Why would I use Panther to hire remote employees? Why can’t I just do it myself?
The simple answer? Because the process takes too long, and is too expensive, to justify.
Hiring an employee in another country––or even another state, sometimes––is nothing like hiring someone where your business is located. Take a second to think of the specific, complicated employment and tax rules that exist wherever you live now. When you hire in another place, you have to learn a brand new set of these laws. And if you do something wrong, you could be liable for massive penalties.
By the numbers, hiring someone in another country generally takes at least 6 months and will run you about $80,000 (just for a single person). That’s because you have to set up a subsidiary, register with banks, complete the proper forms, and work through a laundry list of tasks that can take years. In other words, it’s just not practical.
At Panther, we believe that great organizations should be able to work with great talent, regardless of borders. So, we handle compliance and make hiring across borders as easy as a couple of clicks.
Can’t I just hire contractors abroad instead?
No, you can’t bypass compliance and tax rules by just hiring contractors abroad. There are two reasons why:
- Local laws exist for contractors, just like they do for employees. And in some countries, contractor laws are strict (Germany or France, for example).
- If you hire contractors in place of employees because you want to avoid the hassle, you’re probably misclassifying those contractors. Which can lead to huge penalties.
Of course, you should hire contractors abroad. Most of the world’s best talent doesn’t live in your country, and just because you don’t want to hire an employee doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have access to the best talent in the world. If you do, though, you need to do it right.
That’s why we built a contractor platform at Panther: In a couple of clicks, you can hire and pay contractors in 160+ countries. And, we cover all the legal stuff––businesses get to focus on hiring whoever they want.
OK, let’s say I want to hire an employee with Panther. What does that actually mean?
When you hire through Panther, you’re using our Employer of Record service. In other words, Panther is the middle-man between you and your new employee––the middle-man that handles all of the legal and tax issues you would face otherwise.
So, imagine you hire someone in Bolivia. If you wanted to do this on your own, it’d take months (or years) and cost you absurd amounts of money. But Panther operates international legal entities that handle things like local payroll. In effect, Panther serves as the legal employer for your new person in Bolivia––but that employee works for you.
This means that you can, legally, hire that person in Bolivia without doing any of the compliance work yourself. It feels like magic.
Here’s what the process actually looks like in the Panther dashboard:
Once you’ve selected whether you’d like to hire an employee or a contractor, you’ll be able to put in more information about them. Their name, their email, their job title, their start date, and their compensation. Below is one of the final screens you will see before wrapping up.
You can do this for as many employees as you’d like.
You also have a contractor platform. How can I hire contractors through Panther, and why should I?
Hiring international contractors on your own means that, just like when you hire an employee, you’ll have to navigate through complicated laws. With Panther, it really just takes a few clicks to hire the contractor you want to work with.
Remember, hiring contractors isn’t a loophole to get around the legal issues associated with hiring employees. Those laws are still there, and contractor laws vary by country. When you use Panther, you won’t have to spend a minute worrying about setting up a subsidiary or working on legal filings in a new country.
How do my employees and contractors get paid?
You can pay your employees with a single click. And, no matter which currency you pay in, your team will receive their salary in their currency of choice. So if you have someone in Brazil, someone in Spain, and someone in the United States, they can earn in pesos, euros, and dollars, respectively.
You get to be happy, because you just paid everyone in a few seconds. And your whole team gets to be happy, because they receive their payment in whichever currency they choose. It’s the easiest way to pay a global team.
What type of companies is Panther built for?
Panther is built for every single remote, distributed team. We believe that when you hire, you shouldn’t be limited by location. Instead, you should be able to hire the most talented people––in the entire world––to help you build your business. We exist to empower every company that recognizes that talent is everywhere, and it’s worth working with them.
