Cyber and Data Risks Top List of International Growing Pains

Good people have always been the key to good business.

For firms looking to expand into new markets and gain a greater share of the landscape relative to their competition, hiring employees internationally offers attractive access to a larger talent pool as well as new growth channels.

But recruiting a global team is just the first step. PYMNTS research found that many organizations, both large and small, face a slew of challenges in managing their international workers, particularly as digitization accelerates the prevalence of cross-border remote work.

That’s according to data in the report “Meeting the Demand for Cross-Border Hiring: Challenges in International Workforce Payment and Management,” a PYMNTS and NIUM collaboration. The study revealed that cybersecurity and data privacy risks top the list of challenges that organizations face when managing international workers, with 39% of organizations citing it as a friction point.

Only 20% of organizations surveyed by PYMNTS reported not experiencing challenges when paying or managing their overseas workers, and the remainder cited common cross-border hiccups like cultural issues (35%) as well as the need to comply with jurisdictional regulations (29%) as causing wrinkles in the management of international employees.

Eighty percent of firms reported challenges paying and managing their global employee bases, and those challenges organizations faced both paying and managing international workers significantly impacted their interest in growing their overseas workforce further.

As one might expect, the more challenges managing an international labor force that organizations face, the more likely they are to use private agencies to assist with recruiting and managing a cross-border talent pool.

However, even a full third of those firms that cited no challenges managing or paying their global headcount still turned to private agencies and third-party consultants for filling international team member needs.

Still, the reported challenges of firms expanding overseas became less significant as organizations gained experience managing their global staff or partnered with experienced payroll providers.

The report also revealed that those organizations that have experienced the most challenges when managing and paying their overseas workers have significantly increased their cross-border workforce, which suggests they are committed to growing internationally despite the obstacles.