Global Payroll Recruitment: What are the Challenges?
Recruiting globally brings a host of problems you do not experience when recruiting locally. When you are reaching out to candidates around the world, logistics alone can be a nightmare. Now add in inherent problems with the entire recruitment process, and you are beginning to see the scope of the problem. Of course many of the following problems apply to domestic recruitment as well as global recruitment but these are the key issues I think you may encounter or perhaps you may not have considered when it comes to global payroll recruitment.
Attracting top of the Line
How many top-of-the-line applicants are out there actively seeking employment? Chances are that these people are firmly entrenched with a company and not likely giving more than a cursory glance at job boards. This begs the question of exactly how you put together a recruitment strategy that aims for attracting the top 15% available. It isn’t easy after all every corporation wants to attract the best candidates for their brand. However, payroll is a critical function. If a payroll department misses a payroll deadline or makes regular errors then, it can result in employees in other areas of the business becoming frustrated, despondent and ultimately leaving. In addition, HMRC fines for inaccurate or late reporting can be severe, so it pays to hire the best talent from the outset.
Relying on Traditional Attraction Strategies?
How do you currently locate and recruit prospects? If you are relying on job boards and traditional sources for finding talent such as LinkedIn then you are missing out on the bigger picture. Sure, you can locate candidates this way, but so can everyone else. This means reduced buy-in from candidates (due to multiple opportunities), high chances for losing out on candidates to other offers and more importantly, many companies and recruiters targeting the same pools of talent. The key to a successful recruitment process is locating the best skilled and experienced candidates that also have the personality and profile to align with your corporate values and culture.
You see, money and upward mobility are only part of the equation when it comes to employee satisfaction and retention. Yes, people like to see remuneration improvement over the first year, but more importantly, top candidates are looking for a situation where they feel like they make a difference, where they can progress their careers and add value to the business (and be valued in return).
Therefore, it is much more important that you initiate an inbound candidate strategy for locating the best candidates. What can you do to get candidates coming to you rather than you going to them? By implementing an effective inbound strategy, candidates will already be interested in your opportunity before you approach them. This is half the battle already won.
Bad Hires
There is always the temptation to merely get a position filled. The goal should always be to find the best of the best, but too often, the focus becomes about filling positions quickly, leading to a bad hire. What exactly is a bad hire? For starters, it is someone who will end up leaving your organization in less than one year, often in six months or less and has, therefore, cost you three essential things. Money, Energy and Time. This is money, energy and time you cannot get back, but instead, you now need to reinvest all over again. Typically, the costs associated with attrition far outweigh those associated with retention. For each person who comes on board and leaves quickly, you can assume about double their salary in overall losses. Still tempted to make a quick hire? Maybe it is worth thinking again…
Addressing Issues
So, how do you go from your struggling global recruiting methods to a more streamlined process? You must start with clearly outlining your goals and needs so they can be plugged into a proven recruitment inbound strategy that can target the passive 15% of top talent available.
We would recommend engaging with proven payroll market recruitment experts to guide the hunt for new talent. These professionals will put together a strategy that highlights your opportunity as opposed to your competition while simultaneously ruling out unsuitable candidates. This two-fold approach will put your company front and centre to attract the best of the best, while simultaneously saving you energy and time by undertaking the pre-screening process for you, so you are not wasting time and energy interviewing unsuitable applicants. Here at JGA Payroll Recruitment, we have, on average, 12 years payroll recruitment experience per consultant. Combine that across the team, and that is over 100 years of expertise you can access, instantly to help you recruit better talent faster.
Challenges regarding Global Payroll
We have discussed a few of the common issues with global payroll recruitment, but what about global payroll as a whole? Working with people from around the globe can be a fabulous way to grow your company both financially and culturally, but it also comes with some unique problems.
Communication
If you are working across the globe, communication is going to be key. This can be complicated by language barriers. Even when all parties technically speak the same language, there can be losses in translation, especially where it comes to nuances of speech or slang terms.
This is further exacerbated by the natural tendency to avoid embarrassment as people would rather not admit to a lack of understanding or ask for further clarification. As a leader in your organization, it is important to make sure communication is fluid and fully understood by all parties. Encourage open communication and honesty; otherwise, progress could be painfully slow!
Processes
When you are working with people in different countries, payroll can become a real pain. Different tax rates, onboarding requirements, paperwork and even health care requirements mean your global payroll department must be fully trained and on top of the latest laws, legislation and rules for differing geographical regions. Good technological programs will help, but there is no replacement for knowledgeable staff — providing you can locate them of course!
Networking
With social networking channels continuing to grow both regarding size and utilisation, arguably this is one of the best ways to discover passive global talent. In the UK 1 in 18 people either have a professional profile on LinkedIn or are registered with a job board but that is not the same in other locations. Therefore, relying on these sources for recruitment purposes is incredibly restrictive. In a global world, we can instead harness many other networking channels to locate great payroll talent. Whether that be attending a global payroll conference in person or a global webinar run by the Global Payroll Association or even if it means launching your own global payroll group on Facebook these are all tools that can enable you to increase your reach and attract new talent to your business. As a specialist payroll recruiter, we attend these events and launch groups such as this every day and not only can they help you reach out to passive talent, but they can also become fantastic forums for current payroll discussion and debate — helping you to improve your expertise and profile in the process. Although sometimes time-consuming, these tactics are often free. If you can start networking with a global audience now, then you may well be able to reap the dividends later when you next need to recruit for a specialist role.
Final Thoughts
Global payroll recruitment and retention is an issue facing many multinational companies around the globe. The world is getting more and more competitive and with it, so does the necessity for locating specialised global talent, but this brings to the table some unique problems. Not only are companies struggling to find the most qualified individuals to fill these positions, but they are also dealing with issues arising from telecommuting across language lines and time zones! There are also many, many more issues and challenges than the quick-fire ones I have highlighted here. However, what I do know is that by working with specialist providers you can certainly help ease these recruitment burdens. If you decide to recruit direct then great, because ultimately, if you can establish your business as the brand of choice for potential applicants and then develop an inbound strategy for attracting this talent to apply then you be well on your way to winning the battle. Networking and increasing your global brand visibility will also allow you to become less reliant on scouring traditional recruitment methods for talent which is time-consuming, expensive and often than not, delivers below-par results.
Thanks for reading.
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This article was written by Nick Day, Managing Director at JGA Recruitment — the leading Global Payroll and HR Recruitment Specialist Employment Agency.
If you are looking for expert talent in the fields of Payroll, HR or Reward, then please reach out for a 15 minute call and I would be delighted to discuss how we can help.
Nick Day
Managing Director | JGA Payroll & HR Recruitment
Email: nick@jgarecruitment.com | Tel: 01727 800 377
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