Building a global workforce by employing talent anywhere

“Today, Multiplier can help you employ anyone, anywhere in 30 seconds across 150 countries. We enable you to go global with three clicks – that is what Multiplier stands for today.”- Sagar Khatri, Co-Founder and CEO of Multiplier.

To stay ahead of the competition, organisations are increasingly expanding their search for the best talent. To hire talent in an international market today, however, is costly, time consuming, and onerous, said Sagar Khatri, Co-Founder and CEO of Multiplier.

Speaking exclusively to HRM Asia, Khatri explained, “For example, if you are a company in Singapore and you want to hire someone from Australia, China, or Vietnam, you need to open a legal entity and you need to put in your paid-up capital. You need to find people in that market who are payroll experts, HR experts, legal experts; only then can you hire talent, and you then need to manage their payroll, social contributions, taxes, insurance, and more.”

Convinced that the future of work is going to be defined by companies expanding globally, Khatri moved to co-found Multiplier in 2020, with the objective of making it easy for companies to employ teams internationally, while being compliant and risk-free.

He declared, “Today, Multiplier can help you employ anyone, anywhere in 30 seconds across 150 countries. Within the same day, you can employ international talent in any market without having to open a legal entity, without having to hire specific teams to facilitate expansion and employment, and without having to spend significant capital to do so. We enable you to go global with three clicks – that is what Multiplier stands for today.”

Going global is evolving key HR functions

Where the workforce may once have been defined by having everyone in one office in a centralised location, teams today are distinctly more decentralised and global. Multiplier, for example, has team members made up of some 52 nationalities located in more than 30 countries.

As teams go global, the complexity in hiring, onboarding, and retaining talent has also evolved, with organisations having to manage multiple payrolls, as well as the different employment laws and insurance requirements in each country.

Urging talent acquisition teams to adopt a more global view, Khatri said, “Talent acquisition is more important than ever because now, you can identify talent anywhere in the world. If I post on LinkedIn, I’ll have access to the best candidates for that skill set, irrespective of location.”

Multiplier’s software-as-a-service technology platform is also designed to help organisations manage what he described as the “exponentially more complex” task of managing onboard payroll compliance benefits.

Within the Multiplier platform, organisations can provide insurance to talent and their families, store multi-lingual employment contracts, churn payrolls, and manage leave, expenses, and bonuses.

Khatri explained, “We are making it extremely easy for employers to manage the entire lifecycle of global employees by providing HR teams with one simple and exhaustive employment platform tailored to the needs of each team member.”

Where retention of talent is concerned, there are two differing aspects organisations should pay attention to.

On one hand, they can now attract talent who have always wanted to work remotely. These workers, Khatri pointed out, consider spending time with their families and loved ones as being more important than anything else, and welcome the flexibility to work from anywhere.

There is, however, another group of employees who miss the office interaction and want to spend time with colleagues in a face-to-face setting.

Nevertheless, Khatri is predicting a future of distributed teams, where everyone will be working from everywhere, accelerating the trend of tech tools being adopted to make sure that even if employees cannot see other face-to-face, they can still communicate and engage effectively.

Offering the best employer solution for Asian talent

With an increase in global hiring, Asia is emerging as a leading market to access the best untapped talent.

This, said Khatri, is presenting an opportunity for Multiplier to help companies access Asian talent; a challenging task, considering the sheer diversity of the region.

Khatri described, “If you move from Indonesia to Vietnam, for example, everything changes. Labour laws change completely, the currency changes, leave allowances, payroll, and tax requirements change, how employee are treated and what benefits should be given change.”

“This is also where Multiplier’s value proposition is very important. The way we position ourselves globally is: We are the best employer solution for Asian talent, and we have integrated every country into our platform.”

For instance, Multiplier has created an insurance product where employees in different countries can claim very similar benefits, whilst employee contracts and payroll dates have been standardised across all countries.

“Obviously, there are different requirements in each market, but we have homogenised everything and brought that on a single platform so global companies can now have access to great talent,” said Khatri.

Shaping the future workplace

When considering the future of work, there are three important issues organisations need to understand, including the opportunities presented to employers and employees.

Khatri said, “Today, when employers think about hiring great talent, they are no longer bounded by geography and can hire from anywhere. Employees, because of distributed work, have access to the best jobs, the best salaries, and the best opportunities.”

Decentralisation is also becoming a growing trend. Employees in casual wear are showing up to work in collaborative or co-working spaces as the proximity of employees and office spaces change. “If you ask me today where Multiplier’s headquarters is, I won’t be able to answer that question because we have employees in 35 countries,” Khatri offered.

Last but certainly not least, technology will be a key differentiator in a decentralised world. Ruminating on the not-too-distant past where organisations did not have access to video conferencing tools to communicate with employees and where job ads still had to be predominantly posted in newspapers, he concluded, “Any tech stack that will allow you to have a more intimate relationship with your employees and enable a better company culture, will see a massive uptake from companies.”

Click here to find out how the Multiplier platform can take care of your global teams’ payroll, taxes, social contributions, and local insurance policies.