hiring, Southeast Asian startups are facing a shortage of technology talent, according to a recent study by Glints.
Hence, the need to compete in this post-pandemic landscape has never been more prevalent, especially when more and more technology companies initiate restructuring initiatives to reduce costs as well as to attract and retain talent. It’s no wonder that Gartner’s latest research has identified HR technology as a top investment priority, as it will offer new ways for businesses to be competitive.
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One of the key ways HR technologies can help businesses stay competitive is by making global expansion a possibility for many. According to the UOB Business Outlook Study 2023, more than 80 per cent of businesses in Asia are looking to expand internationally for revenue and profit growth in the next three years. HR technology can empower businesses to scale up across borders enabling them to reach new markets and audiences.
Secondly, it plays a pivotal role in international recruitment. In a JobsDB survey across Singapore, Hong Kong, mainland China and Japan, 95 per cent of employers said skills shortages have the potential to hamper the effective operation of their business or department.
International recruitment encourages businesses to tap into a wider talent pool and plug the skills gap with the best and brightest without location being a barrier to access. Furthermore, this method may prove to be far more cost-effective as different regions have varying expectations of salaries and benefits.
While global expansion and international recruitment are interesting prospects, they do, however, come with logistic issues. Firstly, they can be quite costly and complex, as it requires businesses to pay legal and administrative fees and understand various regional compliance law, all while having to navigate the complexities of employment contracts, payroll services, taxes, social security and benefits in each location they hire in.
So how can efficiency-minded businesses reap these benefits without an enormous amount of capital expenditure and leaving themselves vulnerable in the future?
This is where the right technology comes in, particularly an Employer of Record (EOR) platform. An EOR has the most impactful HR innovations all on one platform, such as onboarding new hires, team management, and global payroll – allowing businesses to effectively and efficiently manage international operations.
Fast and flexible expansion in Asia and overseas
EORs help businesses to expand with minimised friction, compliance risks and cost. An EOR service provider manages the legal, HR, tax, and local compliance responsibilities of a company’s employees in any region or country where they don’t have a legal entity.
It acts as the legal employer, hiring employees using its local business entities. As such, the EOR assumes the legal risks of an employer on their behalf while they maintain control over their employees and operations.
An EOR service provider’s responsibilities can include payroll, tax, visa, immigration and work permit sponsorship, local support for employment matters, and advice on required notice periods and termination rules. They can also provide data insights on employment trends in global markets, all of which takes away the lion’s share of work associated with global expansion.
That said, EORs are nothing new. The difference today is that the technology is now in place so businesses can hire employees the world over and manage them from a single platform.
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The right technology
At Atlas, we facilitate our EOR services through a centralised Human Experience Management (HMX) platform. For overseas employees, it not only allows them to be hired correctly and get paid in their own currency, on time and in a fully compliant way, but also to access learning and development features, local employment guidance, visa and immigration support, and much more.
For employers, the platform centralises their entire people operations so they can manage onboarding, payroll, benefits admin and more without having to deal with multiple third-party providers or platforms.
Partnering with an EOR service provider greatly reduces the time, costs, and complexities associated with setting up a formal entity in a new country, which helps to simplify the process significantly and reduces cost, making it easier to scale up or down as demand requires.
More importantly, an EOR allows businesses to expand in multiple key markets easily without having to make a full investment in the region.
A solution for today and tomorrow
Lessons from past downturns have taught us that the route to success comes not from brutal cuts but from growth via efficiency. While deep uncertainty remains, Asia as a region has exhibited resilience in the face of this extraordinary shock, providing a multitude of opportunities for companies aspiring to transform, expand, and scale.
The right EOR platform can help businesses master that balance by allowing them to continue to expand in a sustainable and flexible way, putting them in a great position to future-proof their operations and prosper when the dust settles.
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