Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/86587
Compliance Laying Down the Law As more outsourcing deals become global, both multinational clients and their outsourcing service providers confront a patchwork quilt of employment, tax, and other regulations on a country-by- country basis. In the Asia Pacific region (APAC) alone, a multinational company has to scale the regulatory frameworks of 22 sovereign nations, many starkly different and all of them changing almost daily. Obviously, providing human resources outsourcing (HRO) and recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) to Olympic-size organisations requires a keen understanding of these varied and shifting rules, given the related governance and compliance issues. Failure to appreciate different recruitment, payroll, or recordkeeping laws can mean a client organisation might face stiff fines, penalties, and reputational repercussions—tarnish that can harm the provider's standing to boot. Staying one step ahead of legislation requires constant due diligence. By Russ Banham Small wonder why many HRO and RPO vendors cite compliance with current and constantly evolving global regulatory standards as a prime concern. "Eighty percent of our deals today are multi-country deals—we just don't do much single country stuff anymore," says Chris Herrmannsen, CEO of London- based RPO and talent management provider Ochre House. "Consequently, we have to localise and customise RPO for each individual country, since the circumstances are completely different. Getting all these elements to work together seamlessly and compliantly is a constant goal, not that this is, by any means, easy." Herrmannsen and several other HRO/RPO observers offered their opinions on the risks of multi-country compliance and the ways [28] HRO TODAY GLOBAL | SUMMER 2012