Global Hiring and Compliance with Ashby & Oyster HR

Key Takeaways

1. Global hiring is a strategic lever, not just an operational complexity. Access to talent outside your zip code, workforce agility across time zones, diversity of thought, and the ability to hire from a larger pool all compound into faster, higher-quality hiring.
2. Start with your why — then pick a small number of pod countries that are geographically and culturally similar before going broad. Sprawling across disconnected global markets too quickly creates disconnected teams.
3. Define ownership before you have a candidate. Whose job is what — TA, HR, legal, finance — needs to be agreed before the process starts, not negotiated mid-hire.
4. The Ashby-Oyster integration is a handful of clicks: import the candidate, verify or add employment information, customize contract terms (probation period, fixed vs. indefinite, benefits), and the employment agreement is generated automatically. The whole process takes five to seven minutes.
5. If you are using an EOR and not tapping into their strategic expertise — market insights, country-specific nuances, compliance guidance — you are leaving significant value on the table.
6. Compliance surprises are preventable. Understanding country-specific requirements around sick leave, notice periods, benefits, and employment law before you hire is the difference between a smooth start and a major disruption.
7. Clean data in Ashby is the foundation for a smooth global handoff. All PII and role information lives in Ashby — what makes the Oyster handoff seamless is ensuring that data is accurate before the candidate reaches offer stage.

Transcript

Note: transcript is auto-generated and may contain minor inaccuracies.

Erin Goody

Thank you. Hi, I'm Erin Goody. I lead our people services team at Oyster. I'm on the client-facing side of the business. I look after our senior international HRBPs, but also part of our global operations. A lot of what I do every day is helping customers and prospects navigate global employment — whether that's how do we dip our toes in that pond, what does that look like, tooling and process is one piece, but how do we actually do it? And is it as scary as we think it is? So what I want to go through today is: actually, it's not that scary. You probably just need a really good partner to help you with it.

Erin Goody

We spend a lot of time talking about the compliance piece, the stuff that is the unknown that we don't know how to prepare for or plan for. And I think it becomes daunting, and we all sort of take a step back and say, maybe we'll just hire domestically and focus on our local markets. But I want to talk about how global hiring is actually a strategic lever. We see this a lot with our customers, our prospects, and even in conversations I'm having with people in TA. Doing this is a really great move. It gives you access to fantastic talent that maybe isn't within your postcode, your zip code, within your city or your country. I'll run through what we're going to chat about today: the real case for going global, how we actually do this and what it looks like, what actually breaks and how to prevent it, and how we do this in partnership with Ashby.

Erin Goody

When we're talking about global hiring, one of the most simple things is just simple access to talent. Your best candidate might not be in your zip code. When we start to think about how to do this on a bigger scale, it's such a competitive advantage. We see this with our customers every day, especially when they're competing for really niche talent. Being able to go out and find folks that you maybe didn't have that access to is a real differentiator. The other piece is workforce agility and resilience. We have a huge team spread across 70-plus countries at Oyster. We follow the sun — everybody's online at some point. That's a huge advantage. Then there's diversity of thought — we're able to really accelerate our ideas because we're bringing in so much different perspective. And finally, speed to hire. You're competing in a small market in some cases. When you can push those boundaries and push that geographic reach, you can actually speed up your hire. If you're not focusing just on a small region, you've got that span and breadth, you can make interesting moves around salary benchmarking. There's so much that you can do here that will really speed up that hiring process.

Erin Goody

The three things that I talk about a lot when speaking to HR or TA folks are compliance and employment law, payroll and compensation, and onboarding and the team member experience. On compliance: this is about not just navigating the complexities in each country, but understanding those cultural quirks, those nuances, those things that could be potentially challenging that you're not even thinking about or aware of. On payroll: if somebody doesn't get paid, or the pay is messed up, you're going to hear about that real quick. On onboarding: we've all seen when somebody has gone through a really happy candidate experience, fantastic, they're excited, they've got their offer, they're ready to go — and then stuff gets dropped. Nobody knows who's sending out the equipment. A contract hasn't gone out, or it's got a made-up probation period in it.

Erin Goody

Four key foundation blocks I see with global hiring. First, starting with your why. I actually often discourage the 'the world is your oyster' mentality. We've seen customers try Brazil, try Australia, and end up with really disconnected teams on opposite ends of the world. Work with your customers to really understand their why. Focus on pod countries — pick a couple of countries that might be similar in location or cultural expectations, and really target those before going more broad. Second, choosing your employment model: you can set up your own entity, leverage an EOR, or in some instances, use a contractor. Third, defining ownership before you have a candidate — whose job is what? What part are they controlling? What part are they owning? You really want to make sure you're preventing that chaos internally so that people are not feeling it externally. And fourth, selecting partners that integrate, that work well together, that speak to each other.

Erin Goody

When we talk about partnering internally, what we really want to do is prevent pain being felt by somebody else. Defining that ownership early and defining those milestones will make everybody's life smoother and easier. On the EOR side, understanding what's important to you as a business: do you need speed? Are you more focused on product? Do you need somebody that's going to be a transactional enabler — you get paid, job done, move on? Or do you need a strategic partner? Where we see ourselves at Oyster is more on that strategic partnership side. We want to help you understand market insights. We want to share what's different that you might not be expecting. We see this often when working with customers that are looking through their local lens — you could be sitting here in the US thinking about at-will employment, and now you want to hire in the Netherlands. If they go sick, they're off sick for two years and you can't do anything. Those are the good-to-knows. And those are the things where you've got that strategic partner that's not only going to give you the information but helping you navigate those situations. If you are using an EOR and you're not tapping into that, you're leaving so much value on the table.

Erin Goody

The workflow is really quite simple. Making that market decision — where are you going to go, why, and what does that look like from a milestones and ownership perspective? The full hiring process lives in Ashby — all your PII, all the information you need, everything about the role is in Ashby. What is really important is that data, and making sure it is clean in Ashby so that the handoff is smooth. Then the great part: the offer's accepted, we have a candidate that is ready to go. This is when you hand over to Oyster to get that ball rolling so we can get a compliant employment contract out. And then with onboarding in Oyster, we make sure that you are getting all the things you need that are local — local employment agreement, payroll gets started, the onboarding process gets started — and it's as automated as it can be. What Oyster prides itself on is making sure you have a human in the moments that matter. When there is a challenging question or a challenging situation, you get that. But everything else should be automated so that you don't have to do any manual handoffs.

Erin Goody

I'll go into the demo now and walk through just how simple it is. It really is just a handful of clicks — it takes between five and seven minutes, depending on how much customization you want to do. You simply go through into your ATS candidates and import a candidate by popping their name in. As you go through each process, it will show you the employment information, the benefits information, and then it will start generating your contracts. As you see the candidate pulling up, you'll then be able to customize — what country they're in, if you need to go more regional. If this already exists in Ashby, it will pull straight through — you don't have to do any of this manually. You'll be able to customize things like your probation period, whether they're on an indefinite or fixed-term contract. And what you'll see as well — we try to have, where it makes most sense, your virtual hiring assistant on the side. If you're making decisions and navigating through these, we want to give you insights: what is customary, what is best in class, what is statutory. We want to make sure you're making the right decisions that are aligned with what's expected locally.

Erin Goody

As we go through compensation, you'll be able to add in the salary details, commissions, bonuses, allowances — anything related to work from home, anything you want included in that employment agreement. You also have the option to add any additional notes — this doesn't go to the candidate, it goes to our onboarding success team so they can help you navigate any questions. When we get into benefits, you'll likely have a statutory option that's already there. Once you get through the bottom of this and tick that you're ready to go, all the contracts are now generated. You'll then have the option to either send it immediately to that team member, or put it on hold until you're ready. And it'll say that you are a 100% best-in-class employer — all the boxes you've ticked have demonstrated that you've done all the right things in the country where you're hiring.

Erin Goody

Going back to where we were — the cross-functional piece is so important. We know the baton can get dropped. It's so key to understand what everybody's role is — I would group into this finance, legal, TA, and HR. The other piece is this candidate experience and wanting to make sure that you're not losing speed, that you're getting the things that you want, and that your EOR is also pushing your brand. If you've communicated things, if you've committed to things, you want to make sure that flows through this process. So there is a great experience, they have everything that they need, and they can start on time.

Erin Goody

There are four things that I think are incredibly important. Hiring globally gives you the option to hire the best person regardless of where they are. When we are not constrained by geography, we can move at speed — we can hire so much quicker. And nobody likes a compliance surprise — we love being able to navigate through this super simply, with everything backed by human expertise. And then finally, because you've not had those hiccups, you've not had the bumps, everybody's getting started on day one and adding value from day one. Global hiring really doesn't have to be that scary. It is about finding a solid partner, asking the right questions, and making sure you're not leaving that value on the table. For us, we really want to make sure that experience is as seamless as possible. Thank you.