The Challenges of Recruiting Internationally

When a business experiences a lot of strong growth, the next logical step for many can be to expand overseas into a new market. While this offers plenty of new opportunities to enable further growth and success, there are of course a number of challenges it presents.

One of the main ones is the issue of recruitment, as companies have various choices to make. Do you hire employees in your new location? Relocate existing staff? Or do a mixture of them both? With a war for talent still ongoing according to RSM, these are the main challenges to tackle and ensure your business can win that war.

Migration and Employment Rules

If you decide to transfer over some of your existing employees to your new workplace abroad, you’ll need to be aware of the legal regulation surrounding migration and employment in that country. It’s important to factor in everything that is required and how long this will take.

For those that decide to recruit in the new country, you still need to be aware of the employment rules as they will likely differ. There are all sorts of strange work laws around the world and while some may be a novelty, others can affect your working practices. Limits on the hours employees can work and more need to be factored into your business plan.

Finding and Keeping the Right People

Actually finding, attracting and retaining new employees can be a struggle as well, especially if your business doesn’t have a presence in the country. Using local recruiters can be a good way to get started as they will have the expertise to match up ideal candidates and help with selling your company to them.

Once you have got a good number of employees and are open for business, you will need to put in place steps to retain your top talent. Many of the best advice for retaining staff will be universal, but it’s essential you make cultural considerations as well. These could range from celebrating national holidays, to being aware of the national standards for salary, employment rights and more. Matching these and going above and beyond should help you retain employees better, as long as it fits in with your overall business model.

Timeline and Processes Complications

Many timeline issues can slow down or prevent the hiring of employees overseas, especially when factoring in the time it takes to acquire a Visa that’s required in some nations. The complications that can be involved when recruiting over two or more countries can also cause the process to run slowly. Therefore, setting deadlines for recruitment and doing as much as possible to hit these is vital.

Recruiting internationally can be a challenging yet unavoidable process that any business expanding overseas needs to know how to approach. Using external expertise, being aware of cultural differences and creating a fantastic workplace will help ensure this.