Tips For Integrating Foreign Employees

2022-06-25 13:31 Research: IT and HR analytics

More companies are starting to recognize the advantages of international recruitment. However, most of them face challenges after hiring these foreign-born employees who feel like fish out of water in a new environment. It’s extremely important to provide them with extra support and integration assistance.

Let’s have a look at why it’s a smart strategy to look for IT talents abroad and list a few tips that will help your new hires adapt to your team, workflows, and corporate culture better.

Why Hire International Employees?

Employees from other countries can make your team more effective as a whole and give your business an edge over competitors. These are only a few advantages of a multinational crew:

Hunting for rare IT talents

Local top-class narrow-field specialists are rarely open to work: they’re quickly hired. If you need a rare stack or just a good professional, looking abroad is a great alternative. It’s worth paying attention to developing countries. There are a lot of skilled talents who would be happy to relocate for a salary that may be a little lower than the average in your market. But it’ll be considered generous enough when compared to the standards of their economy. Attracting such people to power up your team will make your company stronger.

Recruiting experts for a specific market

If you want to expand to other countries, it’s worth thinking about hiring local professionals. They know the language, cultural specificities, and business nuances. This knowledge will benefit your projects and make you a better global player.

Boosting creativity

If you hire specialists only from one country, you risk stifling your team’s creativity. You need different perspectives and ideas brought by people from the outside. It’s critical if you want to be a competitive international player. Different points of view will build up a rich and healthy working atmosphere. Increased productivity, stability, and loyalty are what an employer gets in return.

Why Help Foreigners Adapt?

It’s hard to onboard new hires. But it’s even harder when they are not familiar with your country. They have to deal with relocation challenges, absorb a lot of information, and do their best to fit in. Sometimes, the pressure is too much, which can result in job quitting. This means that all your hiring efforts have been in vain, and you have to start the searching cycle anew.

But you can minimize such risks by providing integration assistance. It’s imperative to work out a plan of how you'll onboard a foreign-born employee beforehand. If you do everything right, the adaptation period will be seamless, and you’ll get the professionals your business needs.

How to Help New Hires

We’ve used our expertise in the sphere, as well as the experience and practices of our clients to compile the following list of useful tips. They’ll facilitate the onboarding and open a broader pool of talents globally.

1) Create an inclusive working environment
Your existing team should not feel opposed to letting a foreigner in. Talk to your crew and explain why it’s vital to become multinational. If you prepare everyone in this way, this will build up a friendly atmosphere. Newcomers will feel welcome, recognizing the importance of their contribution to the company.

2) Release information in doses
Design a step-by-step onboarding plan to avoid information overload. Make it slow and include meetings with colleagues, training activities, and smooth transfer of responsibilities. It’s even worth creating an hourly schedule for the first days to make foreign-born talents more confident in what they do. It may take weeks to fully integrate a new hire, but it’s safer this way.

3) Enlist other employees to help
Work out a fully-fledged support system. Assign tasks to your current crew members to show new hires around. Pair them with one person who’ll navigate newcomers through the workflows and explain things that may be taken for granted by others. Encourage foreign specialists to ask any questions and choose a mentor who will answer them.

4) Involve everyone in social activities
Spending time together outside the office will unite your team members, reduce formality, and make foreigners more acquainted with your culture. These can be team-building sessions, fun games, soccer matches, or just lunch together.

"Our agency hires people from different countries and works 100% remotely. But this doesn't stop us from spending time together. We meet online a lot to enjoy off-work activities such as discussing movies in our Movie Club, having fun at corporate parties, and playing online games.

And it’s not just video and audio calls. We have a chat with employees from all departments. Here we share news, and jokes, wish each other happy birthdays, discuss non-work-related topics, and launch photo flashmobs. These activities are for everyone, newcomers including. It facilitates integration and makes our team more united."

HR Specialist
Alex Staff Agency
Evgeniya Mironova

5) Provide relocation support
Relocation support is any help a company offers for new employees who live in a different city or country. Such assistance makes the relocation easier, and it’s often used as a bonus to attract talents from abroad. The standard package can include the following:

Medical insurance
Flight coverage
Visa support
Financial aid to settle in
Temporary housing

"A great and extended relocation package is offered by one of our clients from Cyprus. The company covers all transportation expenses for the new hire and family members. Additionally, it helps them with visa paperwork, compensates all immigration fees, and provides medical insurance. It even offers a corporate flat for free until they find their own lodging. As for families with children, the company covers basic kindergarten and school-related expenses. There are many other perks that make the relocation scenario even more attractive. Such as a fitness center, in-house bar, ping pong area, etc."

Head of Accounting
Alex Staff Agency
Anna Mikhaylichenko

Summing Up

Finding the best talents is a key factor if an IT company wants to remain competitive. Attracting the ones from abroad is a clever solution that will power up your team. But foreign specialists need to be properly integrated to fully reveal their potential. Apply the right strategy to enjoy impressive results.

If you need help searching for such professionals, cooperate with us. We know how and where to find IT talents to join your team. Have a look at our case studies and feel free to contact us for any questions.