John Tinsley, Director, Compandben Companies, writes:
We were contacted just after Christmas by a USA based client that had a team in Singapore covering several countries-notably China, Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam. The client was interested in having an employee in China, another in Vietnam.
While I was getting data from the client – number of employees, job title, salary, length of contract and so on, I asked her was it for business reasons – e.g. increased demand, the need to develop markets, etc. The answer was “yes I suppose so..but…”…
It turns out that the most immediate driver for the expansion of staffing was “Flight shame” (Flygskam in Swedish). Apparently, the staff in Singapore regularly fly to China, Vietnam, Philippines and the company is embarrassed about the number of flights, the effects on global warming, and critical staff and client comments. So, their logic was that if they had employees in these countries the flights would decrease.
We were delighted of course because Compandben provides Employer of Record solutions -where we or our local partners employ staff on behalf of clients- in 120 countries. It means clients can have staff without having to set up a branch or subsidiary or another legal entity in the country concerned. So good news for us as well as the planet.
Speaking more generally the increased pressure on companies to source local staff, to reduce air travel, and to reduce product air miles, should increase demand for medium level employees and perhaps decrease the number of “high flying” staff.
Cambridge UK and Geneva Switzerland