By expanding their global reach, companies can build more and resilient teams, says G-P’s Head of HR

Talent shortages are the biggest barrier to organizational growth.

That’s according to new research from G-P, a global Employer of Record company.

G-P surveyed 2,000 executives from across the world; 46% said they found finding skilled talent in their existing market very or extremely difficult.

This is up 10 percentage points on the 2023 data.

This is pushing seven in ten executives to look at new countries to meet their talent needs.

Speaking about the report exclusively with UNLEASH, G-P’s VP and Head of HR Laura Maffucci shares: “With nearly all (98%) of executives planning to expand their global presence within the next year, it’s clear that having an international strategy is essential for staying competitive.”

Executives are well aware of the business benefits of global expansion; 97% of them told G-P that having a presence in multiple countries was essential to their company remaining competitive in today’s challenging business landscape.

The good news is that employees are on board – G-P also surveyed 4,000 global workers and found that eight in ten want to work for an international company.

Part of the reason for this is that they see working for a multinational company as good for their careers (85%).

94% of employees told G-P they thought interacting with colleagues and clients in other countries was good for their career growth.

Maffucci continues: “Employees are becoming more open to exploring global opportunities, and employers are responding by broadening their talent searches.

By expanding their global reach, companies not only have a better chance at addressing local talent shortages but also at building more diverse, agile, and resilient teams.”

EOR and AI can help with international expansion challenges

Executives and employees might be in agreement about the pros of international expansion, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t challenges.

There are major issues around compliance with local employment law, developing and executing employment contracts, determining fair salaries, benefits, as well as figuring out payroll and taxation.

“Executives say partnering with an EOR is their preferred choice to navigate building and managing teams in new markets,” notes Maffucci.

“In fact, the research revealed only a quarter of leaders want to deal with establishing a local business office or legal entity.”

However, G-P’s research also found that there is a use case for AI here.

While employees talk about the classic positives of AI for productivity, content creation and summarizing large documents, executives focused more on the ability of AI to predict business challenges, ensure salary transparency and fairness, spot risk issues and understand compliance in international markets.

There remains a fear of the unknown with AI however.

Although 92% of employees are excited about AI, a third are hesitant that their manager would place less value on their work if they knew AI had been used and 27% are concerned about not having been sufficiently trained on AI.

HR leaders and organizations need to overcome these worries around AI if they are going to reap these compliance rewards.