One of the greatest bottlenecks when scaling a business, whether at the startup or growth stage, is hiring and onboarding the right people.
Creating a strategy and implementing systems to streamline hiring, payroll, and compliance is the key to accelerating growth and gaining a competitive edge in the global market.
However, most startups and small businesses are not set up with the necessary processes, tools and expertise to unlock the full value of their workforce, let alone scale it further.
“They rely on multiple disconnected tools to manage the employee lifecycle, which leads to small HR teams feeling overwhelmed with daily tasks and employee enquiries,” Jane Lee, vice president and head of Apac at global HR platform Remote, told Inside Small Business.
“For businesses with global teams, the challenges multiply – navigating local compliance requirements, tax regulations, and employment laws requires specialised expertise that most startups and small businesses simply don’t have in-house,” Lee continued.
Small businesses and startups without the right support to onboard a remote team are not only at risk of compliance violations and delayed hiring, they are at risk of hindering their growth and reaching their global potential.
The need for speed
Many startups and small businesses need to hire urgently and rapidly once they recognise a talent gap or enter a hyper-growth phase.
“Rapid onboarding gives your business the edge it needs to stay competitive,” stated Lee.
“By quickly filling critical roles, you can maintain momentum in launching new products or entering new markets, staying agile and ready to respond to market demands or competitor moves,” she added.
Unfortunately, many businesses do not have a robust HR team in-house equipped to manage the complexities that come along with a domestic and international remote team.
“The lack of streamlined processes, tools, and expertise creates bottlenecks that prevent startups and small businesses from unlocking the full value of their workforce,” Lee elaborated.
All-in-one solutions from HR platforms like Remote simplify the employee lifecycle, saving time and reducing costs.
Taking a global perspective
While hiring locally may seem convenient and like the path of least resistance to most startups and small businesses, there are many benefits to building a remote team domestically and internationally.
“By only looking for local or in-person talent, businesses limit their ability to scale efficiently and even miss out on accessing the best talent available globally,” Lee explained.
“This approach not only reduces the size of the talent pool, but it also prevents them from building a truly diverse and flexible workforce – which is paramount to a company’s success,” she added.
Startups and small businesses also stand to reduce overhead costs by eliminating expenses for office space and utilities with a remote team.
Meanwhile, remote employees through flexible and autonomous work can structure their schedules around personal needs and optimise their work environments – factors that have been known to contribute to a 29 per cent increase in productivity.
“Companies embracing remote hiring gain a competitive advantage by attracting top-tier talent from anywhere in the world, which allows them to scale faster and adapt more effectively to changing business needs,” shared Lee.
Global teams need a global platform
Australia’s geographic isolation is a key influence in the upward trend of businesses looking to hire and onboard remote teams.
“Remote hiring enables businesses to operate across different time zones, improving productivity and customer service coverage,” said Lee.
While remote workforces offer a slew of benefits and advantages to startups and small businesses, building, growing and maintaining a remote workforce is not without its challenges.
“Operationally, relying on numerous HR tools and vendors – such as EOR providers, payroll software, and legal or accounting firms – is both costly and time-consuming, creating a fragmented experience for global employees,” explained Lee.
“Setting up entities to hire internationally is another expensive and complex process, while a lack of in-house expertise in local compliance can lead to fines, reputational damage, and poor support for employees,” she added.
Remote employees also face challenges such as poor time management, burnout, isolation, fractured communication and career stagnation.
But these issues facing employers and employees can be deterred and addressed with the right strategy and resources.
As a global HR platform, Remote helps businesses overcome these challenges by streamlining hiring, onboarding, and managing remote teams anywhere in the world.
“For remote employees, Remote fosters a positive work experience by ensuring fair and localised benefits and payroll, and enabling companies to focus on building a connected and engaged workforce,” concluded Lee.
“By centralising HR management and ensuring compliance, Remote empowers businesses to focus on growth while overcoming the complexities of managing a remote team.”
- To learn more about how to break the hiring and onboarding bottleneck to unlock your business’s global potential, chat with Remote here.
