Breaking down borders: klikit finds hiring solution with Deel

When klikit, a tech venture that helps restaurants and brands grow their businesses, began expanding across Asia-Pacific, it faced a challenge that many growing organisations encounter: How to find and hire the best talent from a global pool of candidates.

With regulations and legal requirements varying market by market, including the need to have onshore entities in some countries, klikit needed a solution that could accommodate these complexities.

Enter Deel, a digital platform that facilitates compliant global workforce management, including engaging contract employees, managing global payroll and compliance, and day-to-day HR management.

In an interview with HRM Asia, Chris Withers, Founder and CEO of klikit, explained how Deel helped his start-up overcome its talent management and hiring challenges, and set the foundation for its rapid expansion.

“Great talent exists globally,” Withers said. “Given my experience launching and scaling a number of venture-backed businesses throughout Asia-Pacific, I’ve been fortunate to meet incredible people all across the region. In starting klikit, I knew I needed a people solution that could accommodate this.”

Deel provided the foundation and framework for klikit to attract talent and simplified complex issues such as payroll and insurance across multiple markets.

“With Deel, we can hire according to regulatory and legal requirements to remain legally compliant,” he explained. “Deel has kept our staff comfortable and happy throughout the process; they have been equally helpful given their geographic coverage and the fact that they can support us in a number of different countries.”

In the first 12 months since its launch in 2021, the Singapore-based start-up has experienced rapid geographic expansion. With offices now operating in over eight countries, klikit needed a solution that would allow for cross-border payroll and staff management.

Deel provided that flexibility and has since become a necessary tool within klikit by helping it to launch new operations.

Withers pointed out that the ability to set varying contract types and process of lodging and claiming expenses via the platform have been particularly helpful for maintaining internal accounting policies while ensuring employees and contractors have the flexibility they need to deliver on their roles and responsibilities.

“Deel is constantly adding a range of new features to their product suite that will soon unlock a full-stack HR and people solution for scaling entities,” Withers continued. “At klikit, we think this is particularly exciting and are looking forward to experimenting with these new offerings to see how they can improve our existing processes.”

Staying connected remotely

The pandemic has brought to light the challenges of managing remote teams. To achieve success, leadership teams need to prioritise the culture of the team and the outcomes they are trying to achieve.

Without a sense of purpose and belonging, remote employees may struggle to stay motivated and connected. As a result, it is essential for leaders to focus on building strong communication channels and connections within the team to promote a sense of collaboration and shared goals.

To maintain effective communication and work culture, klikit regularly runs team social events in each of its markets, and weekly cadences to keep everyone abreast of what is happening throughout the organisation. Another important factor, Withers identified, is maintaining strong and updated asynchronous documentation.

“There are a range of tools for this [asynchronous documentation] such as Confluence or Notion,” he elaborated. “Each team should appoint an internal champion to maintain this register for them, whether on regularly repeated tasks, experiments, projects, or more.”

“By ensuring documentation is tight and paired with a platform like Deel, new hires and contractors can be onboarded quickly and seamlessly into their functions to start having a real, tangible impact almost from the time they get their email access. This has enabled us to launch new markets fast while maintaining a high level of quality onboarding experiences.”

Withers also shared that partnering with Deel has been a “game changer” for their early-stage start-up, and said, “I truly believe great, high-performing talent is everywhere and anywhere. To seize it, you need the right partners and platforms. Deel has definitely been that for us, and with their assistance, we’ve been able to move fast and far in such a short period of time.”

Looking towards the future, klikit plans to continue expanding throughout the Asia-Pacific region and eventually go global within the next 12-18 months. Deel has been an integral part of their growth strategy, and Withers expects this partnership to continue as they enter new markets together.

Want to learn how Deel can help you to build and scale your business with a global workforce? Book a free demo today to learn more.