EditShare is a company built for the era of global remote work. Their solutions enable people to collaborate on massive multimedia projects – anywhere in the world. Their shared network of storage and media management solutions is game-changing for the media and entertainment industry. If you can collaborate on a written document with people worldwide, why shouldn’t you be able to do the same with a video?
Such an innovative company requires a constant flow of new talent. However, they soon realized that hiring internationally required navigating an intricate web of processes that would turn their business expansion efforts into a nightmare. That is, until they found G-P.
Digital products know no boundaries. Neither does talent.
Digital innovation companies are global by definition: Their products can be used by anyone anywhere in the world, sometimes with little to no marketing required. That means that finding a new territory in which to expand to can be very straightforward — they just have to look at their own numbers. Which countries are using their platform the most? Where are most of their new users located?
But once they are ready to make a significant expansion push to a new country, they will need local experts: people who know the customs and culture and have strong local connections.
“We are constantly scanning the markets for talent. Part of our current company strategy is to execute in returning markets – meaning those bouncing back from COVID first. That means a degree of flexibility around where we are operating and how. And part of that, especially in the remote-first world, is looking at the best talent. How do we attract the best talent?” asked Jackie Hazan, Vice President of People Operations at EditShare.
As a result of that vision, the company has expanded its workforce from about 50 people to over 130 throughout three different continents.
The challenges of a global footprint
Scaling an organization across multiple countries can be challenging without the right partner — companies going into it alone must establish a legal entity in each country they wish to hire in, and it can take a lot of time and money to do that.
“[Establishing legal entities in each country] requires a pretty heavy lift in terms of resources to maintain compliance. In most instances, it also locks you into that country in a pretty big way. For a small and growing organization, this just doesn’t make sense.
Jackie Hazan
Former Vice President of People Operations at EditShare
That is why EditShare opted for the most efficient option: working in partnership with a global Employer of Record (EOR). It was “…the right way for us to meet our needs as a business in a cost-effective and scalable way without burdening teams with administrative work or legal risk,” explained Hazan.
But Hazan also recognized that is important for employees to feel like they are being treated equally, no matter if they are based in the company’s headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts, or working remotely somewhere else in the world. And not all global EORs can guarantee that.
Not all Employer of Records are the same
Scaling an organization across multiple countries can be challenging without the right partner — companies going There are two types of Employer of Record companies: companies using the aggregator model and companies using a wholly owned infrastructure model. What does it mean for you and your company? If you choose an EOR with an aggregator model, your employees could deal with a different third-party provider in each country. And that could hurt not only the way your employees receive information, but overall morale.
“We want them [employees] to look and feel like regular employees, regardless of who is doing the administrative paperwork,” said Hazan. “It’s no fault of their own that we don’t have a legal entity. We don’t want them to feel like their experience is less than any other EditShare employee.”
“Having specialists that are either in-country or true experts in-country was pretty critical. As we started to look across the marketplace [of global EORs], our search criteria centered on organizations who had the highest instance of local entities that are truly their own.
Jackie Hazan
Former Vice President of People Operations at EditShare
A global EOR that you can rely on for years to come
It’s no surprise that EditShare plans to keep hiring people all over the world, including China, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. They have the confidence to do so now that they’ve found the right partner to support them.
How can they be sure? Hazan has the answer: “The information [provided by Globalization Partners] was accurate. It was timely. There was clear communication. The feedback that I got from employees was very positive. We were in good hands from start to finish.”
