Remote working has flung open the doors to flexibility, including staff requests for working overseas. Letting staff work overseas when they have decided to relocate, while they go travelling around the world or when on an extended ‘holiday’ will open a whole can of worms that many businesses are blissfully unaware of.

Who doesn’t have the dream of tapping away on a laptop in a beach bar in the sun, however when your employee is actually doing that things can get very messy.

Agreeing to an employee working overseas from another country, even just temporarily, means your employee may accidentally become subject to local employment rights. That means:

• local minimum wage requirements
• local working time rules
• local dismissal rights
• potential local tax and social security obligations

Basically, you might, without realising it, have created a tiny international branch of your company with one employee.

And what if the employee gets into a dispute or is dismissed? A tribunal in their chosen country could claim jurisdiction of the case if a claim is raised.

What about immigration? If the employee has not acquired the correct visa if they do not think they need to as they already have work from an employer in the UK they may be considered to be working illegally under immigration rules as well as whether your business needs a local licence or registration to have someone working for you in their country.

Let’s not forget the tax implications. Staff working overseas will raise issues around who should be paying tax, or even the employee being taxed by both countries.

We don’t mean to scare you but that’s just the start, have you thought about your data security? We are sure you have super strong protection in the UK, but a beachfront café probably isn’t as particular with its open Wi-Fi.

Overseas working can drastically increase:

• the risk of data breaches
• using unsecured networks
• lost, stolen or ‘borrowed’ equipment
• inconsistent GDPR compliance outside the UK

Did you know that you’re also still responsible for their health and safety as if they were at your UK site, even if they’re perched on a hammock, balancing a laptop on their knees with a cocktail in hand?

The icing on the cake is that if you ever must resolve an issue with anything we’ve already talked about, you’re probably not even covered if your insurance policy has a geographical limit, which most do.

At vivoHR we would always recommend using an Employer of Record for relocating staff you want to keep hold of. EoR’s are a third-party company that legally employ workers on your behalf. They handle all the admin and legal stuff like payroll, taxes, benefits, and compliance with local employment laws so you know you are doing everything correctly, keeping your talent in house and not causing any risk to your business.