What are the main approaches to global HRM?

There are four main approaches to global human resource management (HRM): Ethnocentric: This approach applies the home country's management practices to all international locations. An ethnocentric approach encourages corporate unity but may lack local responsiveness and compliance. Polycentric: The company hires autonomous local leadership to run operations in each country. This approach respects local practices, but disconnected HRM practices in different countries can lead to a fragmented corporate culture and a lack of integration. Regiocentric: Management practices are regionally standardized, but may differ between regions. This approach can be a good compromise between the ethnocentric and polycentric approaches, but it can also create silos between different regions. Geocentric: The company seeks the best people for the job, regardless of where they live. This is an effective approach that combines global integration with local responsiveness.

How can I create a global HR strategy?

Follow these steps: Align your HR goals with your business objectives. Analyze your target countries' laws and employment norms. Choose a strategic approach — like geocentric HRM. Invest in scalable technology to manage your global team. Create compliant international and local HR documents. Establish KPIs to measure the success of your strategy. Review and update your strategy regularly.

What is global HR integration?

Global HR integration means combining HR policies and systems after a cross-border merger, acquisition, or expansion. The goal is to create a unified international organization. This process involves harmonizing payroll, benefits, and company values. Successful integration ensures that all team members have a consistent and positive experience.

What are the biggest HR risks in global hiring?

Noncompliance is the #1 risk. Potential violations include: Misclassifying employees as contractors Failing to adhere to country-specific laws for contracts and terminations Incorrect handling of taxes and employer contributions Beyond legal issues, failing to meet local expectations for pay and benefits can increase employee turnover.

What's the difference between an EOR and a PEO?

An employer of record (EOR) and a professional employer organization (PEO) both handle HR functions, but with different scopes: Employment model: An EOR acts as the direct legal employer for your global teams and handles all compliance matters. A PEO uses a co-employment relationship. With a PEO, you share responsibility for employment law compliance. Entity setup: An EOR lets you hire in new countries without establishing your own legal entity. A PEO requires entity setup in the country where you want to hire. Scope: EORs specialize in global hiring and compliance. PEOs are generally limited to domestic support in the U.S. Strategic guidance: A reputable EOR provides strategic guidance on local employment practices and expectations. A PEO is more focused on coordinating HR task administration. Payment services: An EOR offers full payment services, including payroll and taxes. A PEO helps with these functions, but the co-employment model can create ambiguity about responsibilities. Flexibility: EORs offer total flexibility with no minimum employee numbers, which is ideal for testing new markets. Some PEOs may need a minimum number of employees to engage their services.

HR Considerations for Global Expansion

Key takeaways

Strategic HR: Global HR gives you access to markets and talent, while mitigating risks.
Global compliance: Navigating international labor laws, tax codes, and data privacy regulations makes global HR challenging.
The role of culture: Adapting to local customs and communication styles is crucial for building an inclusive international team with a unified company culture.
Scalable technology: A unified platform to manage compliance, payroll, and HR is key for successful expansion.
The EOR advantage: An employer of record (EOR) streamlines international employment by eliminating the need for entity setup, saving time and costs.

New markets offer a wider talent pool, but accessing them creates headaches for your HR team. A global human resources (HR) strategy is mission-critical. This guide outlines the top 10 HR considerations for efficient and compliant global expansion.

The role of HR in global employment

HR is a key contributor to business stability and risk mitigation. Global HR strategies help your company access new markets, attract top talent, and build a strong workforce. Effective management upholds compliance, operational efficiency, and a unified culture.

Strategic HR is a competitive advantage, letting you confidently enter new regions and build a skilled international team.

Top 10 HR considerations for international expansion

Global hiring is an effective way to bridge talent shortages. With the right planning, you can drive business growth and resilience. Here are the 10 factors to keep in mind.

1. Global compliance

Navigating international labor laws keeps many HR leaders up at night. Each country has its own rules for employment contracts, benefits, and payroll. For example, the U.S. allows at-will employment with minimal contract rules, while Brazil mandates parental leave and 13th-month salary payments.

Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBAs) add more complexity and set standards for entire sectors. In countries like Spain, CBAs can apply to all employers across a specific industry.

Staying compliant takes country-specific expertise. Partnering with an employer of record (EOR) can minimize the risks of global employment. As the legal employer of your global team members, an EOR ensures that contracts and HR processes adhere to local law, so you can expand anywhere without the stress of compliance.

2. Cultural adaptability

Awareness of local customs, languages, and communication styles is what makes an inclusive environment. Cross-cultural training and adapting your code of conduct to local customs are two ways of fostering this adaptability. Tailoring global HR standards to these nuances while preserving consistency encourages a sense of belonging throughout your workforce.

You can use G-P Gia™ to create compliant and locally relevant job descriptions, codes of conduct, interview questions, contracts, and more. Our AI-powered global HR agent can also provide translations for HR documents in over 50 languages to support understanding and communication with local teams.

3. Compensation and benefits

Pay and benefits are the top factors that influence an employee's decision to join a new company. But to attract and retain top talent, your compensation and benefits packages must be locally competitive. Beyond complying with statutory minimums, this means benchmarking salaries and benefits to the local market.

For example, in some markets, a pension is a common perk. In others, pensions are rare, and comprehensive health insurance is a typical deciding factor between competing job offers.

4. Talent acquisition

The 2025 World at Work report found that 84% of executives struggled to find skilled talent in their local markets. If you want to improve your potential to attract top talent, start by:

Including both contractors and full-time employees in your hiring strategy
Using an EOR with extensive reach to access global labor markets
Offering attractive and locally competitive benefits

5. Payroll and tax administration

Managing payroll across multiple currencies and tax jurisdictions is a high-stakes task. Each country has its own tax withholding rules and mandatory employer contributions. Errors can lead to significant penalties and damage your reputation.

Partnering with an EOR with global payroll capabilities ensures accurate payments and protects compliance. This also provides a single source of truth for all your payroll data, supporting company-wide financial planning and reporting.

6. Data security

International hiring involves collecting large amounts of sensitive employee information across borders. You must comply with global data protection laws, like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe and similar regulations elsewhere. The GDPR, for example, gives employees the right to access, rectify, and erase their personal data. Failure to comply can result in fines of up to EUR 20 million, or 4% of your company's global annual revenue.

At G-P, we're committed to keeping your HR data safe. We comply with various security standards, including ISO27001, CCPA, GDPR, and SOC2. Customer data is handled in a lawful and ethical manner.

7. Performance management

Creating a fair and consistent performance review process for an international team takes cultural sensitivity. For example, in some cultures, employees may be reluctant to give direct feedback to their managers, while in others, an open feedback culture is the norm.

A performance management system should account for these differences while aligning with your company's overall goals. This may involve training managers to give culturally sensitive feedback and adapting your local performance review forms to ensure they’re constructive for every team member.

8. A cohesive global culture

A cohesive company culture considers regional nuances to create shared values and behaviors that resonate across borders. The key is to create a framework that allows for local adaptation while maintaining a common sense of purpose.

Virtual team-building activities and cross-cultural collaboration opportunities can help foster belonging across international teams.

9. Employee well-being

When you hire globally, your duty of care extends across borders, which means complying with local health and safety regulations. Apart from the legal requirements, providing wellness support shows you care beyond a paycheck.

Wellness initiatives include anything from mental health resources to ergonomic home office setups. Competitive wellness benefits packages vary by region and evolve with time. An EOR can help you ensure compliance with local employee health and safety regulations and benchmark wellness benefits to global markets.

10. Scalable HR technology and infrastructure

Most traditional HR systems are designed for managing a domestic workforce. They aren't equipped for global workforce needs. Some companies end up using several systems to manage cross-border payments, languages, and regulatory frameworks, leading to data silos and administrative inefficiencies.

International companies need a unified platform for all global employment needs. Our global employment platform gives you reliable data for strategic decisions and the efficiency to manage all HR admin tasks. Choose our best-in-class global hiring solution to scale operations anywhere in the world.

Benefits of partnering with an EOR

Partnering with a global EOR simplifies international HR. The benefits of an EOR include:

Compliance expertise: An EOR gives you instant access to a team of in-country legal and HR experts who understand local labor laws. This expertise reduces your compliance risks related to contracts, termination, and benefits. As regulations change, this oversight is critical for avoiding fines and legal disputes.
Speed to market: Establishing a legal subsidiary or branch in a new country can take anywhere from 4-12 months or longer, depending on the jurisdiction. An EOR eliminates this need. Since the EOR already has entities around the world, you can hire talent in a new market within days, not months. This speed lets you seize market opportunities and hire top talent before your competitors.
Cost efficiency: The cost of setting up and maintaining an international business entity includes legal fees, registration costs, and capital minimums. Partnering with an EOR removes these upfront expenses. It also cuts monthly overheads by eliminating the need to hire an in-house global HR team or constantly consult local legal and tax firms.
Simplicity: Working with a technology-first EOR like G-P lets you centralize your global HR practices. Our EOR solutions simplify international payroll, benefits, and HR administration, all via a single dashboard. This streamlines processes, ensures data consistency, and frees up your internal teams to focus on strategic business initiatives.
Scalability: Global business needs can change quickly. An EOR gives you the flexibility to scale your team up or down. Say you're testing a new market with a small team or need to expand your workforce to meet demand. An EOR lets you do so without the long-term commitment and administrative burden of managing your own entity.

Simplify global hiring with G-P

Global HR demands resources and know-how. G-P™ global employment products and EOR solutions simplify international HR while mitigating compliance risks.

Our EOR and Contractor products support quick and compliant hiring, payroll, and benefits administration in 180+ countries. Meanwhile, Gia, the first-of-its-kind agentic AI for HR, creates compliant global HR documents in minutes. All our products are backed by agentic AI and a large team of legal and HR experts to give customers end-to-end support.

As Teresa Cheek of AmbioPharm says, "Conducting business on an international scale is complex, but with G-P, I feel confident knowing they stay on top of the ever-changing laws in each country. The country insights provided by G-P are invaluable."

Book a demo today to see how we simplify global hiring.

Top HR Considerations for International Expansion