Anywhere goes! Global remote working post-pandemic

The past 18 months have proved that work­ing from home can be just as pro­duc­tive, if not more so, than being teth­ered to an office desk. With inter­na­tion­al trav­el open­ing up again, some busi­ness­es are look­ing to loosen the rules fur­ther by offer­ing employ­ees the chance to spend part of the year work­ing abroad.

Before the pan­dem­ic, the free­dom to com­bine work and trav­el was most­ly enjoyed by a small num­ber of tech-savvy free­lancers, the types you see shar­ing aspi­ra­tional LinkedIn posts as they work on their lap­tops from ham­mocks in Bali. How­ev­er, the pan­dem­ic pro­vid­ed a turn­ing point. From 2019 to 2020, the num­ber of dig­i­tal nomads grew by 50% to almost 11 mil­lion, accord­ing to a sur­vey of US employ­ees by MBO Part­ners, with full-time work­ers now mak­ing up the major­i­ty.

One com­pa­ny offer­ing its employ­ees the chance to work from any­where is Blue­ground, which intro­duced its Nomads pro­gramme in May 2021. Blue­ground pro­vides short- and long-term lux­u­ry rental accom­mo­da­tion in 15 cities across the world and now offers its employ­ees dis­count­ed rents to work in one of its glob­al mar­kets each year. 

The flexibility to choose

Explain­ing the new pro­gramme, com­pa­ny co-founder and CEO Alex Chatzieleft­he­ri­ou says: “I believe that expe­ri­enc­ing dif­fer­ent loca­tions and cul­tures helps to broad­en one’s per­spec­tive. We’re see­ing more of our guests liv­ing a nomadic lifestyle, and we recog­nise that we can offer our team mem­bers the flex­i­bil­i­ty to choose where they live and work too.” 

There are no restric­tions on where Blue­ground employ­ees can choose to work, although there are perks — includ­ing two weeks’ free rent each year — for those who opt to work from one of company’s apart­ments. Since launch­ing the pol­i­cy, sev­en staff have per­ma­nent­ly relo­cat­ed to a new coun­try, while 10 have cho­sen to work abroad for short­er peri­ods, includ­ing two mem­bers of the sales team who called into work while trav­el­ling in Alas­ka. 

Chatzieleft­he­ri­ou expects this num­ber to increase as peo­ple become more com­fort­able with trav­el­ling again. He adds: “We’re for­tu­nate to be able to open the door to oppor­tu­ni­ties and new life expe­ri­ences for our employ­ees. From an organ­i­sa­tion­al per­spec­tive, we believe that a flex­i­ble pro­gramme like this will lead to improved employ­ee well­be­ing and moti­va­tion.” 

Although Blueground’s pres­ence in many coun­tries makes organ­is­ing its Nomads pro­gramme sim­pler, there are still chal­lenges. Chatzieleft­he­ri­ou says that com­mu­ni­ca­tion and an aware­ness of dif­fer­ent nation­al work­ing norms are impor­tant. For exam­ple, the work­ing week in coun­tries such as Dubai and Israel runs from Sun­day to Thurs­day. To accom­mo­date these dif­fer­ences, full team meet­ings tend to be held on com­mon work­days. There is also an expec­ta­tion that remote work­ers in dif­fer­ent time zones will adapt their hours to fit in with those in oth­er loca­tions. Chatzieleft­he­ri­ou says: “We review each case togeth­er with our in-house legal and tax advis­ers to under­stand the individual’s cir­cum­stances. So far, we haven’t had any cas­es where a solu­tion wasn’t pos­si­ble.”

Implementing a WFA policy

UK fin­tech com­pa­ny Rev­o­lut also intro­duced a work-from-abroad (WFA) pol­i­cy ear­li­er this year, which enables its employ­ees to work for up to 60 days a year in a des­ti­na­tion of their choice, pro­vid­ing they have the right to work there.

The dig­i­tal bank employs peo­ple from more than 80 coun­tries, so the deci­sion to allow employ­ees to work from anoth­er coun­try came from a desire to allow its work­force to recon­nect with fam­i­ly mem­bers. Revolut’s vice-pres­i­dent of peo­ple Jim Mac­Dougall says: “We want­ed to enable employ­ees to spend extend­ed qual­i­ty time over­seas, which has been lim­it­ed since Covid hit, and allow peo­ple to spend more time with fam­i­ly and friends.” 

The com­pa­ny is cur­rent­ly offer­ing the option to work from any­where as a dis­cre­tionary perk but there are plans to make it a per­ma­nent part of employ­ment con­tracts. PR and com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er Chiara Baroni was one of the first to take up the oppor­tu­ni­ty to work abroad, swap­ping the “gloomy Ger­man win­ter” for Tener­ife. She says: “The Canary Islands are a boom­ing scene for dig­i­tal nomads these days. Being able to con­nect with peo­ple and draw inspi­ra­tion from them was very impor­tant to me; I felt more cre­ative and had a lot more ener­gy while work­ing there.”

Although the expe­ri­ence of work­ing from any­where may sound appeal­ing to employ­ees, it can cre­ate headaches for HR and finance depart­ments. Slater and Gor­don employ­ment lawyer Jo Mack­ie says: “There are lim­i­ta­tions on how long you can work in oth­er coun­tries, and if you out­stay your wel­come you could end up in breach of their laws.”

Rules vary from coun­try to coun­try, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult to have a gener­ic work-from-any­where pol­i­cy. Vari­a­tions can include tax impli­ca­tions, work­ing visas and entry require­ments, although UK employ­ment law will remain applic­a­ble for any­one on a UK-based con­tract, accord­ing to Mack­ie. “HR and busi­ness­es need to seek advice now if they wish to add this work-from-abroad option to the range of perks already offered to employ­ees,” she adds.

At Rev­o­lut, the deci­sion to lim­it stays to 60 days was a result of tax and visa con­sid­er­a­tions. The com­pa­ny hoped to offer employ­ees 90 days, but its finance teams con­clud­ed that short­er trips would com­ply with the cor­po­rate tax and immi­gra­tion laws across a wider range of coun­tries, mak­ing imple­men­ta­tion of the pol­i­cy less com­plex.

Sim­i­lar­ly, Spo­ti­fy had to rein back its promise of allow­ing its employ­ees to work from any­where to instead offer a pol­i­cy that allows staff to work in a coun­try where it already has a pres­ence. “Multi­na­tion­al com­pa­nies will find it eas­i­er to organ­ise trans­fers to an office in a dif­fer­ent coun­try on a work visa,” Mack­ie says. “You are able to do some things with­out get­ting a visa or per­mit, such as trav­el­ling for a busi­ness meet­ing, but in terms of actu­al­ly work­ing in anoth­er coun­try, you will need to ‘fess up – you can’t just say you’re a tourist.”

None of these fac­tors should pre­vent com­pa­nies from allow­ing their employ­ees to work from abroad, but it does make the process more dif­fi­cult. While the oppor­tu­ni­ty to work from sun­nier climes may appeal to work­ers whose abil­i­ty to trav­el has been restrict­ed over the past year, employ­ers will need to check any rules and reg­u­la­tions care­ful­ly before offer­ing the perk to all employ­ees.