5 steps to create a top-tier benefits package for your global team

The mass cultural shift towards remote work, as well as the proliferation of affordable cross-border employment solutions such as Boundless, means that employers can now tap into a global talent pool beyond the bounds of a city or a country with very little hassle.

However, beyond the ability to employ across borders and the connectivity we now have, successful recruitment requires careful consideration of employee benefits. Employers are still struggling to recruit successfully because they don’t have the right in-market benefits to tempt the candidates they’re targeting. In fact, our research shows that one-third of employers have missed out on overseas hires because their employee benefits packages haven’t been up to the job.

Getting benefits right is a big deal, particularly given that the international jobs market is more competitive than ever. Benefits now weigh heavily on hiring decisions. Around 70% of US workers say they would switch jobs for better benefits (Economist Impact), and benefits make up 38.5% of total employer compensation costs (BLS, 2025). Those are pretty significant numbers.

So, if you’re struggling to attract overseas candidates, here are five steps to make your benefits package market-leading in every location you’re trying to hire.

What employees want can vary wildly depending on their personal circumstances. For instance, while parents might need to make use of a childcare allowance, it’s important that child-free employees don’t feel hard done by in comparison. And with distributed and cross-border teams now a standard part of hiring, commuting patterns vary widely, so travel and transport perks will appeal to some staff far more than others, depending on where they live and how they get around.

Of course, it’s not possible to make everyone happy all of the time or create individual packages for every individual staff member. However, flexibility needs to play a big role in determining what you offer, particularly as you start to hire across multiple markets.

Before tailoring anything, it helps to separate the two layers that every benefits package is built from.

The statutory floor is what the law in each country requires you to provide. It varies by location but typically covers a pension or social security contributions, paid annual leave, sick pay, and parental leave. This layer is non-negotiable, and getting it wrong risks penalties.

The supplemental layer sits on top and is where you compete. It includes private health cover, wellness allowances, additional leave, and other perks that go beyond the legal minimum.

The five steps that follow are really decisions about that supplemental layer: how to shape the optional benefits on top of a compliant base so the overall package stands out in each market.

Local expectations around benefits also vary from location to location, based on what the state already provides and what is generally provided by other employers in their territory. Hence, you’ll fall down by rolling out a benefits scheme which fails to consider cultural differences.

How to avoid this issue: Well, first things first, you need to know what the local law says you have to provide. Legislation can differ significantly across borders. From annual leave allowances to maternity and paternity cover, you need to get these mandatory provisions right, or you could face hefty financial penalties.

Once you know what you have to provide (check out our country guides for more), you’ll want to consider the cultural norms in the territory you’re hiring in. What do people expect, and what do other employers provide as a standard? We have put together a handy ebook with comparison benchmarks on what good and great employers offer in several countries to help you.

For example, if you’re a UK company looking to hire in the US, you’ll need to be mindful that at least 60 per cent of employers offer health benefits as standard, perhaps no surprise given the lack of free healthcare at the point of delivery. There’s also much less vacation time typically offered compared to the UK, and while the number of days varies from employer to employer, on average, US private-sector workers receive around 11 days of paid vacation after one year, rising to about 15 after five years (BLS, March 2025). Time off is accrued, so newer staff start with less. All this means that offering a higher-than-normal level of vacation could help you stand out in the market.

To give another example, not every country has made Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) a requirement by law. This means that companies are allowed to make their own rules around illness, and you’ll need to be aware of what’s on offer in a territory, whether that’s by law or what’s typically provided. Some of the best countries for sick pay include Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Australia and Luxembourg, although a high level isn’t mandatory by law, so to attract staff in these territories, you’ll need to have a generous offer.

Our research shows that while employers think they’re doing a pretty good job in providing benefits, their employees aren’t so sure. Employers and employees often do not see benefits the same way. In a Forbes Advisor survey (2025), PTO did not make employers’ top five in-demand benefits, yet 31% of employees ranked it the one that matters most.

So, what does this tell us? Simply, that you won’t make your employees happy without taking the time to understand what they want.

Savvy companies engage in employee surveys to determine current satisfaction levels and assess what’s needed next. And crucially, they do this regularly, understanding that things change in employees’ lives. For example, with the cost of living crisis affecting so many households across so many countries, employees are increasingly demanding help with living expenses, whether that’s meal package subscriptions, subsidies towards energy bills or travel allowances to offset the effects of rising fuel costs.

Budgeting keeps this manageable. Set a per-employee benefits budget so spending stays predictable and every hire is treated consistently, then adjust it by market to reflect what each location costs. As headcount grows across countries, forecast the total by multiplying that per-employee figure by planned hires in each market, since statutory costs and typical top-ups differ from one country to the next. A per-employee model makes the benefits bill scale predictably rather than by surprise.

With so many variables at play, it might be time to move to more flexible, self-managed allowances – letting your employees choose from a pre-vetted list of suppliers and benefits options.

Ideally, you want employees to be able to allocate their own budget to what matters most to them. For example, in territories where the state provides generous childcare, your employees might want to use their funds for other things, while in regions where childcare allowances are less generous, employees can put their benefits allowance towards topping this up.

This, however, needs to augment an already existing core benefits offering that has all the statutory basics everywhere you operate covered.

Using this approach allows you to properly cater for different territories and enable a better level of personalisation (simply set your budgets and allow employees to pick what matters most to them). They also allow you to deliver more flexibility, adding options easily without having to rewrite your whole policy, upping allowances to reward employees for great work or expanding into a new territory with very little effort.

Ultimately, empowering employees is always a good idea, providing autonomy makes them more productive, engaged and loyal, and there’s no reason this shouldn’t apply to benefits too.

We’ve said it before: it’s an incredibly competitive job market out there. And when you’re fishing in a global talent pool, it’s not just companies in your own territory you need to worry about. You could be competing for new hires against rivals based practically anywhere. So you need to be mindful of what other global employers offer and pay close attention to how benefits are evolving in different markets.

Take California-based Salesforce, for example. This savvy employer rewards its staff with special programmes focused on wellness and travel, and its famous Education Reimbursement Program helps students take job-related courses at an accredited school.

Although technology firms often get the most attention for providing extraordinary benefits, you can find great perks in many other industries, too. For example, UK-based Timpsons recently made headlines for offering employees an extra week of paid leave when they get married.