How isolved and Remote Are Opening Global Hiring to SMBs

[00:00:10] Hey, this is William Tenka. We have Barry and Pim on today, and we're going to be talking about a partnership. So let's do some introductions first. Barry, if you don't mind, we'll do alphabetical. Alphabetical works for me. See? Barry Gouch, Executive Vice President over at ISOL, responsible for our marketplaces, our strategic reliances, insurance, and a host of other items. But happy to be here with you today. Excellent. And Pim?

[00:00:40] I'm Pim Altena. I'm the GM for Remote Embedded and VP for Partnerships at Remote, responsible for all our partnerships, and particularly the embedded partnerships that we have with partners like ISOL. So we're going to have a bunch of questions about embedded. So we'll get to that because both of you mentioned it. How did this – had this, you know, partnerships one of those things that not many people know how they happen, especially practitioners.

[00:01:05] I don't know kind of, okay, what was the origin story for this particular partnership? I'll kick us off. I saw – give you a little bit of a backdrop, William. The ISOL research arm that we conduct, it comes from a number of different places. But in particular, for this partnership, we recognized a few things.

[00:01:30] The first was our customer demand for global hiring had picked up. So we needed to quantify, you know, kind of the level of that, which we did. We also conducted research through a number of analyst groups that we rely on to provide us with, you know, some of the future of work and what we expect to occur. And then the last thing is we obviously use competitive intelligence to help support our initiatives.

[00:01:59] So when we looked at kind of all three of those things were bubbling up, a global hiring, global mechanisms to pay folks, which we didn't have resident in our platform at the time. All those things pointed toward us developing a solution, whether it would be a partnered solution or whether it would be one that we created on our own. We felt that the partnering aspect was more important for us in that regard.

[00:02:26] It's not our key competency, but we know we needed to deliver it as the SMB admin market space need for global hiring was starting to accelerate. So conducted an RFP, narrowed it down using our criteria from 10 to 5, and then took the RFP request to those folks, of which a couple self-selected out based on some of our criteria. And at the end of the day, remote was who we selected after careful consideration.

[00:02:54] We also started with a referral relationship, meaning we wanted to see kind of how we could work with our selected partner prior to getting married, if you will, getting a more embedded relationship. But that's how it started. And then Pim and I met at one of our conferences, had a dedicated meeting to kind of outline what we both expected the partnership to result in. And that's kind of where we got our bearings for, you know, our directional heading together.

[00:03:23] And I'm pleased where we're at today and looking forward to more expansive offering for our clients in the near future. I love it. Pim, your take on the origin story? I think Barry has given a great overview there. Yeah, I think one thing maybe to add to that, like at Remote, we've been building the infrastructure for global hiring and paying people compliantly since 2019.

[00:03:51] And we, from the start, have set out to build this in a way that is embeddable and API first. So that's with the vision that we will prove this in our direct channel, but the real value is in partnerships. And that's different than some of the other folks that you would call competitors. The embeddable part is actually different than some of the other models that are out there, right? Absolutely, absolutely.

[00:04:17] And that's something that we have invested in from the beginning, from the product perspective, obviously. Right. But also from the growth market perspective, right? Like how do you help your partners be commercially successful in the marketplace with these embedded offerings?

[00:04:34] We're very proud now to have these embedded partnerships with employer of record, contractor management, global payroll, and support any hiring model that our partners may need. So you can hire and pay anybody across the world compliantly, regardless of what model they're in. And it's very complementary to, you know, HR tech platforms like iSolved. You're not competing. You're not going after the same business.

[00:05:04] No, exactly. If you are, somebody's in the wrong RFP or whatever. Yeah, exactly, exactly. You know, Barry is talking about this and being in the mid-market, right? Like these businesses, they were already using iSolved for their HR and their domestic payroll. Once they're ready to make the step and make their first international hire, that's when we come in. That's right. And they can buy these solutions from iSolved under the iSolved brands.

[00:05:32] And it's the same product experience within iSolved. That is a very powerful proposition. I love that. Barry, you mentioned the embed part of remote and their solution. That was important for you, right? It was. In fact, it was one of the criteria of our RFP is how seamless can the integration occur so that it could be embedded and feel like one solution.

[00:06:00] In addition to that, you know, it needed to be simple. So one of the benefits that we found with remote was, you know, he mentioned three options for, you know, hiring abroad and across borders. And you have an easy employer of record model. You have a global payroll model. And you have contractor model that's out there. And it depends on the country. It depends on the business situation, what's most advantageous.

[00:06:29] And for our customers, simplicity is important. So one of the benefits of our partnership with remote, remote offers those three options within one platform, making it very easy for us to integrate and operate along one line of business for our customers. So they can choose what option best suits them. Same platform, same simple approach. It doesn't have to be overly complex. And they're compliant in all three of those.

[00:06:56] So to me, that was really important, the simplicity of the API build, the customer experience. And they're so far delivered really well. It's a testament to their work. Knowing a lot of iSolve customers, keeping them in the system, a system that they already kind of know and love, making that easy for them. But it opens up that talent aperture. So now they can look at talent. If they're in Cedar Rapids, it's not just the talent in Cedar Rapids.

[00:07:23] They can look at talent all over the world. So now they have a much larger way of looking at talent. I love it being an in-app so that they don't have to learn something new. It's just now it's if you want to hire someone and they just so happen to be in London. Okay, well, there's payroll rules and regulations and compliance that are for London and England in general.

[00:07:49] And I remember the first time I looked at payroll libraries, this is 100 years ago, just for America. So it was a domestic payroll provider. And it was so confusing to look at all the payroll libraries because of federal, state, municipal. Like if Seattle changes their minimum wage on a Monday, you've got to be compliant by Tuesday. Okay, so how do you keep up with all that madness?

[00:08:16] And then all of a sudden, I think the State Department says 192 countries that we can do business with. 192 countries. They've all got territories. They've all got different compliance. Like we don't want to learn that stuff. Let remote learn that. William, I try and put myself in the chair of the HR practitioner in a lot of ways when making decisions. Like you can use data, which you should use data to help you make decisions.

[00:08:39] But our best compass is what is that HR provider, that practitioner faced with on a day-to-day? And I think one of the challenges is to continue to staff your workforce with the appropriate talent that's skill-based as, you know, the type of skills that people need to bring to the workforce today. And being that geography tends to be how people hire, that's no longer the case.

[00:09:06] I think it's more HR practitioners can really focus in on skill to build their teams and talent and have no boundaries from a geographical standpoint. That's, I think, something that HR practitioners are beginning to really accelerate with in this new technological age with AI supporting recruiting and kind of things of that nature.

[00:09:28] So if you're going to give them that ability to really source by skill, got to give them the ability to actually hire and be compliant, right? So I think SMBs and mid-market can compete with enterprise-level businesses if they have those two components from a skill recruiting standpoint. I wanted to add to that, Barry. I think, you know, what you're saying is exactly right. Like you want to source by skill. And, you know, in my previous role before I joined Remotes, I was actually a remote customer.

[00:09:58] That is how I got to know Remotes. I was building this global team and I was hiring people who had experience in managing partners in Italy. And I had an Italian person that I found. And I made them a job offer to relocate to Amsterdam. But I told them, you need to relocate to Amsterdam, but you need to be in a plane two weeks out of four because you need to be on site with the Italian partners. And he was like, I'm looking at me and I'm like, what? Why don't we do it to stay on the right run?

[00:10:25] I'm like, yeah, I can't hire you in Italy because, you know, I don't have a legal entity. I don't know how the Italian rules work. I don't know anything about compliance. And, well, he was, I still thank him for being firm. And that's why I found Remotes. And then I realized that, you know, you're hiring people for skills, right? Like that's what you should do.

[00:10:47] But you're actually constraining yourself unconsciously by just the compliance capabilities, the legal entity footprint that you already have as a business. Especially for SMEs and mid-market customers who don't have that, like, you know, large enterprises that already have, like entities in 80 countries in the world. We're opening up this global talent pool for these businesses.

[00:11:10] Well, Tim, let me ask you a question because I look at COVID and I think COVID sped some of this up for us. I mean, if we can find a silver lining of COVID is that, okay, people are going to work remotely. Okay, well, if they're going to work remotely, well, why do we need them in Cedar Rapids or Charlotte or so-and-so? Now your mind can, as a talent acquisition leader, you can start looking at talent from a global perspective.

[00:11:38] Do you kind of see the same things kind of playing out? Yeah, definitely. The economy has been an accelerator for that trend, but it is like a secular trend below that, right? It's already something that has already been going on before and is continuing to happen. Now, location matters less than it did in the past.

[00:11:59] And you can hire people in different places and still, you know, bring them together face-to-face as needed or, you know, have with all the tools that you have nowadays, have that day-to-day engagement. So, yeah, but definitely been an accelerator. But there's also other reasons why you see that happening. Like a lot of our customers are not white-collar companies and not working as remote-first organizations.

[00:12:28] But for example, you know, I'm expanding into a new market and I want to hire some new salespeople. Well, do I need to go through the process of setting up a new entity or do I just hire some individuals under an employer of record model and then see how it goes? Or they have sold a large contract to a major customer. And as part of that, they need to employ some forward-deployed engineers and put them on the customer's premises.

[00:12:57] But that is in a different jurisdiction than where they're currently at. So, they need a solution for that. So, it opens a lot of doors. Yeah. I like that. Barry, you mentioned that one of the things that was important to you, let's see if the chemistry is there. Let's see if we can do something together and see if it works before we kind of do this other thing that's going to be a little bit deeper integration, et cetera, et cetera. Do you do that with a lot of your partners?

[00:13:26] Specifically, our marketplace and strategic alliance, strategic marketplace partners. Right. Historically, you know, when you see a lot of attachment that's in your reseller, your customer base, then it kind of perks your interest. Okay, what's so valuable about this? Why are people using it? And so, for me, it's a good indicator of future adoption and value. Right. So, as I looked at, you know, there's lots of different providers.

[00:13:55] And I don't want to throw remote into a big pool of providers because I think there's things that stand out. 100%. But they were very diligent when we would refer. We first started the referral relationship as kind of a proof of concept for both. You know, this is a mutually beneficial thing. So, while it's beneficial for ISEL and the customers, it had to be a good fit for remote as well. Economics have to work. Their environment with us.

[00:14:22] These are, in my opinion, some of the most important partnerships extensions that are of a platform itself. Those are some of the most important partnerships we're going to pick as a company. And so, I really enjoyed two things in the early stages. The first one was how they treated our customers. You know, from the word go, it was very clear. It was white glove.

[00:14:47] It was, you know, a lot of explanation as to how things work so that they could usher in a customer easily and get them utilizing the platform. The second thing that was going to be important was affordability. Affordability is really important in SMB and bid market for the price value computation to work.

[00:15:09] And so, as you think about expanding a relationship, if you've got those two principles solved, which is, you know, how you're going to treat customers and then the price point that you both are comfortable with, then we can drive and try and drive the scale, which led us to, you know, securing the embedded partnership and the extension a lot more, you know, a lot more easily in our platform. So, now we're in a longer-term engagement.

[00:15:37] We have some integrations we're working on to make it easier in the flow of work and that we're here now at this point. So, those two were really important for me, customer experience and then price value needed to hit the mark. Tim, from your perspective, at one point when I was doing global hiring, Germany and France had kind of some of the most complex compliance things that were going on that were foreign to me. Is that still true, Tim?

[00:16:08] I think, you know, the interesting thing about labor law, William, is that every country is completely different and has their own rules. And some things that are wanting to call out one example. In some countries, it is mandatory to do a medical exam before a new employee starts. In other countries, that is forbidden to do that. Yeah. So, you get two different... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Rule regulations can be 180 degrees different.

[00:16:35] France and Germany are, you know, indeed, they are like many other countries in continental Europe, but they have very high degrees of employee protections. And that generates a lot of extra rules and things that you need to stay in compliance with. The beauty of remote is like, you know, like what you said earlier about Seattle. We're tracking all these rules in all these countries, in all the other countries in the world where we operate. Right.

[00:17:02] And make sure that all of these new rules are included into our platform, that the rules are there, that through AI you're alerted when you're about to make a mistake and that we don't allow you to make these mistakes as a customer. And that gives you the comfort and the protection there. So, let's talk a little rollout. You just came back from Connect and your partner conference.

[00:17:29] And so, how are you rolling this out and how do you want to roll this out on both sides to make sure that everyone knows kind of what's going on and what's available, et cetera? Yeah. Yeah. So, for us, we have an org readiness process. Typically, it takes about six to nine months to get fully launched. And I would call it out the door to general availability GA here internally.

[00:17:55] So, we have some development timelines that we work parallel with, with our org readiness. Org readiness to include communication, marketing materials, price guides, right? All those things have to kind of happen before the race starts, if you will. Right, right. And the water goes up and we take off out of the gate, right? But I think for us, we do know our customer base is already kind of primed and ready to receive it.

[00:18:23] Again, we did that proof of concept, if you will. So, we have a lot of general knowledge around the relationship already. Right. Now, it is about taking step two, which is, okay, we recognize the importance and we recognize the value. Now, here's how you access this in the platform, very turnkey simply, and how you attach it, desire to sell, that kind of thing in our customer base.

[00:18:52] So, we'll have some soft launch materials. Then, we'll have some communications that go out. But I foresee us really hitting the ground running in early 27 is kind of my target date to have everything kind of clipping along. With the rebranding of Applicant Pro into the iSolves family, it's also going to be really interesting to educate all the talent acquisition professionals, the recruiters, because they're going to get excited.

[00:19:21] Now, I can do this? Now, I can hire people with the skills from other places and I can be compliant? HR is going to be excited, of course. But I can see the talent acquisition folks being really excited. Yeah, Applicant Pro, that arm of our business that we acquired, as you know, we made that acquisition and have fully integrated that business now.

[00:19:45] But also, I will tell you, we have a number of staffing companies who are resellers of ours who are waiting for this to happen. Yes. So, they can use one source, one platform, and not have to use multiple platforms to deliver to their clients. So, I know they're waiting for this, for sure. And it should open up additional reseller opportunities for iSolves as well. Right.

[00:20:14] Tim, we're doing this podcast a year from now. What are we evaluating success? What do you want to see from this partnership? Happy customers and many happy customers. I mean, that's where it starts. You know, customers that are happy and not just happy with the service level and the compliance that we provide,

[00:20:34] but it has helped them to realize their people objectives, to hire the right skills, to have the right talent in their organization and manage the organization in the way that is aligned with their business objectives. I think the future of work is building teams around skills, not limited by geography in the future.

[00:20:58] And if you think about the competitive nature of talent these days, I think in order for an SMB customer mid-market, and I'm thinking zero to 500, one to 500 employees, to compete with the enterprise talent recruiting arms, you kind of have to have these options available to drive your business forward. You had a question about COVID earlier, and I do think it was an accelerant to global talent. And we just started this phase.

[00:21:26] I think it is very great for us to think about it this way. Workforce capital management is really more the future, not human capital management. So you can think of all the things that go into workforce, global hiring, multi-language, right? All the things to bring talent, right? In order for SMBs to harness that, you have to have the platform that does it in one place. So for me, future of work is building teams around skills, not limited by geography in the future.

[00:21:56] That's what I would do. I solve as a people first, customer first business. So, y'all, I'm excited. I love this partnership because I'm fans of both companies. And the fact that you know you're going to give your customers a way to, again, for the enterprise, for the large enterprise, there's always been some constraints there. And y'all are reducing, if not eliminating, those constraints.