The key to a thriving business is the people, and hiring the right employees can make or break your success. For remote-first companies, the globe is your hiring platform, giving you access to an entire world of highly educated, qualified expertise. With so many options, It can be difficult to know where to start so might we suggest India?
This bustling country is known for its robust It infrastructure, top-tier universities and an educated workforce that has a particularly strong presence in Science, Engineering, Math and Technology (STEM) fields. Beyond that, India-based talent are desperately seeking remote work opportunities. In fact, according to the Economic Times, employee attrition for companies that announced a return to office stood at 29% in August, compared with 19% each for those working virtually or hybrid.
Time and again it’s been shown that India-based talent want remote work, and you could be their ticket to improved work-life balance, opportunity equalization and a rewarding career.
Broad Talent Pool
India is home to a massive talent pool of skilled professionals, making it an ideal location for building competent remote, global teams for a variety of your employment needs. Home to renowned universities means you have the top pick of hundreds of thousands of highly educated and skilled young professionals entering the job market.
Multilingual Capabilities
India is a linguistically diverse nation, but English is widely spoken and understood, making language barriers virtually non-existent for you and your teams.
Additionally, many learn to speak Spanish, French, German, and more, giving you a multilingual advantage, which is particularly key when you have employees from all over the globe working at your company.
Cost-Effectiveness
Hiring people from India offers significant cost advantages for businesses because salary expectations are relatively low compared to many Western countries. This cost-effectiveness allows organizations to allocate their resources strategically, meaning you can build out a high-quality team that won’t sacrifice quality of work, while maximizing profitability.
Cultural Compatibility
India has a strong cultural affinity with many Western countries, which contributes to the cultural compatibility of its customer care professionals. The shared cultural values facilitate effective communication, empathy, and problem-solving, contributing positively to your corporate culture.
Time Zone Advantage
India's geographic location provides a time zone advantage for businesses based in other regions, including Europe and the United States. The compatible time zones allows for enhanced productivity, ensuring your remote, global teams remain connected and projects stay on track.
Scalability and Flexibility
India's large talent pool offers your company scalability and flexibility for businesses. As your business needs evolve, you can easily fluctuate, organizations can easily scale their remote, global teams up or down to match the demand.
Whether it's adding seasonal staff or expanding operations to support business growth, India provides the agility and availability of resources to meet changing needs effectively.
But how can your company recruit the Indian talent it needs?
There are a couple options when considering growing your remote, global workforce and hiring India-based talent.
- You can handle the recruiting, hiring and onboarding yourself
- You can use a Dev Shop or;
- You can hire an Employer of Record (EOR).
Not sure where to start? We give you the rundown on each and provide some pros and cons so you can make the most informed decision.
Do it Yourself
Looking for top-tier talent? If you’re an organization with a dedicated HR leader or robust HR/talent acquisition team, handling the hiring in-house could be the way to go. If you opt to handle the hiring yourself, you will need to consider the long-term impacts on your company’s budget as well as your time. Hiring yourself means you will have to eat the cost of all the time it takes to advertise, recruit, review resumes, interview and onboard.
Hiring is no easy undertaking and if you have a lean team, or worse, no designated HR or talent acquisition personnel on staff, it may not be feasible for you or a colleague to step away from their day-to-day responsibilities to switch gears and focus on hiring. That’s where the benefit of hiring a Dev Shop or an Employer of Record can come in handy.
Use a Dev Shop
A Development Shop or known more simply as a Dev Shop, is a company that provides development services for software platforms including web, mobile applications or infrastructure, for a roster of external customers. It is essentially an alternative to building out your own robust software engineering teams and provides you a more economical option for getting your technical work done, without the headache of traditional recruitment hiring and the high costs associated.
Dev Shops have a range of in-house expertise, including front and back-end developers, UX/UI designers, project managers, quality assurance testers and more.
Benefits of Hiring a Dev Shop
- Save Time: Hiring a Dev shop involves research, exploratory calls and meetings but will still take less time than it would to hire a full-scale, contract or full-time team.
- Save Money: Hiring employees can be one of the most significant investments for your company and hiring in India, while cheaper than your North American hires, can still cost you a pretty penny. Engaging a Dev Shop for your technical projects can cost you less than it would be to staff an entire team, when you consider the cost of benefits, time invested in recruitment and onboarding and so on.
- Avoid the Hassle of Recruiting: HR is a tough job, involving a ton of moving parts which may fall to only a few people at your organization. From advertising the roles to reviewing resumes, coordinating and conducting interviews and handling all of the paperwork, contracts and documentation, it involves hours and hours of labor. That’s not even considering the onboarding and retention involved in keeping your new hires happy and set up for success.
- Expertise: When you engage a Dev Shop to handle your technical needs, you can rest assured you are getting highly qualified individuals, with extensive experience on a broad range of projects for a diverse group of companies.
How to Choose the Right Dev Shop for You
Book Consultations: You will want to do your research before selecting a Dev Shop. Ask around, read reviews and make calls to ensure that the shop you hire has the experience and in-house expertise required to deliver on your specific objectives.
Create a Clear Project Scope/Brief: Ensure you clearly define your project scope and provide detailed briefs so you can set up your Dev Shop for success. Working with an external third party can be a bit of a learning curve, so the more information and direction you provide at the outset, the more confident each of you can be that work is getting done properly.
Define How to Collaborate: Communication and collaboration is key so ensure you and your Dev Shop are on the same page when it comes to working together. Determine what kinds of updates and planned meetings you require to feel up-to-speed and informed of all project plans and progress. Perhaps you’re more hands off, then weekly calls might do the trick. Or maybe you prefer to have more of a finger on the pulse, then quick, 10-minute touch-bases each morning might suffice.
When you factor in the cost of hiring and ongoing salaries and benefits, recruiting a Dev Shop is cheaper than hiring your own technical team, but still an expensive investment. Hiring independent contractors is still the most economical approach for companies looking to get work done on a project-by-project basis and could be a good option depending on your individual needs.
Hiring an independent contractor in India however can be tricky and the risk of misclassification of your new hires can be high if you aren’t familiar with local employment and tax laws. That’s where our third option, hiring an Employer of Record service, comes in.
Use an Employer of Record
An employer of record (EOR) is a hiring solution ideal for companies looking to quickly hire, manage, and pay talent around the world. access a legal entity in India, without having to go through the long and complex process of traditional, global expansion.
An employer of record solution like Borderless acts as a broker between your company and the country you are looking to expand into or hire from. This means you can access top-tier talent from anywhere in the world without the need to set up a local entity.
The legal frameworks for hiring in India can be quite different from those in the US and Canada. Engaging EOR services for international employment means you have an experienced group of experts who can handle all HR activities in compliance with local employment laws. This includes recruitment, remote onboarding, managing, contract development, global payroll, and more.
For example, in India, Borderless would act as the legal employer so you can hire abroad in India or multiple countries. Having a business entity in place, the EOR assumes responsibility for local compliance, while you take care of employee management.
What will your EOR do for you?
A global employer of record can offer you a wide range of services when you hire independent contractors or engage international workers:
- Industry expertise in local labor laws
- Access to global markets and international employees
- Global payroll processing
- Complaint employment contracts
- Payment of payroll taxes and compliance with tax laws
- Benefits administration and provision of health insurance
- Mitigation of compliance risks with local labor regulations
- Cost-effective global expansion
Contracts and Documentation
An EOR takes care of the arduous administrative tasks involved in preparing and collecting contracts and documentation when you hire people. Think employment offers, signed contracts, banking information, and more.
Employee Insurance and Benefits
To attract top-tier talent, it is wise to offer supplemental benefits like medical, dental, vision and life insurance, and retirement savings plans. A comprehensive EOR will have those kinds of benefits built into its service offering so you don’t have to worry about it.
Vacation and Public Holidays
India is home to 28 states and 8 union territories and so vacation entitlement and mandatory time off will vary widely depending on where your staff live.
Taxes
Understanding the tax laws in India can be confusing but it is necessary to ensure you are paying employees and contractors compliantly. Not familiar with local laws and tax regulations? No problem. An EOR like Borderless is responsible for managing the complexities of the various tax deductions and employee contribution amounts, so you don’t have to. Put simply, an EOR ensures you remain compliant so you can have more time to focus on growing your business.
What Are the Advantages of Going Through an EOR in India?
Using an EOR to hire talent in India will save you time, reduce costs, and mitigate risks.
Setting up an entity for hiring in India is time-consuming and frankly, can be a huge headache. Since the EOR is already set up to hire employees in the country, it will be faster and easier to start hiring right away. In fact, the process won’t be that much different from hiring locally.
The set-up and HR costs can also be quite high, so going through an EOR can save you money. You will also be paying lower salaries than you would be in the US and Canada, so you’re bound to see some positive impact on your bottom line.
Most importantly though, you’ll be mitigating the risks associated with non-compliance. Because EORs have extensive experience in navigating complex local HR policies, you won’t have to worry about any issues arising from improper hiring practices.
How Do I Choose the Right EOR for Me?
Before selecting a vendor, here are five considerations:
Local Experience: Does the EOR have experience hiring in India? As discussed, one of the biggest advantages of hiring through an EOR is the assurance of meeting compliance. Often, this requires a lot of past experience, so check the EOR’s track record in the country.
Service Scale: Do you need someone who offers a full suite of services? If you want happy employees that you can retain in the long run, then you may need to offer them benefits like insurance and other welfare. Some EORs have systems in place for this but others may not. Also, some EORs offer consulting services to optimize your global hiring practices.
Data and Systems Security: Protecting intellectual property in a remote working environment is critical. Ensure your vendor of choice has a specific agreement outlining the ways in which they plan to keep your sensitive information safe and secure.
Collaboration: Ensure your vendor’s approach to communication and collaboration with its clients is aligned with your organization’s approach. Do you need a reliable point of contact person? Perhaps all you need is access to a Slack channel so you can quickly reach your vendor. Whatever your communication style, ensure your vendor can meet your needs.
Still not sure which option would work best for you? Book a Borderless demo today and find out how we can help you go global. You may find that for your specific needs, taking a more do-it-yourself or Dev shop approach works better, but gathering all of the information and assessing your options is the first step.
Disclaimer
Borderless does not provide legal services or legal advice to anyone. This includes customers, contractors, employees, partners, and the general public. We are not lawyers or paralegals. Please read our full disclaimer here.
