In order to present themselves as the ‘safe haven’ for EOR user companies globally, a lot of global EOR platforms (the ones that claim they can help you employ in sometimes more countries than one can actually find on a map), play the good old FUD marketing card.
FUD, standing for the creation of ‘Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt’, which back in the 70’/80’s was IBM’s adagio to win customers over to their offerings, by downplaying their competitor’s capabilities.
These platforms all claim they can prevent you from running into legal-, operational, or compliance-issues when you would be dealing directly with smaller, regional or in-country-focused EOR players. And protect you against the risk of such situations.
But from experience, having implemented the in-country EOR-fulfillment backend for several dozens of – not the least – Global EOR platforms in 10+ countries, for once I would like to draw that same FUD card on (some) of them.
The reason: in the vast majority of EOR employments that I’ve seen landing in labor disputes and lawsuits and costly terminations, the intermediary / front-end EOR platform contributed significantly to the negative outcome of the dispute.
– Is your EOR-platform partner informing you mostly only on how beautiful their solution is? Or do they also inform you on the complexities and risks of employing a worker in that other country? Do they advise you on an exit-strategy already before starting to employ?
– Do they tell you that EOR in 90% of the countries globally is NOT a legally recognized concept, that it mostly is implemented under another model of employment? And what the effect of that is?
– Is you EOR platform allowing you to maintain your home countries’ best practices, also on employees in other jurisdictions? Do they advise you to ‘leave it with them’, or do they advise you to talk to the in-country EOR specialist BEFORE you take any decision or make any communication to the employee that cannot be undone?
– Is your EOR partner representing you with the required duty of care vis-a-vis the employee ‘as a good employer should’.? Or do they step out of the equasion the moment they deem fit, leaving you, your employee and the in-country ICP hanging??
I can in fact present a huge list of other aspects of how many front-end EOR’s hide the risks of EOR, for commercial reasons keeping you away from directly contacting the only party that can actually deal with the risks: their in-country backend….
I can tell you, just like how some EOR platforms communicate and spread unfounded FUD on In-Country EOR providers, I would strongly advise any EOR procurement responsible to also have themselves advised on how their EOR platform of choice, deals with its own responsibility in contexts like these?
You might be surprised by how some platforms themselves contribute to, or fail to actively prevent, the risks involved….