Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Key Takeaways
- Start by ensuring your strategy is crystal clear. Don’t hire offshore workers without connecting their roles to core business objectives.
- Ensure you have legal infrastructure that protects you and a strong security stack as well.
- You’ll experience turnover if your international hires feel disposable and disconnected from your workplace culture.
- Leaders must understand cultural context and be trained on cultural differences.
Most companies rush into global hiring. They find a provider, sign a contract and then discover the gaps. By then, they’re locked into bad contracts, dealing with security breaches or watching their best people quit because they feel like second-class citizens.
The talent shortage we’re facing isn’t going away anytime soon. We’re dealing with a structural problem. Global outsourcing could be the solution, but most companies rush into it just to save money, ignoring the risks that can backfire badly.
As the CEO of DOXA Talent®, where we manage over 800 team members across six countries without a single office, I’ve seen how demographic shifts and changing employee expectations continue to transform the world of talent and hiring. Today, 77% of companies can’t find the talent they need, a metric that’s more than doubled since 2010.
The result is faster turnover and wage inflation that adds pressure to margins. Beyond shrinking profitability for businesses, it also means local employees struggle to afford working and living in their own city — a phenomenon we’ve seen play out across the U.S. We’re looking at a decade-long reality we need to adapt to now, not a post-pandemic blip.
When outsourcing fails, it’s rarely because the idea was bad. Usually, one of five critical risks was overlooked. Before you sign any global talent contract, run this five-point audit. If you can’t check all five boxes, you’re not ready. Full stop.
Related: 5 Things to Remember When Hiring International Employees
Audit point #1: Is your strategy crystal clear?
Too many companies hire offshore workers without connecting their roles to core business objectives. That’s strategic misalignment waiting to explode.
Start by being brutally honest about your objectives. Are you looking for speed or strategy? If you simply need to knock out a project, the gig economy is your friend. If you’re buying back executive bandwidth, virtual assistants are the best perk you’ll ever give your leadership team. But if you’re scaling core business functions with full-time remote hires, that requires a different approach.
You need to consider capacity and culture alongside the financial benefits. The clearer you are on the “why,” the clearer your downstream decisions become. Without this clarity, you’ll make expensive mistakes that no amount of cost savings can offset.
Audit point #2: Do you have legal infrastructure that protects you?
I see companies all the time mixing employees, contractors and third-party vendors without realizing the legal mess they’re creating. Getting your structure right is just as important as your strategy, and each option has its pros and cons.
Owning your entity gives you full control, but it doesn’t make sense unless you’re bringing on 100+ team members. Independent contractors are cheaper but loaded with security risks and international misclassification landmines. EOR platforms help with payroll, but leave you responsible for recruiting. Outsourcing firms shield you from legal exposure but may come with seat minimums.
I need to warn you about something critical: Misclassifying employees as contractors isn’t just a U.S. issue. International agencies like the Philippines’ BIR or the UK’s HMRC are imposing their own sanctions. Beyond fines, misclassifications can hold up M&A transactions, stall funding rounds and force expensive retroactive benefits.
Treat global workers with the same legal diligence you apply at home, or partner with someone who will. If you don’t have a clear legal structure decided, you’re not ready.
Related: The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Strategic Outsourcing
Audit point #3: Can your security infrastructure handle this?
From loose computer policies to weak controls that expose your company to breaches, data and security vulnerabilities are everywhere in global hiring.
The post-Covid outsourcing gold rush has lured many new providers who cut corners by misclassifying workers, letting team members bring their own devices and skipping endpoint monitoring. The “threat surface” keeps widening, and the blast radius of a breach gets bigger over time. Doing the bare minimum is a false economy. One incident will wipe out years of savings.
Your minimum viable security stack must include:
-
Managed devices and identity: MDMs, encryption and single sign-on
-
Endpoint protection: Real-time threat detection and security support
-
Virtual workspaces: Cloud desktops for sensitive apps and phishing drills
If your provider can’t show comparable controls in writing, move on. This is non-negotiable.
Audit point #4: Will your culture survive going global?
High turnover happens when remote teams feel disposable or like “the outsourced workers.” This bifurcated culture with “us versus them” silos erodes engagement and performance faster than any other factor.
Sourcing global talent is table stakes. The real differentiator is how you knit international hires into a single high-performing culture. At DOXA Talent®, we measure connection across five touchpoints: purpose, leaders, clients, team and career path. We create a menu of engagement that requires participation in core activities while allowing cultural personalization.
For example, I host monthly calls with team members who want to connect directly with leadership. We also host DocsCon, where clients travel to the Philippines or Colombia for three days of learning, volunteering and relationship-building.
The result is a high-touch journey that feels intentional, regardless of where someone logs in from. If you’re planning to treat global talent as second-class citizens, you’re not ready. The resulting turnover will destroy any savings.
Audit point #5: Do your leaders understand cultural context?
Great global teams don’t happen by accident. They’re developed through cultural awareness. Without it, you’ll face constant miscommunication and eroded trust.
We teach leaders to map cultures using Erin Meyer’s framework from The Culture Map, examining differences across communicating, evaluating, leading, deciding, trusting, disagreeing and scheduling.
For instance, the U.S. has a low-context communication style, where we’re direct. One sentence that feels politely brief in America can land as blunt in the high-context Philippines, where communication is more nuanced.
Similarly, in the U.S., trust is task-based. In the Philippines, trust is built through relationships. Have we broken bread together? Do I know your family? Without this understanding, you’ll never get real buy-in from your global teams.
If your leaders haven’t been trained on cultural differences, or worse, don’t believe it matters, you’re not ready. The miscommunications will compound until they explode.
Related: 5 Ways to Build a Thriving Global Culture in Your Business
Running your five-point assessment
The companies that win will redesign where they source global talent, mixing onshore, nearshore and offshore teams in ways that protect culture, data and margins.
Run through this audit honestly:
-
Clear strategy connecting global talent to business objectives
-
Legal structure that protects you from classification risks
-
Security infrastructure that matches or exceeds local standards
-
A cultural integration plan that prevents bifurcation
-
Leadership trained in cultural intelligence
Missing even one means you’re gambling with your company’s future.
As AI continues to change the way work is done, the human-in-the-loop future will call for global team members who oversee systems and leverage their creativity rather than just executing tasks. AI will handle volume, but people will provide oversight and critical thinking across cultural contexts.
Companies that adopt a borderless talent strategy create a competitive advantage that their competitors can’t easily copy. Think globally by sourcing talent wherever the strongest talent for the roles can be found, but anchor your approach to a workspace that is intentional and secure.
The global talent crisis isn’t going away, but jumping in unprepared is worse than not jumping at all. Run this audit and fix any gaps before you sign that contract. Your company’s future depends on getting this right the first time.
Key Takeaways
- Start by ensuring your strategy is crystal clear. Don’t hire offshore workers without connecting their roles to core business objectives.
- Ensure you have legal infrastructure that protects you and a strong security stack as well.
- You’ll experience turnover if your international hires feel disposable and disconnected from your workplace culture.
- Leaders must understand cultural context and be trained on cultural differences.
Most companies rush into global hiring. They find a provider, sign a contract and then discover the gaps. By then, they’re locked into bad contracts, dealing with security breaches or watching their best people quit because they feel like second-class citizens.
The talent shortage we’re facing isn’t going away anytime soon. We’re dealing with a structural problem. Global outsourcing could be the solution, but most companies rush into it just to save money, ignoring the risks that can backfire badly.
The rest of this article is locked.
Join Entrepreneur+ today for access.
