Expanding globally is a significant milestone for any small to mid-sized company (SME)—signalling that the company is ready to grow by embracing new markets. But the opportunities this expansion presents also bring operational challenges for HR leaders tasked with managing the resulting international workforce. We see these challenges focused on a few key areas: leave management, absence tracking, and maintaining compliance across multiple jurisdictions.
For senior HR executives, these challenges aren’t just operational headaches—they can be significant barriers to implementing broader HR strategy. Without the necessary streamlined processes to handle a growing global workforce, HR teams may find themselves increasingly hamstrung as they struggle with the inefficiencies of handling day-to-day tasks across multiple countries. And these tasks are more than time-consuming—they’re critical to both ensuring compliance and delivering consistent, satisfactory employee experiences.
The complexity behind global leave and absence management
As any global HR leader knows, scaling and managing leave and absence policies is challenging enough for a single country—and compounded even more so for multiple countries. Commonly used manual processes involving spreadsheets, emails, and fragmented systems spread out across multiple jurisdictions quickly become unmanageable and risk-prone. This scattered approach inevitably results in fragmented data and a line of sight into a company’s global operations.
HR teams find themselves hamstrung by operational inefficiencies, from juggling employee vacation calendars through a different platform for every country to manually reconciling emails and spreadsheets to track leave requests. The list of unwieldy, manual tasks is endless—HR teams often face difficulties accurately tracking employee leave balances, calculating accrued liabilities, or planning for team availability around varying public holidays across multiple regions. Moreover, manual tracking processes significantly increase the risk of compliance errors—mistakes that can lead to serious legal and financial penalties. For instance, incorrect calculations of termination pay or leave entitlements in jurisdictions like Spain or Germany (or any country known for strict employment and employee protection laws) carry substantial financial risks.
Hidden costs of manual reporting
Another overlooked (but substantial) challenge for HR teams centers on accurate and timely reporting. Without centralized and standardized systems, companies often struggle to produce accurate, real-time reports. Imagine a scenario where a CFO requests a vacation accrual report at the end of the month. If HR data is scattered across multiple platforms and spreadsheets, assembling an accurate snapshot becomes nearly impossible, leading to errors, wasted time, and increased frustration.
For SMEs managing global operations, these administrative hurdles take needed time away from more strategic HR tasks, such as enhancing the employee experience or aligning global policies with organizational goals.
HR managers need visibility and control
Managers overseeing global teams face substantial difficulties gaining clear visibility into employee availability. Without a centralized, user-friendly dashboard, it can be cumbersome for managers to track employee availability for critical projects or to ensure coverage during peak travel or holiday periods, which tend to vary by country or region. The resulting gaps can disrupt operations and hinder organizational efficiency.
The gap: A “right-sized” centralized solution for SMEs
Traditional HR solutions tend to fall into two extremes: overly complex and expensive global enterprise solutions, or robust software built for domestic companies only. For SMEs in particular, investing in bloated, complex systems can be complex to use and too costly to maintain. Simpler systems, on the other hand, are more affordable but lack the ability to support multi-country compliance requirements or other global HR needs.
GateWay HR: Purpose-built for SME global HR needs
GateWay HR, part of HSP’s broader GateWay Global Expansion Management (GXM) platform, is purpose-built and “right-sized” for SMEs. GateWay HR offers companies a single streamlined and centralized platform to manage their global HR operations in all countries. Best of all, the platform is supported by a team of in-country experts ready to lend their expertise to help companies navigate local HR issues as well as the broader spectrum of needs—from payroll and EoR to entity management.
GateWay HR centralizes leave requests, absence management, time tracking, and statutory holiday compliance in a single easy to use platform. It significantly reduces the manual administrative burden placed on HR teams and mitigates operational risk by providing real-time tracking and accurate data reporting on everything that matters.
Real-time HR data insights with easy local customization
With GateWay HR, SMEs gain access to accurate real-time insights into leave balances, probationary periods, and employee availability, enabling better workforce planning and compliance across all countries in which the company operates. Additionally, Gateway HR is designed to support local customizations from the start, ensuring compliance with country-specific regulations.
Improving the employee HR experience, no matter the country
Beyond operational efficiency, GateWay HR directly enhances the employee experience. Employees have a simple, unified method for submitting leave requests, while managers benefit from streamlined approval processes with clear visibility into their team’s availability. This ease of use translates into a more satisfying employee and manager experience, critical to maintaining morale and productivity during global expansion.
A single integrated platform with access to local experts
Importantly, GateWay HR isn’t just a technology solution—it integrates seamlessly with HSP’s broader GXM platform— including tax, payroll, accounting, and legal entity management for full operational oversight across every service and every country. Best of all, the solution provides companies with timely, direct access to a global team of experts with local knowledge. This combination ensures companies have both the technological tools and the human expertise required to manage their global workforce effectively.
Empowering HR leaders for strategic growth
Ultimately, GateWay HR empowers HR leaders to step away from spreadsheet management and refocus on strategic priorities that strengthen employee engagement and maintain company culture during times of global expansion, all while ensuring compliance and effective operations across every country.
GateWay HR provides the right-sized solution these companies need—efficient, affordable, and expertly supported—to confidently and compliantly manage their global HR footprint and unlock the full potential of their international workforce.
HSP is an end-to-end global expansion solutions provider focused on helping companies scale their operations overseas effectively and efficiently. We are the only global expansion expert to offer growing companies a full suite of end-to-end solutions designed to help them scale to any size and country.
Our in-country experts have delivered the full spectrum of global expansion solutions—from EoR to entity set-up and management—across more than 100 countries (and counting). HSP brings full payroll, accounting, tax, legal, compliance, and HR services to corporate teams, integrating with in-house staff to both guide and execute across every domain.
Contact us to discover how our full suite of global HR services can help your company successfully expand overseas in any environment.
