Many companies today are expanding their operations across borders, whether it’s to explore commercial opportunities in new markets, overcome local talent shortages, or build diverse teams. With remote work becoming the new normal, geographical distance is no longer a barrier to building a distributed workforce and reaping the benefits of a global footprint.
That said, expanding internationally is a complex endeavor with potential challenges that may arise. There’s a lot to consider when going global—logistics, compliance, time zones, talent acquisition, team management, workplace design, and more. The good news is that it’s possible to ensure smooth and seamless global expansion by planning carefully and having a good strategy in place.
To learn more about the critical strategies and key considerations for expanding globally, we asked Mark Frein, Chief Operating Officer at Oyster, and Argentino Molinuevo, General Manager at Athyna, to share their expert advice. Both Mark and Argentino are passionate about helping companies scale globally, and they offered insights on the benefits of global expansion, critical first steps, tips for attracting and retaining global talent, and strategies for managing a distributed workforce.
Why do companies expand operations globally?
There are many reasons why companies expand across borders, ranging from talent considerations to new commercial opportunities and smoother business operations. Here are some of the most important benefits of hiring internationally.
Increased access to talent
One major advantage of global expansion is the increased access to talent since your talent pool is no longer limited to a particular city or country. This allows you to find the best fit candidate for a role, and not just whoever happens to be available nearby.
When it comes to in-demand skill sets or hard-to-fill roles, recruiting globally makes it much easier to find the talent you need. For instance, if you’re having trouble finding (or affording) developers in New York, you may have better luck by expanding your search beyond borders and exploring new talent hot spots. In fact, about 50% of cross-border hires made through Oyster are for software engineering roles.
Expanding into new markets
Another common reason for cross-border expansion is to explore new markets and do business in new regions. If you want to sell or promote your products and services in a new market, a great way to get started is to hire someone there who has deep local knowledge of that market, including the language, culture, customer preferences, competitive landscape, and more. Or perhaps you already have clients or customers in those countries and need to hire local team members to support them. Either way, hiring remote talent is a great way to either expand into new markets or better serve existing customers.
Ensuring seamless operations
For companies with clients based around the world, it’s very helpful to have customer service or support teams distributed across various time zones to ensure seamless, round-the-clock coverage. This way, there’s no need to have people in your HQ location work night shifts to support customers elsewhere. You can also enjoy seamless continuity of your business operations since one team is starting their work day just as another is logging off.
Critical first steps when considering global expansion
Expanding globally is a major undertaking, so it shouldn’t be rushed into. It’s much easier to proceed with a good plan and get things right than to make mistakes and hope to fix them later. It’s critical to have a strategic workforce plan in place and to make sure you proceed compliantly.
Establish a clear strategy
If you’re considering going global, start by figuring out your why. In other words, why do you want to do this? What’s your talent strategy? What do you need in terms of skills and time zone availability? What’s your budget and how do you plan to spend those salary dollars?
Make sure you have a clear vision of your company’s goals and talent plan, and how going global supports that plan. Your talent strategy should support your business strategy, so if you’re hiring globally, make sure it’s because it fits your overarching business needs and goals.
Keep compliance at the forefront
It’s tempting to think that if other companies are hiring across borders, it must be fairly simple and without much risk. Early-stage startups sometimes make the mistake of thinking they’re too small to get into trouble—until they receive a massive tax bill or run into legal trouble.
To avoid such mishaps, it’s critical to understand local labor laws and tax regulations so you can ensure full compliance and mitigate risks. Make sure you invest the time upfront to ensure that your employment practices are compliant from day one—because getting it wrong can result in fines, legal claims, and reputational damage. It also affects the employee experience, which is hard to fix retroactively and may result in increased turnover rates.
💡 Learn how Chili Piper operates compliantly in 43 countries by partnering with Oyster.
Attracting and retaining top global talent
A company’s most important asset is its people. So, when expanding operations globally, it’s not enough to just recruit globally—you want to make sure you find the people who are the right fit for your company and your culture. If you’re just starting to expand into new regions, those initial hires are especially important since they will likely be the ones making or influencing future hires in that area.
Invest in your employer brand
Make sure you start investing in your employer brand early on. This is essential even for small companies or startups, not just for large or well-established companies. Your employer brand should project a distinctive impression of who you are as an organization, what you stand for, and what it’s like to work there. Be explicit and transparent about your values and offer real examples and stories of the employee experience at your company.
Doing this early on will pay big dividends later by helping you attract the right people who will be a good fit for your organization. Of course, make sure that your employee experience internally matches the employer brand you’re projecting externally. If there’s a mismatch, new employees will experience a dissonance and you’ll have trouble retaining talent.
Consider the candidate perspective
Before hiring talent internationally, make sure you’ve figured out the workplace logistics and infrastructure to ensure that teams will be able to work together effectively across time zones. If you hire with the expectation that two hours of overlap will be enough, but then end up expecting your new hire to be available late into the evening, it’s not going to work in the long term. Make sure your team is set up to operate across time zones by setting up tools and processes to work asynchronously.
To attract and retain talent, you also need to provide a competitive compensation package and opportunities for career growth that meet their career goals and expectations. Make an effort to understand the local culture of the country or region to avoid any miscommunication or missteps and ensure a smooth start to the working relationship.
Make your initial hires with care
The initial hires you make in a new location will have an outsize impact on your company culture and processes because they will be your anchor hires in that region. Look for people who are have an entrepreneurial in spirit and have experience working in startups. After all, since they’ll be building up your operations from scratch in that location and will potentially be the ones hiring future team members there. Put extra care into making these first hires since they will set the tone for the people who come into your company in that region in the following months and years.
Building a thriving global workforce
Managing a team and building a strong work culture can be challenging even in a physical office, but it’s an order of magnitude harder in a remote or distributed workplace where colleagues can’t bump into each other in the hallway or go out for a drink after work. It’s also harder to read someone’s body language or tone of voice in a video call or email. If you’re managing a distributed team, it’s crucial to design a good onboarding process, have clear communication channels and documentation practices, and provide opportunities for team building and social connection.
Design a well-structured onboarding process
Starting a new remote job can be stressful, especially when the new hire is joining remotely from another country. They may be apprehensive and not know what to expect. This is why it’s important to have an effective onboarding process in place to welcome your new hire and integrate them into the organization.
The onboarding process should help the new joiner get used to how things are done in your organization by clarifying policies, processes, and tools. Onboarding documentation should equip them with the information they need to be effective in their role and integrate seamlessly into the team. You might assign an onboarding buddy who can answer their questions, and schedule calls to introduce them to their teammates and cross-functional colleagues. First impressions matter, so a well-designed onboarding is essential in a distributed workplace.
Establish good communication and documentation practices
To help your distributed team work together effectively, be sure to establish clear communication channels as well as best practices for using them. This helps keep everyone on the same page about when to use Slack vs. email, or when to schedule a Zoom meeting vs. discuss something async via a Slack thread. Also, since it’s harder to read social cues like body language or tone of voice online, always over-communicate by being as clear and explicit as possible.
Since distributed teams often work async, it’s important to document policies, processes, and FAQs so that they’re available online as a knowledge base that people can refer to at any time. This way, someone won’t be blocked by their colleague in another time zone not being available to answer a question right away. Documentation also helps to standardize processes and keep your workflows organized and consistent.
Foster strong working relationships
Remote work can potentially feel isolating since distributed teams have fewer opportunities for casual interaction compared to their office-based peers. To help foster strong working relationships, be intentional about building social time into the team calendar, such as social calls, team games, or virtual meet-ups where teammates can get to know each other better. These team bonding opportunities will improve the employee experience while also making it easier for people to collaborate on work projects.
Ready to go global?
If you’re ready to plan and implement your global expansion strategy this year, these expert insights from Mark and Argentino will hold you in good stead. But remember, you don’t have to go it alone. You can enlist the help of a talent partner like Athyna to source candidates to fit your needs, and a global employment platform like Oyster to compliantly hire, pay, and manage international teams. Working with expert partners will help refine and accelerate your global expansion plan and give you a competitive edge.
For more global expansion insights and strategies, check out the full recording of Going Global: Cross-border Expansion in 2024 with Mark Frein, Chief Operating Officer at Oyster, and Argentino Molinuevo, General Manager at Athyna. And if you’re ready to get started, learn how Oyster can support your global expansion goals.
