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Fast, painless onboarding

Onboard your global team in just a few clicks and make new starters feel at home. Remote’s simple yet powerful platform guides you from building a salary estimate right though to issuing your first payslip.

Rapid onboarding with constant visibility

Simple 5-step onboarding process

These five clean stages are designed to guide the employee through a fast, secure, and compliant onboarding. Hiring managers and admins have visibility of the employee's onboarding progress at all times.

Simply set up your new hire

We make it easy for you to add the employee's details to Remote with automated invite emailed to your new starter

Remote triggers self-enrollment

After your employee logs in to the platform, Remote prompts them to add administrative details and upload the required supporting documentation

Work visa and permit check

Remote will carry out a right-to-work check to ensure workers have the correct permissions, work permits, or work visas required based on their location

Signed employment agreement

The employment agreement is prepared and sent to the employee for an official signature

Activation of new hire

The employee is enrolled into both payroll and benefits programs and their status is set active in Remote.

Building an onboarding process for a global team

You’ve decided to embrace the immense benefits of global hiring and you are ready to onboard talent in another country. What next? 

If you don’t have an existing business entity in the new team member’s country, your People Team (and a legal representative) would have to launch an entity, develop a compliant work contract for your hire, create a compliant benefit package, figure out taxes, and the list goes on... 

This process demands time and resource (not to mention the cost). Any mistakes open up serious compliance risks and potentially significant fines.

Remote's global employment platform is purpose-built to ensure compliant onboarding. You can start the onboarding process with a new team member in minutes, not the months it might take if your company goes it alone. With Remote, you can generate a customized employment letter and a localized, legal contract to offer a new hire in a matter of clicks. 

And what about compensation and benefits? 

We guarantee compliance with local employment laws so you can always hire confidently in countries around the world. Our expert global benefits team is here to help not just when you onboard your employees, but even when regulations change. You can even use our Employee Cost Calculator for razor-sharp budgeting so you always know the total cost to hire and onboard a remote worker in another country.

Onboard elite global talent with built-in compliance

Remote's global employment platform gives you the deep, localized expertise you need to avoid the serious time, cost, and risk of going it alone.

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Rapid onboarding for employees and contractors

We monitor ever-changing compliance requirements around the world to make real-time product updates, providing guidance and support to employers every step of the way.

  • Remote employee onboarding

    Onboarding employees in a new company doesn't have to be complicated. Whether your new starter is in Mumbai, Nairobi, Warsaw, or Toronto, you can rely on Remote to make your entire global team feel at home. The onboarding process is often the first true impression your remote employee gets of how your company operates. If onboarding is frustrating with constant hiccups and errors, you risk isolating this team member immediately. You need onboarding best practices for your remote employees that inspire a sense of belonging, and reflect the reputation you’ve worked so hard to build for your company. Your new hire receives a warm welcome when they first join the Remote platform, with friendly guidance on every step of the onboarding journey. Your employee is assigned a HR manager to message at any time, helping you build a stronger connection. Remote is designed for the user, with all important payroll, compensation, and benefits documentation easy to access for the employee as they onboard. Automatic alert emails inform the remote employee when they must take action, and Remote customer support is available 24/7 if you or your new employee have any issues onboarding.

  • Remote contractor onboarding

    If you and your team aren’t yet ready to onboard full-time international employees, get started with contractors to test the experience. Even though these workers aren’t full-time, there are a number of pitfalls you and your HR team must avoid. You still need to manage compliance with all relevant employment laws and develop secure, localized contract agreements. Remote makes the contractor onboarding process simple, fast, and cost-effective. Like full-time employee onboarding, we make sure your contractor receives a contract that is fully compliant with local labor and taxation laws. Contractors get the same guidance and expert customer support from Remote along with one streamlined platform to submit invoices and receive payments in the currency of their choice. With automated contracts, customizable information fields, and monitoring for misclassification, you can onboard new global contractors with rapid speed and lasting security.

Frequently Asked Questions

Depending on where you want to hire, employee onboarding software allows you to bring new employees into your organization in full compliance with all applicable employment laws. For local employees, this is usually a straightforward (or at least familiar) process for most businesses. New employees typically sign an employment agreement and upload important documents, all of which is managed by the software the company uses to onboard employees. Employee onboarding software often continues use when the employee begins working with the company, as most onboarding software is simply a feature of a larger employment software package.

Things become a little more complicated when companies attempt to onboard remote employees in countries where they don't own a legal entity. Unfamiliarity with local laws and customs can make it difficult to onboard new employees quickly while staying compliant. In these cases, employers usually use an employer of record, or EOR, to onboard new workers. An EOR allows businesses to employ workers in other countries by acting as a stand-in local employer while managing functions such as payroll, benefits, tax withholding, compliance, and stock options.

New employees do not automatically know what to do when they start in a new role. Even for small companies, onboarding new employees is the first opportunity to manage administrative concerns, establish clear expectations, and communicate company culture. In many countries, new employee onboarding involves a series of deadlines for paperwork and registrations, so companies hiring in multiple countries should always be vigilant when onboarding new workers.

Nothing frustrates a new employee quite like difficulty with payroll and benefits. You want your new employees to have a good experience with your company and feel an immediate sense if care and belonging.

If you can’t pay their first check on time or if they can’t sign up for insurance because of administrative errors, new team members will start to lose trust and motivation fast. Efficient onboarding processes create a positive experience for employees from the outset, establishing a welcoming environment from day one.

Onboarding remote employees can be as easy as onboarding in-office employees — or it can be much more difficult, depending on where you’re hiring and your level of preparation. If you are hiring remote employees who live in the same general area as the rest of your team (like in the same city or state), your onboarding process is fairly straightforward. You will need to provide the new employee with the proper equipment and ensure they feel appropriately welcomed and included, but the legal aspects of onboarding (for example, signing the employment agreement) are generally the same.

Onboarding remote employees in other locations, such as another state or another country, presents a new set of challenges. Not only do you have to adjust for time zones, but you also need to account for the paperwork and registrations that accompany a distributed hire. For example, in certain countries, employees are required to undergo a medical exam as part of a new offer of employment, even when working remotely.

In most cases, certain documents must be filed with the government by strict deadlines, and employees must be enrolled in social programs by a set date after employment begins. To onboard employees in a new country where your company does not own a legal entity, you can hire abroad with confidence using an employer of record, or EOR like Remote.

To onboard remote employees into your workforce, start with the basics. Do you have everything you need in place to employ this new person legally?

For contractors, this is usually a quick and straightforward process. You can use an international contractor management platform like Remote to pay your contractors in their local currencies.

For full employees who work remotely, onboarding can be more complex. The key is to understand the regulations that apply in the country or region where your new employee lives and works. If you own an entity in the country where you plan to hire, you will be responsible for a variety of functions, including local compliance, payroll, taxes, benefits administration, and various types of paperwork. Because of these barriers, companies onboarding remote employees in other countries typically work with an employer of record.

Remote is purpose-built to take the cost, risk, and complexity out of global employment so you can manage compliance with certainty.

Onboarding independent contractors is easier than onboarding full-time employees, but don’t be fooled. Failing to establish the correct boundaries of a working relationship could cost you — not only in fines, but potentially in ownership of your intellectual property, or IP.

To onboard independent contractors, you should first create and sign an official agreement with your chosen contractor. This contractor should cover factors such as pay rates, work deliverables, and ownership of created works. Different countries have different rules, so if you hire internationally, be sure to use an international contractor management tool — not just a tool that allows you to send payments without context or protections.

You may want to convert contractors to employees at some point. If this occurs, you have a few options. You will need to onboard the contractors into the new roles, complete with new paperwork depending on the country.

Don’t just take our word for it

See how we help customers simply hire, pay and manage their team

  • “We’re a publicly listed company, so we needed the stability and reliability of a well-known brand to help us scale; with the support, the roadmap, and the ability to support multiple countries — and handle all the compliance wherever we wanted to hire. Remote immediately ticked all those boxes."
  • "Remote is a very strong partner for us. Onboarding is easy and everything is compliant, from their benefits, payroll, contract and other nuances specific to that particular country. The platform is very easy and straightforward for the new joiners, which wasn't the case with our previous provider. It’s a better experience for our global workforce."
  • “Remote has been instrumental in our growth. It would have been impossible to manage such a high volume of hires internally without their support. They provide the whole package, combined with great account management.”

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