2023-06-01
Do your colleagues long to work from a different location? Perhaps they’d like to log into Zoom from the beach? Or spend six months living in their second home? Or end every working day by exploring a new city in a new country on a new continent?
If this sounds familiar, rest assured you’re not alone. Companies everywhere are seeing demand soar for longer-term, more flexible, remote working. Some forward-thinking businesses have responded with new ‘work from anywhere’ policies, allowing their employees to see the world while holding down a full-time job. But others have no policy in place. Instead, address employee demands for a long working holiday or temporary relocation — also known as a workation — on a case-by-case basis.
Here’s our handy guide to handling workation requests:
Workations – a blended term of work and vacation – see employees temporarily moving to a new location while continuing to work full or part-time. Workation examples might include a knowledge worker who wanted a two-week holiday in Asia but plans to stick around for another month after their holiday. Other requests might include an employee who wants to tour North America for four months or another who wants to spend the summer working from their holiday villa in France or Spain. In all cases, the employee wants to keep the security of full-time employment while enjoying the flexibility that long-life battery laptops and video call technology bring. Think freelance digital nomad, but with pension contributions and a regular salary to rely on.
The cost-of-living crisis, a new ‘experience’ generation entering the workforce, and the improved work-life balance many enjoyed in the pandemic have all fuelled increased demand for ‘workations’ and longer-term remote work. Research shows 56% of employees plan to or have already taken a workation. Job applicants increasingly search for ‘fully remote as the location of choice’; just 20% of LinkedIn jobs offer remote work, but these attract 50% of applications. Out-of-season demand for accommodation is also growing in foreign tourist destinations as remote workers look to stay away longer when it’s cheaper. As more and more employees want to work abroad, enterprises are left with a choice: become more flexible and a more desirable employer by facilitating requests, or keep to rigid procedures on office attendance but risk alienating employees.
Last year, Airbnb made headlines after introducing a ‘work from anywhere’ policy to attract and retain top global talent while diversifying its workforce. Other businesses have followed suit, knowing this flexibility will help with employee satisfaction levels and save them money on office leases and real estate. But many more enterprises are still exploring their working practices post-Covid. They may opt for a more hybrid working model or prefer no specific remote work policy. This lack of clarity leaves them – and their employees – in a grey area on workation requests.
Workation requests can present multiple issues for human resources departments, heads of global mobility, heads of people/talent, or even legal counsels. Aside from the apparent consideration of additional workload, almost every workation request differs from the last one as employees of a range of nationalities, role types, seniority, and wage brackets look to work from different countries for different lengths of time. Every request provokes new questions regarding time zones, culture, employee satisfaction, business productivity and tax, immigration, and legal compliance. Even what seems to be a simple request can soon turn into a logistical and complicated, not to mention costly, nightmare.
As workations are relatively new, most companies haven’t set standard procedures for assessing and approving requests. Some requests are granted by line managers ‘under the radar’ of HR. Other requests reach colleagues in the global mobility or human resources department who don’t feel confident about the tax, legal and immigration considerations of the request. A fast-moving regulatory landscape adds to the confusion. HR leads then typically pursue one of two options: refusing the request because they’re not sure if it creates a compliance risk or employing several siloed, often often-country-specific advisors on hourly rates to produce a new compliance report for every request. This costly, time-sapping approach can take days, creating uncertainty for the employee and employer.
Centuro Global is dedicated to helping businesses expand globally, at a cost-effective manner, at speed, and while ensuring total compliance with all local tax, immigration, and legal considerations. As such, we’ve created an AI-based one-stop shop to deal with workation requests. HR leads and global mobility managers can input a few details of each request, then instantly generate country, role, and salary-specific reports and a detailed compliance plan. Workation requests can then be approved or denied in minutes, and where refused, a clear compliance risk or reason can be given.
If your business is uncertain about managing workation requests or you’re struggling to deal with demand, don’t hesitate to contact us, and we will be able to help you and your team. We will help you to save costs, improve employee experience, and facilitate the right workation decision within minutes.
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