Salaries are high in Australia, and many businesses may need to rely on overseas workers to perform certain tasks. Fortunately, overseas workers are often as talented as local workers, and many have the training and skills necessary to do great work. However, it is important to perform extra screening when hiring overseas workers. Here are five things to consider before hiring overseas workers.
1. Taxes
It is easy to find tax laws pertaining to local workers. For overseas workers, however, the tax code can get a little more complicated. Before hiring workers, look up relevant tax laws to determine that you are compliant with regulations pertaining to worker compensation and any necessary taxes.
2. English proficiency
Overseas workers may have great English skills; however, some have a poor grasp of the language but fail to recognise their difficulties. If you are hiring overseas workers who will be creating English documents, you will want to ensure that their English skills are sufficient. A quick test may be enough to determine how well they write English.
3. Reputation
There are a number of ways to connect with overseas workers, but not all of them provide a means for determining a particular worker’s reputation. If there is a means for finding reputation ratings, take advantage of them; if not, you may want to hire the new worker on a trial basis to ensure that he or she is as reliable as you need.
4. Technical proficiency
Language barriers can make it difficult to gauge how strong a particular worker’s technical skills are. As a result, it can be hard to determine if a particular worker has the technical proficiency necessary to complete programming or web development tasks. Before hiring a worker, you may wish to ask for a portfolio of work to determine if he or she has the technical skills necessary to meet your demands.
5. Payment schedules
Workers want to be paid as quickly as possible; those hiring them, however, often do not wish to pay until the task is complete. When hiring an overseas worker, you will want to discuss how and when they will be paid. In most cases, the fairest solution is to pay part of the final cost upfront and pay the rest once the task is completed.
Many countries are investing in educating their citizens in the English language and in a number of technical skills. Because of this, those who live in Australia can tap into large base of the workers who will do top-notch work for far less than Australian employees. Ensuring that you go about this task the right way, however, will require some extra work. Always be cautious when hiring overseas workers, but understand that there are a number of great workers looking to be hired.
Trevor Briggs is an experienced lecturer based in Sydney, Australia. He has countless qualifications to his name and recently completed further postgraduate study in finance with Kaplan Higher Learning to help progress his career.
