Employee recruitment and retention can be a big worry for universities, especially now as the industry is faced with budget cuts and travel restrictions brought about by COVID-19. However, recruitment and employee relocation can be made simpler.
Universities are in the key position to benefit from the support and services of Professional Employer Organizations (PEOs). These PEOs work to manage overseas employment and potential relocation in line with national and international regulations. If you’re curious about how they do this, read on.
In some circumstances, universities will be hiring talent from abroad and then relocating them to work on-site in the home country. In these situations, the hiring process can be long, laborious and costly - especially if you’re conducting it across different time zones.
A PEO can help. First of all, they can handle what’s known as Global Talent Acquisition, a process of hiring the best talent from a foreign country. In some cases, there may be language or cultural barriers that can affect the hiring process. PEOs have the bespoke knowledge to work around these issues, making sure that you’re getting right to the point during communications.
Similarly, there are also issues of local labor laws and payroll obligations that may need to be dealt with. During the coronavirus pandemic, it may be the case that a new hire begins work and yet isn’t able to relocate as of yet. This means you’ll have to pay them for any work done within the regulations set by their current country of residence.
Now, this can be an issue if you’re unfamiliar with that specific legislation, but don’t worry, a Global PEO has an encyclopedic knowledge of these types of laws and can make sure your new employee is not only hired quickly and efficiently but contracted within the legal obligations as well.
A PEO will essentially become an extension of an internal HR team, meaning they’ll provide guidance and support within each phase of an employee lifecycle. This means you can hire pre-screened individuals to reinforce your talented ranks of educational professionals.
Whether hiring abroad for the employee to work there or hiring abroad to have them relocate to your home country, you need to remain compliant. Whether it’s labor laws, tax obligations or any other of the seemingly endless pieces of legislation you need to work within, compliance is potentially the most crucial factor within employee recruitment and relocation.
In the relocation process, you’ll have to secure the correct travel permits or visas for that new employee to make their way abroad. Alongside that, you’ll also need to contend with local and international employment laws that may apply to this hire.
We’ve already mentioned that, due to the coronavirus pandemic, it may be some time until your new hire can relocate to their actual work location. In this case, a PEO can deliver the right in-country compliance as they work remotely.
They’ll carry out cross-border management and communication to ensure compliance with local regulations. This can be especially important when it comes to potential changes to visa requirements that may affect your employee relocation process.
Having overseas employees working remotely means you’ll have to factor in not just your own set of labor laws, but the labor laws of a foreign territory. These can be complex and unfamiliar. A Global PEO, such as Global Expansion, works to keep you and your employees compliant with local regulations, including any updates.
Many universities have overseas satellite campuses, collaborative research projects and employees overseas for other reasons. This means that they’ll need payroll within that country for tax, associated benefits and regulatory compliance. Managing this can be a tough task, especially if met with changes in timezone, tax laws and payroll obligations - commonplace issues if an organization has overseas employees.
In other cases, employees may be relocating from your home country into another area, such as one that houses a satellite campus. For example, the UK is a country with one of the largest amounts of overseas campuses that represent home universities. Of the UK’s 136 universities, there are 39 foreign campuses abroad, meaning they’ll have employees that have had to relocate.
This means that those universities will have had to:
Alongside many other, in-country specific processes. This can always be complex, resulting in more headaches than it does success. However, a Global PEO is specifically designed to manage overseas payroll obligations, taking that vital part of employee relocation off your hands and leaving you to focus on other critical matters.
This is all done compliantly, as PEOs are experts when it comes to salary and tax regulations.
When it comes to employee relocation, seamless immigration is the goal. Not only for universities and higher education institutions but for business in general, employee immigration is a key factor to continued growth. Global PEOs help to simplify this process by organizing your relocation programs with regard to local legislation and visa requirements.
For example, the right PEO will offer:
Additionally, employee relocation is handled in a case-by-case process, tailored to both nationality and specific employment circumstance. Universities can gain visibility and transparency for themselves and their employee/s through a consistent point of contact.
Employee relocation is only one part of the larger puzzle that is ensuring universities continue to grow, benefit from foreign markets and stay cost-efficient during the coronavirus pandemic. To explore this important topic at a more in-depth level, download our guide.
From financial implications to travel restrictions, the world of COVID-19 has affected the university sector worldwide in a multitude of difficult ways. In our download, we explore the top issues that universities are experiencing now and how they can overcome these challenges.
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