10 managing international workforce tips for fair and effective HR

The trend toward globalisation has, in recent decades, enabled international business to flourish. Today, it’s not just the mega-corporations like Coca-Cola, Nike and IBM which are enjoying the benefits of hiring abroad; smaller, independent companies are able to do so, too.

Yet, managing an international workforce comes with its fair share of challenges which, without a fuller understanding of global workforce management and growth, can appear daunting to newcomers on the global business scene.

Whether you have already expanded your operations overseas, are beginning to put in place a plan to do so, or are merely flirting with the notion, this guide from Mauve on how to fairly and effectively manage a global workforce will better equip you to overcome the inherent hurdles and, in doing so, enjoy a multitude of benefits.

Exploring the pros and cons of managing international workforces

With over 28 years of experience in assisting the expansion of businesses overseas, the team at Mauve Group is well-versed in the many different challenges you may encounter when attempting to manage your new global workforce.

At the same time, we know that overcoming these challenges is not only within every enterprise’s reach, but can lead to a diverse range of benefits unavailable to the business which only operates on home turf.

Below, we explore the primary pros and cons of managing a global workforce.

Advantages

• Entry into new markets: One of the main draws of international business expansion is the opportunity to enter new overseas markets in your industry – tapping into expanded pools of potential leads, customers, and clients to generate greater profit. Employing workers overseas can help you to gain access to these markets, by providing you and your managers with first-hand, on-the-ground insight into available niches and existing competition.
• Asynchronous work: Depending on your business type and managerial style, a global workforce may be able to operate ‘asynchronously’. Asynchronous work is a style of working which decouples remote workers from traditional office-style constraints, such as set working hours. This style of work can improve company-wide productivity and wellbeing by allowing remote workers to set their own working hours. Whilst async-working is not for every business, Harvard Business Review identifies it as a profitable style of working for remote, overseas workforces.
• Access to a vast, high-quality talent pool: Expanding your workforce abroad opens the door to a vastly expanded pool of talent. Whether you wish to establish a company presence in a particular country through the recruitment of full-time employees, or dip your toe into other markets by hiring international contractors, an international outlook can allow you to improve the average quality of talent in your business.
• International workforces can complement strategic HRM: Strategic human resources management is a style of HR management which plans for the future success of your company, by strategically hiring and training employees to meet your long-term goals. Managing a global workforce provides you greater scope to make your HMR strategy watertight.
• Enhanced international presence: It goes without saying that brand awareness is fundamental to the growth of your business, the security of its reputation, and an increase in customer engagement. By fairly and effectively managing a global workforce, you are more likely to have an international team which thinks kindly of your brand and can, therefore, increase brand awareness overseas through word-of-mouth.
• Opportunities for personal and professional growth: Introducing team members to new cultures and countries via relocation and global team management offers countless opportunities for them to grow, both professionally and personally. The betterment of your employees is, naturally, intrinsically linked to the success of your business.
• Increases the diversity and adaptability of your organisation: Diversity has become something of a buzzword in recent years, but behind the veneer of virtue-signalling lies an important truth for international businesses to understand. The increased diversity of experiences, backgrounds, languages, creative approaches to problem-solving, and perspectives that an international workforce adds to a business can, if managed compassionately and carefully, be hugely advantageous. Inclusivity in a business for all people creates a more welcoming and supportive atmosphere for your workers, helping to improve remote employee retention, whilst fresh perspectives improve an organisation’s capacity to adapt to difficult and unexpected situations – such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Cost-effectiveness: Labour costs vary greatly from country to country, meaning that access to expertise and high-quality talent can be more cost-effective for businesses which operate overseas, compared to those which focus solely on recruitment at home. Whilst international business expansion comes which its fair share of unavoidable costs, managed correctly remote recruitment can prove extremely cost-effective in the long run.
• Round-the-clock customer care: Almost every type of business relies on customer service to maintain a positive brand image as well as a dependable pool of return customers. Managing international workforces spread across different time zones unshackles your team from the constraints of time, potentially allowing you to offer 24/7, round-the-clock customer care.
• Staff training can be more complex: Onboarding remote employees spread across a large number of overseas countries can be difficult to get right. And as we all know, the onboarding process is key to the future satisfaction of your employees as well as the efficiency and quality of their work. Some major hurdles to international staff training include a lack of in-person contact with management, clashing time zones, language barriers, and culturally different approaches to work methodology.
• Labour and tax law compliance: One of the biggest pitfalls businesses expanding overseas often face is consistent compliance with global labour and tax laws. Each country tends to have its own uniquely worded regulations governing employment contracts, worker versus contractor classification, minimum wages, employer tax contributions and withholdings, as well as employee rights. It is paramount that you comply with any and all applicable labour and tax laws as a manager of a global workforce.
• Global payroll and employee benefits: Making your company competitively attractive to talent in different countries requires a nuanced approach to both global payroll and employee benefits packages. Workers in different countries will expect different perks and to be paid competitively. For example, an employee in the USA may expect health insurance as part of their benefits package, whilst an employee in the UK (where healthcare is universally free) likely won’t. Similarly, an employee in Switzerland would expect to earn more working for your company than an employee in India might.
• Different time zones make synchronous work difficult to coordinate: Whilst asynchronous work, as defined above, is always on the table, it doesn’t work for every organisation. For those who wish to stick with a more synchronous way of working – for example, setting strict 9-5 working hours and expecting timely attendance at office meetings, even from remote employees – global workforce management presents a challenge.
• Language barriers can be difficult to overcome: For most businesses in the English-speaking world, they are in luck when it comes to global expansion. English is the most widely spoken language in the world, trumping even Mandarin, Hindi, and Spanish to the top of the table. This means that most international business does tend to employ English as a neutral, shared means of communication. Nevertheless, depending on your company’s primary language or the languages spoken by your new global workforce, barriers may still exist which you must learn to overcome.
• There are many more cultural and religious nuances to be aware of: As cosmopolitan as your HQ may be, it is inevitable that an international expansion will introduce your business to a greater variety of cultures and religions than it has been exposed to before. Fair global workforce management requires an understanding of the differences between the cultures and religions of your employees, as well as how these differences may impact their work style and tenure at your company.
• Retraining managerial staff to be culturally-sensitive is not always easy: We tend to think that the way we do things – including the way we were brought up, religious, culturally, or otherwise – is the right or best way. This subconscious conviction can prove damaging to employer-employee relations if your leaders are not properly equipped to understand and sensitively address differences when training and managing overseas staff.
• Relocating staff overseas can come with cultural shock: Global mobility - i.e. the capacity of a business to relocate employees overseas - may prove vital to the success of your international workforce management. For example, you may wish to relocate your Head of Sales to oversee the acquisition of a new sales team in East Asia. The cultural shock of this move, however, can prove detrimental to the employee’s performance and possibly even to their retention.
• Establishing a workplace community is more challenging: Managing remote workforces is a different ball game when compared to managing a workforce at a single physical location, like an office. Community building exercises – such as workplace chit-chat, in-person meetings, staff nights out and more – become much more difficult to facilitate when managing a global team.

Challenges

Remote employee retention: Connected to the above is the fact that retaining global employees can also be more challenging. Without face-to-face interactions – both with HR and colleagues – remote workers can soon feel isolated and unsupported by their new employers. Effective management of a global workforce requires new strategies for remote employee retention. In the following section, we aim to help you overcome the challenges of managing a global workforce, as described above, turning your weaknesses into strengths so that you may enjoy the full range of advantages attainable through international recruitment.

Mauve’s top 10 tips for how to successfully manage a global workforce

As experts in the fields of global business expansion and hiring talent abroad (both independent contractors and full-time employees), Mauve Group has compiled a list of 10 helpful tips to aid you in the management of your international team.

Tip #1: Be mindful of cultural differences both in and out of the workplace

With access to the top talent in your field, anywhere in the world, comes exposure to many thousands of new and unique cultural mores. It is increasingly important to be aware and mindful of these, for culture affects not only our social behaviours outside the workplace, but also the way we like to do our work.

For example, while The Economic Times explains that arriving 15 minutes late to a meeting in India is still considered ‘on time’, doing so in the UK would be deemed unprofessional. In France, French workers are legally not obliged to respond to work emails outside of work hours, while Japanese ‘salary-man’ culture promotes work around the clock. A kiss on the cheek is a standard professional greeting in Argentina, in China it’s a bow, and in the USA a handshake will suffice.

Mapping of 11 work cultures – “Culture Code” by Steelcase

Equality, diversity and inclusion are three core tenets of the modern workplace and should be applied across the board when expanding internationally. Here are three ways you can ensure that sensitivity to other cultures is engrained throughout your management and employee roll.

Training

Cultural awareness and sensitivity training should be provided to all employees of the business on a regular (e.g. annual) basis. Given that compassionate terminology evolves rapidly, and that your business’s expansion will regularly envelope new cultures, keeping up to date with cultural awareness training is key to your success.

First-person experience

As a CEO or member of upper management, the best way to get a hands-on appreciation for the cultural differences found within your workforce is to visit the countries in which your business has established offices, employed workers, or engaged the services of contractors.

Multi-cultural events and cultural sharing

Cultural training doesn’t have to be a dry boardroom lecture, it can include exciting, team-binding activities such as the celebration of multicultural festivals, and overseas exchange programmes. Exchanging a team of your employees with those from a different country enables both parties to experience first-hand the cultures of their international colleagues.

Tip #2: Create a workplace equipped to deal with the needs of different faiths

With different cultures come different religions, each with different ways of celebrating and practicing their faiths. Tapping into the full potential of the global talent pool is only possible, when you create a welcoming space for all. Currently, half of non-Christians working in the USA say that their employers are ignoring their religious needs.

Offer flexible working weeks and days

While not all religious staff members will require time to practice their devotions during the working day, some will. For example, some faiths strictly adhere to prayer times, and may require breaks at set intervals each day during which to pray. Furthermore, during religious festivals like Ramadan - the ninth month in the Islamic calendar - most Muslims will be fasting during daylight hours, which may impact both their concentration and energy levels.

Establish inter-faith rooms

Providing your global workforce with dedicated religious practice spaces can be a fantastic way to show people of all faiths that they are welcome and respected in your company.

Offer flexible holidays

International employees are legally entitled to the public holidays of their home country. For example, while Christmas is a national holiday in majority-Christian countries like Mexico, and even in majority-atheist countries like Canada, in the likes of China and Japan the Lunar New Year is the more important holiday. Likewise, the holy month of Ramadan is central to the Islamic faith and is observed by Muslims all over the world.

Tip #3: Comply with the tax and labour laws of different countries

When establishing foreign subsidiaries, or a permanent presence in a foreign country, it is your duty to adhere to the tax and labour laws of that country (rather than the laws of your HQ’s location). As multinational businesses, compliance soon becomes an exceedingly complex issue, given the sheer number of different countries whose laws you must abide by. A simple means of expanding compliantly, while avoiding the many potential penalties associated with non-compliance and misclassification of employees, is to use a trusted Employer of Record.

Payroll compliance

Employers are typically responsible for withholding national tax contributions, as well – sometimes – as contributions to health and social insurance, pension schemes, and more. The amount and method of withholding differs by country, and often even by state. Finance departments must be equipped to pay international employees fairly, as well as local tax authorities, according to the laws of each country you have a professional presence in. Outsourcing payroll to a competent handler can help you to mitigate the challenges of payroll compliance and avoid unnecessary financial penalties.

Labour law compliance

In Sweden, both parents of a newborn child are entitled to 240 days of maternity/paternity leave. In contrast, the USA offers zero days of national statutory parental leave. Complying to the often extremely diverse and conflicting labour laws of different countries is part of the juggling act of managing a global workforce.

Classification

It is equally crucial that your HR department is well-versed in the different national laws surrounding classification of employees versus independent contractors. While some countries offer liberal brackets of definition for freelancers, others assume all people contracted to do work on behalf of a company are either full- or part-time employees. Penalties for misclassification (even if accidental) can be severe.

Tip #4: Provide EAL (English as an additional language) support

Native English speakers are lucky, in that English is the internationally recognised language of business. As such, many workers in non-English speaking countries nevertheless have a strong grasp of the language. Still, non-native speakers often find communicating in English at English-speaking companies to be a handicap, making their working lives more challenging overall. In order to level the playing field for your global workforce, consider offering EAL support to any employees who need it.

Tip #5: Learn the languages, as well as the dos and don’ts of non-verbal communication

In addition to providing EAL support, you could do a lot worse than to familiarise yourself and your management team with the most commonly spoken languages of the various countries you’ve expanded into. Furthermore, here are a couple of handy extra tips which can help any multinational to overcome the myriad challenges of language barriers.

Hire local language and English speakers

There are over 230 different languages spoken in Europe alone, and a staggering 2,000+ in Africa. By hiring speakers of local languages and dialects who are also proficient in English, you can effectively bridge the gap between your brand and your new target demographic.

Study non-verbal communication norms in different countries

Many business meetings between members of an international workforce occur over video chat on platforms like Zoom. A great deal of the intricacies of face-to-face communication are lost when we interact like this, and so recognising the “dos and don’ts” of non-verbal communication becomes even more important.

For example, though the ‘thumbs-up’ gesture is commonplace across the USA, UK, and much of Europe, in Nigeria, the Middle East, and South America it is considered extremely rude. Similarly, in Japan it is rude to laugh without covering your mouth, and it is a show of arrogance in Türkiye to gesture with one hand in your pocket.

Tip #6: Avoid cost-cutting when budgeting for international workforce training

With all of the complexities we’ve just described regarding effectively managing a global workforce, the costs of onboarding, training, and accommodating international workers can be high. As such, it’s important to budget accordingly. Though it may cost your business more in the short term, in the long run you’ll see the benefits in employee retention, workforce competency, and overall productivity.

Tip #7: Be aware of, and capitalise on, time zone differences

In the emerging post-pandemic world of business, remote work has potentially brought the days of core working hours to a close. Flexibility in the working week can improve employee productivity as well as well-being, and in some countries - such as Finland - has been enshrined in law for decades.

When expanding your business internationally, it’s crucial to be aware of the constraints which time zones can place on synchronous work. At the same time, it’s important to note the many benefits of asynchronous work, so that you can capitalise on them. They include:

• Company work being completed around the clock.
• Real-time customer engagement via social media, customer support, etc.
• Communication becoming flexible, no longer confined to core working hours.

Tip #8: Adopt a creative, innovative approach to leadership

And speaking of flexibility, rigid style of leadership and creative direction may work for some businesses, but for those aiming for success as a multinational this is no longer the case. Making flexibility, innovation, and adaptability core elements of your business structure and modus operandi ensures that you’re ready to absorb any new challenge arising through global expansion.

Tip #9: Leverage the digital tools available to you to streamline global team management

Many of the major challenges to managing a remote international team mentioned above can be overcome through the employment of digital tools. Technology allows us to organise our teams, no matter where they are in the world, keeping tabs on their progress toward both individual and company-wide goals, while scheduling online video-call meetings for a time which best suits all involved.

Tip #10: Engage the services of an EoR and Global Business Solutions provider

Finally, we would be remiss to end our list of the top 10 expert tips for successfully managing a global workforce without reminding you that you needn’t tackle these challenges alone.

Mauve Group has over 28 years of professional experience assisting all manner of companies on their journeys in international waters. By partnering with our services - as both an Employer of Record (EoR) and Global Business Solutions provider - you could save your business time, money and stress, whilst ensuring you tap into the full talent and productivity potential available around the world – doing so compliantly at each and every turn.