A Spain-based manufacturer had scaled its domestic operations to profitability and turned to international growth. Leadership wanted to test demand across a wide range of markets within one year before committing to legal entities. The plan called for one to three sales representatives in each target country. Handling payroll, tax and labor compliance in-house across dozens of countries would have slowed execution and raised risk. The company adopted an Employer of Record model to hire in many countries at once. The provider onboarded employees quickly and compliantly and advised on salary benchmarks, mandatory and competitive benefits, and local labor law. Business development, operations and customer service roles were placed across Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the United States. Global employment was centralized while local expertise was retained in each market. The company hired and onboarded 53 people in 23 countries within nine months. Average time from offer to start date was under two weeks. It built an international sales and service structure without creating a single local entity. It kept the flexibility to scale or exit markets while gathering real performance data for its five-year plan.

Project Details

A US-based, midsized media production company employed an internationally distributed team through EOR. Facing budgetary pressure, it had moved half of its EOR employees to a competitor. Two years later it came back, seeking a single vendor across every country where it had staff. It needed faster hiring in more countries for a globally dispersed team. The provider implemented a transition plan with revised EOR pricing for the retained headcount. A Master Services Agreement allowed the company to hire in a new country without a contract addendum. The team kept the employee and stakeholder experience consistent during the transfer. New hires were onboarded efficiently through EOR. Twelve workers were transferred and average onboarding time fell to two weeks. Onboarding friction from contract paperwork was eliminated. The company could hire immediately when it found media production talent, even in countries where it had no entity. It gained hiring readiness across 187 countries under one vendor.

Project Details

A growing IT company relied on two EOR vendors to support its internationally distributed workforce. Managing employment across several countries and more than one provider added operational and employment-law complexity. Coordination challenges, occasional overlap and communication issues followed. In 2024 the business decided to consolidate under one vendor to give employees greater continuity. The company selected the provider it had worked with since 2021, citing hundreds of in-country experts and hiring reach across nearly 190 countries. A dedicated onboarding team managed the transfer of employees from the previous provider, with weekly working calls throughout. The provider acted as legal employer in every country and took on local employment-law compliance. Employees gained direct access to local HR support in their home country. The provider went on to support 42 active EOR employees across seven countries as the single vendor. HR leadership coordinated international employment through one point of contact rather than two. The HR team no longer had to monitor legislation across seven jurisdictions. Consolidation simplified operations and gave the business a stable base for further international hiring.

Project Details

Fluent Commerce, a Sydney-based order management technology company, planned an expansion into Canada. It had already set up entities in the US, Ireland, France and Singapore. The HR team knew that repeating the process would be slow, costly and complex. Unfamiliar Canadian labor and tax rules added compliance risk. The company used an Employer of Record model to hire Canadian talent without establishing a local entity. The provider acted as legal employer and handled payroll, taxes and compliance. In-country HR and compliance experts reviewed each decision against local labor law. Fluent Commerce kept full control over its people and culture. Fluent Commerce entered Canada without the delay or expense of entity setup. Operational risk was reduced through expert compliance management. The added agility let the company compete for top talent in a new market. It built a compliant, competitive workplace that strengthened its presence in North America.

Project Details

Poshmark, the US social marketplace with 80 million registered users, decided to expand into India in 2021. Its app had been built with an India-based engineering team led by Mithin Kumar, who worked as outside consultants. The company first explored acquiring that firm, but the route proved slow and costly. Indian law also imposed strict rules on full-time workers versus freelancers, including mandatory annual bonuses of 8.33% to 20%. Poshmark chose to open a foreign entity in Delhi instead of buying the company. The entity setup team handled the legal requirements, process and cost planning around the company's short- and long-term goals. They prepared the documents, applied for the business license and obtained the tax IDs. Poshmark only had to review and sign the paperwork. With the entity established, Poshmark hired Kumar and his entire team directly as employees. The transition was smooth and fully compliant with local law. The India team then shipped market-specific features such as local payments, shipping, new apparel categories and localized trending feeds. Early entry gave Poshmark a natural advantage in a market of 622 million active internet users.

Project Details

Gorilla Glue Europe began expanding internationally in 2023 with an initial focus on Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. As its international presence grew, the company needed to build regional sales leadership in key markets. It faced challenges recruiting locally in regions where it lacked internal recruiting capacity and market knowledge. The need to fill critical roles in APAC and EMEA quickly increased urgency and complexity. To enable compliant international hiring, Gorilla Glue partnered with an Employer of Record (EOR) provider to support employment in Spain, the Nordics, and Hong Kong without establishing local legal entities. To address urgent hiring needs, it also engaged an internal recruiting team using a success-based search model with no upfront payment. The recruiting engagement was designed to complement the existing EOR structure as an integrated, one-stop approach. The team ran localized search strategies across multiple time zones to reach hard-to-access talent pools in markets such as Japan and Australia. In Q4 2023, the partnership successfully filled the Regional Sales Manager role for the Nordics, and the hire went on to perform strongly and contribute positively to the business. The recruiting team also hired a Regional Sales Manager for the Iberian Peninsula, a Sales Director in APAC, and a 3PL Manager in the Netherlands. Gorilla Glue provided consistently positive feedback on the quality of hires and the seamless integration of recruiting and EOR services. The collaboration set the foundation for future hiring as the company expanded into new markets and evolved its distributor model in Europe and Asia.

Skills

Project Details

The rideshare innovator pursued rapid global expansion after new venture capital and planned to hire workers in more than 30 countries within months. Speed-to-market was the top priority, but creating legal entities caused major setbacks, including lost paperwork in Argentina. Entity setup timelines that were expected to take weeks stretched to six to nine months or more in some markets. International hiring was slowed further by unfamiliar labor regulations and a lack of in-country HR expertise. The company implemented an Employer of Record (EOR) approach to hire and pay workers across its target markets. It partnered with Safeguard Global and aligned on a comprehensive global expansion project plan. The teams met weekly to build an HR knowledge base by country and standardize scalable HR processes and procedures. The partner also supported HR administration across the employment lifecycle and helped maintain compliance as contracts and employment relationships were established. The partnership let the company manage workforce expansion centrally while fast-tracking HR processes in each market. Over two years, it hired, onboarded, and paid 189 international employees across 34 countries while establishing local entities in parallel. It entered new international markets in as little as two weeks, increasing speed-to-market by 1,400%. The company also achieved $8 billion in revenue growth over two years, reported as five times more revenue growth than its closest competitor in the same period.

Skills

Project Details

CloudWay faced intense competition for highly specialized tech talent amid a global labor shortage. As the company grew rapidly, it needed to hire precise experts quickly, including candidates located outside Norway. The hires it wanted lived in countries where CloudWay did not have legal entities, making compliant employment difficult. The shrinking hiring window increased the risk of losing top candidates. CloudWay researched employer of record (EOR) options to hire internationally without establishing local entities. It evaluated five major EOR providers and selected an EOR approach to employ workers on its behalf in their home countries. The solution provided predictable, transparent costs and a platform for reporting absences and expenses. It also delivered in-country HR and payroll guidance so hires were handled in compliance with local labor laws and norms. CloudWay hired two workers in the UK and Finland and later returned to hire another worker in the UK through the EOR model. The company increased its workforce 66.7% in seven months, growing from six to 10 employees. It achieved gazelle status by increasing revenue at least 20% a year for four years. The company expanded its global team without taking on the financial and time commitments of setting up new country entities.

Skills

Project Details

Bandlab Technologies, a global music company established in 2016, pursued rapid international expansion to serve its community worldwide. During a critical acquisition in the UK, it needed to quickly transition newly acquired staff into its organization. Bandlab had limited resources to support an international workforce while growing in new markets. It also lacked a UK entity, and establishing a formal presence in the UK would have taken years. Bandlab evaluated global employment providers and selected an employer of record approach to employ its acquired UK workforce quickly and compliantly. It chose Safeguard Global’s Global Employment Outsourcing (GEO) for employer of record coverage and full-service HR support in the UK. The provider supplied expertise in UK employment law and delivered operational HR services. Support included benefits, taxes, and payroll administration in accordance with local requirements. Using the GEO solution, Bandlab successfully transferred 17 new employees within two months. The arrangement helped the company get up and running faster in the UK by offloading employer setup and compliance tasks. Over the following years, the provider supported multiple restructures and organizational changes, helping manage transitions and processes. Bandlab reported the partnership accelerated time-to-market and supported greater control of its HR strategy in the UK.

Skills

Project Details

Frank Robles Bolanos sought a new quality assurance role and did not want to limit his search to Mexico. The opportunity he secured was with a US-based organization, creating potential complexity around employing someone in Mexico. He also needed to ensure he received the benefits he was entitled to under Mexican law. A streamlined experience from onboarding through payroll was important. The American Institutes for Research (AIR) hired Frank using an Employer of Record (EOR) model. This approach enabled AIR to employ him in Mexico without needing its own local entity. The arrangement supported compliant employment aligned with Mexican legal benefit requirements. The process covered core employment administration such as onboarding and payroll. Frank reported that he received all benefits he was entitled to by Mexican law. He described the employment process as streamlined from onboarding to payroll. He stated he had not needed to reach out to his EOR point of contact even once since being hired. He also said he was very happy and would recommend the provider.

Skills

Project Details

Ute Kraidy worked as an art director at Drexel University for three years when her family had the opportunity to move from the US to Qatar. She initially believed she would have to resign to relocate. The university also needed to remain compliant with local employment and tax requirements while supporting a remote arrangement. Her manager researched options that would allow her to keep working from Qatar without Drexel University having to establish an in-country entity. The team used an Employer of Record (EOR) approach to enable compliant employment and payroll across borders. This setup let Ute relocate overseas while continuing in the same role. The transition had zero lag time and was described as seamless. Ute kept a job she loved during a period when many others were losing theirs. The arrangement worked well enough that Drexel University opted to extend it even after lockdown restrictions eased.

Skills

Project Details

WRI needed to hire on-the-ground staff worldwide to support its mission, including in countries where it lacked a local legal entity. It had been relying on consultants, but project timelines often exceeded contract terms or became indefinite. WRI also wanted to provide benefits like health insurance and ensure workers were fully taken care of. At the same time, it needed to remain compliant with local labor laws and meet funder obligations without risking funding. WRI ran an RFP process and selected an employer of record approach, choosing Global Employment Outsourcing (GEO). This arrangement let WRI hire workers legally while the provider handled local HR, payroll, and compliance requirements. WRI used standardized processes and a single point of contact to avoid vetting separate providers in each country. As part of the partnership, WRI employed workers in multiple countries, including Kenya during a lengthy entity registration process, with the ability to transfer employees to WRI payroll once the local entity was established. WRI integrated outsourced workers into its internal systems so they used the same tools for time sheets, expense reports, IT, project management, and performance management. The setup supported ongoing processes such as promotions and salary increases by routing approved changes for processing. By using the provider across a growing global footprint, WRI reduced global hiring costs by about 40%. This enabled WRI to focus more on strategic decisions about where to expand its work rather than on the mechanics of hiring in each country.

Skills

Project Details