In the contemporary world of remote work and rapid business expansion across continents, global mobility has secured a firm stance in the job market. Companies are opting for expat employees more frequently than ever in recent years. Business owners quite obviously are choosing trustworthiness and employee loyalty rather than investing in a completely new resource to manage the remote teams. 

The real question, however, is the way companies are managing this process while avoiding any shift of focus from the core business operations. Expat managers have started taking the road less traveled —the Employer of Record (EOR) model to take care of their expat employees in foreign lands. 

Remunance, being the leading EOR company in India has had a pragmatic experience regarding global mobility from its clients and from the journey of assisting numerous expat employees. We will have a fine-grained analysis of the expat transfer process in this article and address all the asked and unasked questions about an EOR helping an expat employee to settle in a new geographical location.    

How Are Expat Employees Essential to EOR Clients?

EOR clients usually prefer senior or managerial positions in employees of their companies over onboarding new professionals to manage the new remote teams built abroad. Here are some major components of why EOR clients have an inclination towards expat employees.   

Knowledge and Competence

• Specialized Skills: Expat employees possess knowledge and bring expert experience to the table that is rare to match by any domestic employee in the home market. For example, sectors like technology, engineering, or finance require specialized skills, thereby, running a team under expat employees is extremely important.
• Training and Development: By providing training to local workers, expat employees can improve the general skill level of the workforce and facilitate the transfer of information.

Corporate Culture and Standards

• Consistency: Expat employees help a company preserve its culture and brand value across multiple geographical areas. They ensure that the policies and procedures of the company are adhered to strictly.
• Leadership and Management: Expat employees often take on leadership or managerial roles, helping local teams to coordinate with the global objectives of the organization.

Growth and Operations of the Market

• Local Market Knowledge: Expat employees are specialized in managing businesses in a variety of new nations. Their specialty is thus offering comprehensive guides on the local business climate, consumer behavior, and legal trends.
• Business Development: By using their extensive networks and specialized knowledge, expatriate staff members can provide fresh perspectives to the organization and help it into new markets.

Time and Cost Effectiveness

• Quick Deployment: Instead of having to go through the complex process of organizing a team with a new local manager, EOR clients can rapidly deploy expat employees to begin quick operations.
• Resource Optimisation: Hiring expat employees via EOR services during the initial phases of business expansion proves to be more pocket-friendly than onboarding local employees with similar skills.

Efficient Collaboration and Teamwork

• Liaison Role: By serving as a liaison between the main office and regional offices, foreign workers can facilitate coordination and communication.
• Multilingual Skills: Expat employees usually have command over multiple languages, effectively closing language gaps and embracing diverse linguistic cultures in foreign lands.

Recruitment

• Recruitment Drives: Sending an expat employee to take care of the managerial businesses saves the time and cost of conducting rigorous recruitment drives and hiring new local employees. The recruitment drives get even more complex provided the fact that hiring for such a senior position is challenging from both perspectives —availability of skills and remuneration budget.
• Onboarding and Training: An expat employee also saves the entire process of onboarding a new professional and training them about the business model and culture from scratch.

Strategic Benefits

• Competitive Edge: Having seasoned expat employees on site gives the business a tactical edge by enabling it to promptly adjust to shifting market conditions and seize fresh chances.
• Brand Representation: Expat employees are able to successfully represent the company’s brand, upholding its standing and encouraging confidence among regional stakeholders.

Support Services Provided by an EOR to Expat Employees

EXPAT in a foreign land needs a lot of support initially. So when a remote team is built using an EOR model, the EOR partners put in their best efforts and holistically cover all the corners of the expat transfer process for a foreign employee. Expat employees move into a new country for a longer period of time, which demands a sustainable and pleasant environment in and around them. EORs make the relocation process much less worrisome and hassle-free for such employees. Let us have a look at the significant areas where an EOR saves the day for an expat employee. 

• Work Visa Application: An EOR partner takes care of the entire work visa application process from dealing with the complex documentation, and background checks to the timely submission of the application. It also takes care of the cascades of government procedures related to a visa application.
  Along with the visa application process, an EOR also makes sure that the expat employee has the required work permit to legally stay and work in the country. It further assists the employees with extensions or renewals of work permits depending on the stay period of the employee.
• Compliance Check: The  EOR partner is solely responsible for handling the extensive list of immigration laws and ensuring that the expat employee stay is compliant with all the required set of legal bounds.
• Expat Payroll Management: Each country has a different set of payroll regulations altogether. Memorizing the salary structure of a new country and all the other related employee compensation procedures is not a layman’s job. It takes an expert to manage the payroll system not to mention in a foreign country. An EOR does that job on behalf of expanding businesses, taking care of the salary breakup, local taxes, healthcare, pensions, a mix of employee benefits, currency exchange, and timely payments to expat employees to ensure their trouble-free stay in the country. For more information about the expat payroll structure in India, please follow this link.
• Setting Up of Bank Accounts: The financial system and transactions of each country work very differently from the other. In India, for example, online banking and the digitization of financial services have become the norm. Common masses in India have gone cashless in recent years and adopted digital payment systems like GooglePay, PhonePe, and PayTm to name a few.
  An EOR partner guides expat employees about opening a local bank account and assists them with the functioning of the local banking systems. This helps the employees with not only smooth salary credit in their accounts but also to carry out other financial transactions in the host country without worry.
• Day-to-day HR Assistance: It is needless to say that an EOR partner being the local experts will address any day-to-day HR queries of expat employees and solve all kinds of HR or administration-related issues for them. An EOR will also be just one call away in case of any medical, financial, legal, or any other emergencies of an expat employee.                 

Expat employees are always highly valuable resources for any organization and international clients spend loads of time and hard-earned money on EOR partners in expectation of getting unique solutions for their esteemed employees. And cumulative records say there is hardly any dissatisfaction among clients in trusting an EOR partner. This comparably new employment model has risen to be a favorite among international businesses through their unique features and innovative approach of service delivery. Let us have a clear understanding of how EOR partners think not only with their minds but with their hearts as well.  

Relocation and Social Orientation

Expat employees moving to a new country for longer periods are often accompanied by their families. With the introduction of families a whole new bunch of responsibilities dawns upon the EOR partner. They assist expat employees with multiple relocation factors like finding a sustainable neighborhood to live in, assisting their spouses with a job hunt in the new country, enrolling children in schools that match up to their merits, introducing them to local social groups, and other local facilities required for the expat employees to settle in. The EOR partner helps them with transportation and relocation services during the move-in period. 

Cultural Know-how

It is crucial to have a thorough understanding of the local cultural and business practices for expat employees. EOR partners guide the employees in quickly adapting to the new environment and its norms without much of a trial and error phase. This helps the expat employees to gel with the new team members and coordinate with them for the smooth functioning of the business operations. It also creates a personal bond between the expat employees and the local team which increases overall productivity and quality of work.  

Exit Clauses 

As the tenure of stay ends for expat employees, EOR partners help them with moving out formalities from the country and a smooth transition of expat employees to their home country.               

Conclusion  

We can conclude on the note that businesses aspiring to expand their reach to new locations are right on track by selecting expat employees to manage such intellectually heavy projects on international grounds. They are choosing this journey of global mobility with more and more EOR partners who are assisting them day in and day out to make this experience pleasant for the expat employees and the EOR client. Remunance, being an expert in this field has helped thousands of expat employees to move and settle in India with their families and have a wonderful business and personal experience in the country.