Kinsta
at a glance
Founded in Budapest in 2013, Kinsta offers a high-quality platform for hosting applications, databases, managed WordPress sites, and static websites. Serving 120,000+ businesses in 128 countries, Kinsta’s globally distributed team is spread across six continents and covers all time zones.
Kinsta switched to Oyster from a legacy EOR provider to ensure a compliant and seamless employment experience for their global team. Thanks to Oyster, they’ve also converted contractors to full-time employees to provide a better employee experience and reduce risk.
- Kinsta’s global team is happier after transitioning from a legacy EOR
- Kinsta reduced risk by converting contractors to full-timers
- Kinsta is saving $29,000 per year with Oyster Scale
The challenge
As a managed hosting platform that serves businesses in 128 countries worldwide, Kinsta has been proudly remote-first for over 10 years, with a globally distributed team spanning 46 countries on six continents. “As a global company, it’s very important for us to be able to hire people wherever we find suitable talent,” says Ana Sekulic, HR Generalist at Kinsta.
However, building and managing a global team has been complicated, especially in countries where Kinsta didn’t have their own legal entities. They worked with a few different EOR providers in the past, but the service quality was often unsatisfactory. This meant having to worry about compliance issues when it came to navigating local legislation. Not being able to count on their EOR partner also meant it was hard to ensure a good employee experience.
“We were using different EORs before Oyster, but we were not happy with them. The communication wasn’t good, things didn’t go as planned, and there were problems with edge cases. It was very difficult for us to navigate local legislation, to stay compliant, to be there for our team members, and give them a good employee experience. It was all kind of very messy. So that’s when we found Oyster.”
After a suboptimal experience on another EOR, it was especially important to Ana’s team to make sure their team members felt supported by their next EOR. In addition, Kinsta also had several contractors who wanted to be full-time employees since being long-term contractors was affecting their job satisfaction—in addition to involving risk for the company.
These were some of the challenges Kinsta needed to overcome in order to grow and thrive as a globally distributed organization.
The solution
After evaluating other providers, Kinsta eventually chose Oyster as their global employment partner in November 2021. With Oyster, they found a reliable and trustworthy partner and could count on a high quality of service.
“Why did we choose Oyster? We tried several EORs and we were just not happy. Compared to them, we found Oyster to be the best solution and very different from other EORs in terms of communication, logistics, automations, and internal processes. With Oyster, we managed to improve, if not solve, all the issues we were having with EORs before.”
In her day-to-day work, Ana finds the Oyster platform intuitive and user-friendly. Her team uses the platform routinely to manage time-off requests, expense reimbursements, contract changes, and more. The self-serve features and automations help to streamline workflows, and it also makes the HR team’s work easier to have one centralized platform to manage their global team.
“The Oyster platform is super intuitive and easy to use. Everything can be done in a few clicks, like expenses and time-off requests, and there are automations for contract generation and contract changes. And there’s great support documentation with step-by-step instructions on how to do things, so we can work faster and be more efficient. It’s also very helpful to have everything in one place, like contracts, payroll, and support requests.”
Global employment is complex since it requires navigating compliance with local legislation in various countries. But if any issues come up, Ana knows she can reach out to the Oyster team and count on helpful and reliable customer support. The Kinsta team can also rely on their dedicated customer success manager and account manager to step in whenever necessary.
“The support team is very responsive. Even if they’re not able to assist me immediately, they always keep me updated so I have peace of mind that my issue is taken care of, that it’s not forgotten. We also have a great relationship with our success manager and account manager. If we have a critical situation or need to escalate something, they’re always ready to jump in and find a quick solution for us.”
It’s not only Kinsta’s HR team that has peace of mind thanks to Oyster, but their global team members as well. Team members can log in to the platform and independently access what they need, without having to contact either Kinsta or Oyster, which gives them a greater level of autonomy. “They can make changes to their personal information or download their payslips or get an employment verification letter without having to reach out to support,” Ana explains. And if team members do request support, any issues get resolved quickly, she adds.
Access to global talent is crucial for Kinsta since their ability to serve businesses in 128 countries depends on having a globally diverse team that can provide support in multiple languages and across all time zones.
With Oyster as a partner, Kinsta can confidently and compliantly onboard global talent from anywhere in the world. Currently, that’s 20 team members across North America, Europe, and Australia. “We aren’t limited to hiring only in countries where we have our own legal entities,” explains Ana. “Oyster enables us to hire team members globally and stay compliant with local regulations.”
But the greatest impact of using Oyster is being able to provide a much better employment experience for their global team by transitioning them from their previous legacy EOR provider. Ana particularly appreciates the Oyster team working hard to ensure that the transition was smooth and seamless.
“We had many issues with our previous EOR, so we decided to switch those employees to Oyster. That transition was very important and sensitive because our team members were coming from a place where they’d had a bad employee experience, so we had to make sure that they feel the improvement, that they feel that they’re switching to something better. Oyster was super supportive and helped us ensure a smooth transition. They proactively solved issues and answered employee questions. The whole transition was very smooth and very successful, and Oyster helped us to achieve that.”
Having migrated their team from the previous EOR, Ana is glad to report that her team members are happier on Oyster. “The employee experience is much better than with the previous EOR because Oyster support is much more available and proactive in solving issues,” says Ana. “I’ve received positive feedback from employees about the Oyster platform and how easy it is to navigate. I’ve also received positive feedback about Oyster’s hiring and onboarding process.”
Another transition Kinsta navigated successfully with Oyster’s help was converting contractors to full-time employees. Having the status and benefits of full-time employment has increased their job satisfaction at Kinsta while also reducing risk for the company.
“For the conversion of contractors to employees, we had a lot of interest from our team members, especially in Spain. It was a big project for us, and we converted a number of contractors to full-time employees. The process was managed very well by Oyster, and the team members were really happy to be formally employed instead of being contractors. It definitely increased their satisfaction with the company overall. And for us, it also helped us to stay compliant to avoid certain risks.”
More recently, Kinsta has switched to Oyster Scale, a seat-based annual subscription that offers reduced pricing and significant savings. By purchasing 18 seats for their team members on Scale, Kinsta has reduced their global employment costs by $29,000 per year. It’s also enabled more efficient workforce and resource planning for their HR team.
“I think Scale is a really great option that Oyster offers. It’s a huge step for us to move from a monthly subscription to the more affordable yearly one. We can save money and plan our resources in a better way, so I really appreciate this option with Oyster.”
As an Oyster power user, Ana is “excited about seeing the evolution of Oyster,” including new features, automations, and improvements on the platform. Most importantly, Ana looks forward to seeing Kinsta grow and thrive as a global company with Oyster’s continued support.
“We’re really happy that we finally found a partner that we can trust, so we can work together and grow together.”
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"Prior to using Oyster, employing anyone outside the U.K. was a nightmare for us... now it's super fast and painless."
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