In the past few days, we’ve been receiving a lot of questions about the process of hiring offshore staff. This is something new for a lot of business owners and can be an intimidating strategy.
However, when executed well, having an offshore team can help you maximise your profit, improve your team’s capacity and ultimately save you time and money in the long run.
There are two ways to go about hiring offshore staff. You can hire them directly through job portals like Upwork, onlinejobs.ph, or even on Linkedin. You can also work with an agency that can help you find the right person for the job and take care of the local laws and other local requirements.
Some firms pay $700-$1000 per month for the agency’s management fee on top of the staff wages. When you join, you’ll get an account manager who will help you manage the staff over there in terms of making sure they have the right equipment and the internet.
You can also go down the path of an independent contractor (self-employed).
At Chan & Naylor, we hire our offshore team to work for us from home and our contracts state they need to work in line with the Australian public holidays. We pay our team gross and we are not required to deduct tax or anything. It’s up to them to pay their own taxes as a contractor. Often we may contribute to their health insurance as part of their package.
Hiring directly can also provide you with a broader range of people to ensure you got the right people for the roles you want to fill compared to picking a good candidate and trying to make them fit the role.
Whichever route you choose, remember that it’s always important to choose staff with the right attitude. It also helps to plan out a more detailed and hands-on approach to training. Create walkthroughs, systems and checklists to further enhance the employees’ learning and understanding of what they need to do in their job. Effective communication is also key.