Imagine you’ve just made your first international hire. The contract is signed, the laptop’s on its way, and everything looks on track. Then you discover that the employment agreement isn’t locally compliant because it’s in the wrong language or lacking country-specific nuances. What should have been a smooth process quickly becomes complex, slow, and frustrating for everyone involved.
This is the reality for many businesses expanding abroad. On the surface, the steps look manageable. Pick the market, agree on a budget, make a hire, and get things moving. But underneath, there are HR challenges that can make international expansion feel like a tangle of risk, admin, and hidden costs.
The good news is that these challenges are predictable and sometimes entirely avoidable with the right support. In this post, we’ll explore five of the biggest HR challenges companies face when going global, and how to avoid them before they derail your plans.
Labour laws differ from country to country and evolve constantly. For HR leaders managing international teams, this makes compliance one of the hardest and most time-consuming challenges to get right.
It’s tough enough to stay on top of laws and regulations in one market. Once you’re in two, five, ten, or more, the complexity multiplies exponentially. Minimum wage rates increase at different times of the year. Worker protections can be as simple as basic health and safety requirements in one country, but stretch to highly detailed dismissal procedures in another.
Reporting adds another layer of complexity. One jurisdiction might expect detailed monthly filings, another quarterly reports with a completely different set of data points.
And the real risk is that what keeps you compliant in one place can put you in breach somewhere else. A contract clause, working-time rule, or benefits policy that’s perfectly acceptable in one market might be unlawful in the next. Without a clear way to track these differences, even well-intentioned companies can slip up and end up facing not just fines, but also a loss of trust with their employees.
Get local expertise: Partner with in-country legal and HR specialists who manage these regulations daily. They catch regulatory changes before they catch you.
Establish a compliance cadence: Run quarterly reviews with your local partners or Employer of Record to ensure your contracts, payroll, and policies are still up-to-date.
Document updates visibly: Keep a central log of all changes by country, so managers and payroll teams always know the latest rules.
When hiring overseas, many companies are tempted to reuse (or slightly tweak) the contracts they already use at home. It feels safer than starting from scratch. The reality is, those contracts rarely stand up abroad.
Each country has different mandatory clauses, language requirements, notice periods, worker classifications, and more. This means a watertight contract in one market can be not applicable in another.
For example, contracts must be written in French to be valid in France. In Germany, probation periods can’t run longer than six months. In much of Latin America, a 13th-month salary isn’t a bonus; it’s a legal requirement. Missing these details can result in fines, disputes, or a loss of employee trust.
Research first, draft second: Before creating any contract, understand minimum wage laws, required benefits and annual leave, working hour limitations, and termination rules specific to each jurisdiction.
Use country-specific templates: Start with contracts built for the country where you are hiring, not retrofitted from elsewhere.
Work with in-country experts: Local HR and legal specialists can draft contracts that reflect cultural norms and legal requirements.
Meet language requirements: Many countries' legal systems won't accept contracts in a non-official language.
Hiring in a new country isn’t just about posting the same job ad elsewhere. Every market has its own recruiting culture. In other words, the channels people use, how they expect to be approached, what salary feels competitive, and how they behave in interviews can vary between regions. What works brilliantly in one country can fall flat in another.
Without local insight, great candidates might be overlooked, offers might be declined, and hiring might drag on longer than it should.
Recruitment isn’t a copy-and-paste exercise. It’s about understanding the market you’re hiring into, adapting your approach, and showing candidates that you “get” how things work locally. Companies that do this tap into top talent. Companies that don’t often miss it entirely.
Work with local recruitment experts: They know which channels matter, what competitive compensation looks like, and how to position your company in that market.
Adapt your candidate evaluation: Qualifications and experience don’t always map neatly across borders. What’s standard in one country may be advanced in another.
Customise onboarding: Build a consistent global process for onboarding, but consider adapting a local layer to cover cultural norms and compliance requirements.
Set clear communication expectations: Time zones, language barriers, and different workplace norms can derail collaboration. Establish upfront how your team will communicate, when, and through which channels.
Terminations are one of the highest-risk, most problematic areas of employment. It’s also where the differences between countries are most apparent.
On one end of the spectrum is the US, where “at-will” employment gives employers wide discretion to let people go. On the other end are countries like the Netherlands, where dismissals require court approval and can take months to process. France adds another layer, with strict protections for parents of infants and detailed procedures for economic redundancies.
And the consequences of getting this wrong aren’t minor. You can face reinstatement orders, costly settlements, drawn-out legal battles, and serious reputational damage with employees and regulators. This is why termination processes need to be handled carefully and locally. In global employment, there’s no such thing as a “standard” dismissal.
Terminations need country-specific planning, not assumptions.
Map requirements by country: Document notice periods, severance rules, and consultation steps so managers know the boundaries before acting.
Work with in-country experts: Local HR and legal specialists can guide you through sensitive cases and cultural expectations.
Keep the paper trail tight: Official written warnings, performance records, and consultation notes are often legally required.
Plan for time and cost: Notice periods can stretch for months, and severance obligations vary widely.
Benefits are one of the most sensitive parts of global employment. The minimums required by law differ dramatically between countries, from pensions and parental leave to social security contributions and paid time off. What counts as baseline in one market might not even exist in another (and vice versa).
But compliance isn’t the whole story. Every market has its own expectations about what a fair package looks like. In Ireland, employees seek private health cover even though it isn’t mandatory.
In the UK, the focus is on strong pension contributions In much of Latin America, the 13th-month salary is either written into law or so common that not offering it makes you uncompetitive. These differences aren’t trivial. They shape how employees judge your company and whether they feel valued compared to colleagues in other countries.
Think of benefits in two layers: what’s required by law, and what’s expected locally.
Get the statutory layer right first: Social security, pensions, healthcare, leave entitlements. These are non-negotiable.
Add the cultural layer: Extras like supplemental health cover, food vouchers, or bonus pay may not be required, but rather expected locally. These can often decide whether your offer is competitive.
Review annually: Laws and expectations can change quickly. Benefits that were competitive two years ago may become outdated.
Expanding internationally will always come with complexity. Employment laws shift constantly, contracts don’t translate neatly, benefits vary by culture, and processes like hiring or termination can look completely different from one country to the next.
These aren’t small details. They’re the foundations of how you employ people. Get them wrong, and you face delays, fines, and damaged trust.
The companies that expand successfully don’t wait for problems to surface. They plan ahead, lean on in-country expertise, and adapt their policies to local realities while keeping global standards where they matter.
At Boundless, we help employers do exactly that, whether through our Employer of Record service or HR Support service, which gives you direct access to local HR specialists.
International growth isn’t about making everything perfect. It’s about getting the essentials right, protecting your people, and giving your business room to scale with confidence. Build on that foundation, and your global team will only get stronger.
Master the complexities of global employment and ensure a seamless employment experience for your team.
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