Are you interested in working with the best talent all over the world?
Don’t make the mistake of cutting corners. Especially when it comes to payroll and compliance — because the legal stuff can come back to bite you when you least expect it.
The good news is Deel helps with exactly that problem. Co-founders Alex Bouaziz and Shuo Wang are building a world where getting the best talent is no longer about geographical location. Deel is the first payroll platform for remote teams that connects localized compliance and payments in one system of record and automates everything.
If you believe the future of work lies in access to a global workforce, join SwagUp COO Artem Mashkov and co-founder Alex Bouaziz for a discussion on hiring and onboarding remote talent, avoiding compliance issues, and simplifying payments for your entire team.
Let’s go #tothemoon!
💡 The Big Ideas
- How most companies don’t pay enough attention to compliance – a mistake that can be fatal
- What it takes to be investible as a company (hint: it’s about scale and team)
- How to approach KPI tracking with remote teams
- Why Fortnite is the new golf course (plus the role of social gaming in team building)
- The case for running lean and avoiding frivolous cash burn
Alex Bouaziz is a doer, investor, and Y Combinator graduate building the first payroll platform for remote teams with co-founder Shuo Wang. Alex has a background in engineering and, befitting a company changing things at a global level, educational experiences all over the world, including a master’s from MIT. Today, he is focused on growing Deel and taking their rapidly expanding team to the next level.
🎁 Extras
- Listen to this episode on SyncUp with SwagUp
- Connect with Alex on LinkedIn
- Connect with Artem on LinkedIn
- Explore Deel for your company
🚀 Get Started With SwagUp
Keep reading for a sneak preview of everything discussed in this podcast episode!
The Impact of Remote Work
For companies newly adopting remote work, a controversial truth has resurfaced in the limelight: high performance isn’t restricted to the office.
And if remote teams can get the same (or better!) results, the playing field has suddenly expanded. Your next big hire could be halfway across the world.
“[Remote work is] forcing people to branch out and to start thinking, what is the best thing I can do for my company?,” Alex says. “Do I need to only work with people that are in the same office as me? Do I only need to hire those people in those vicinities that I’m kind of clustered to? This is something I think a lot of companies are going to change.”
On one hand, it’s an exciting moment. We’re approaching a future with an empowered and globalized workforce.
“People are realizing that talent is everywhere, and it’s not limited to the Bay Area or New York,” Alex says, “There’s great people everywhere and you want to bring them on your team and if the right person for the job is in Timbuktu or is in Paris, you want to be able to hire them.”
“People are realizing that talent is everywhere, and it’s not limited to the Bay Area or New York […] There’s great people everywhere and you want to bring them on your team and if the right person for the job is in Timbuktu or in Paris, you want to be able to hire them.”
— ALEX BOUAZIZ, CO-FOUNDER AND CEO AT DEEL
On the other hand, hiring and paying a global workforce is uncharted territory for many companies. Luckily, Deel is no stranger to the situation.
Meet the Payroll Platform for the Workforces of Tomorrow
In fact, the team at Deel — remote themselves — recognized the opportunity in talent sourcing across the world long before the events of COVID-19.
“We are a young, fast growing company. We help companies all over the world hire people in a couple of minutes, whether they are getting hired as contractors or employees. And today, the world is getting more distributed,” Alex says. Deel has more than 30 people in 13 countries now.
The team has also recently raised $14 million to help businesses hire talent globally.
Together, the Deel team is building the first payroll and compliance platform to help companies handle the legal side without the headaches — crucial for companies that may be tempted to skip over such seemingly trivial details.
In Alex’s words:
“Most of the companies I talked to, they were like, Hey, but I’m working with that person and … I’m just PayPaling them or sending them money through TransferWise.
And usually what I tell them is, So you’re telling me that you just took a contract template that probably your lawyer in New York gave you, that works for New York. That you are paying someone some money, somewhere, with no understanding of what’s going on. And you think that’s okay?
And most of them are like, Maybe … there’s something a bit deeper to this relationship and how I should actually set it up. And this is really what we do.
Still, Alex is realistic about the status quo.
How companies hire talent will not change overnight. But failing to look towards the future is how you fall behind. And more and more companies are realizing that finding the best talent is no longer restricted by geographical location.
“It’s not like every single company in the world [will] completely change their hiring strategy,” Alex says, “But I think the impacts of all that is going to unfold over the next few months [and] be quite interesting to see.”
Growing a Remote Team Based on Trust
Taking a team remote can be complicated. Questions like how can you engage employees, build team spirit, and track performance linger in the minds of every company leader.
For Alex, the base of a distributed company is trust. “It’s going to get cliche at some point, but [if] you can’t trust the person to be doing their job, they shouldn’t be working with you,” Alex says, “That’s the first baseline of that relationship. […] If you trust your teammate, then them not having that little green light on in Slack is not going to make you unhappy. It’s not going to make you wonder. And that’s the important part.”
“If you trust your teammate, then them not having that little green light on in Slack is not going to make you unhappy. It’s not going to make you wonder. And that’s the important part.”
— ALEX BOUAZIZ, CO-FOUNDER AND CEO AT DEEL
📖 Check out Deel’s Remote Work Glossary
When it comes to measuring KPIs, Alex also takes a more nuanced approach. “I think less, how are they impacting the company purely? [and] more, are they growing?” Alex says. “That’s the entrepreneur side of me. […] I’m thinking more, is my teammate happy and is he actually growing, delivering, and as we’re scaling, scaling with the company as well?”
The Deel co-founder not only wants to see his teammates happy and doing well, but also see them making progress from what they’ve done in the first three months and the next three months.
“It’s just a matter of measuring output rather than input like, are you satisfied as a team? Is the team happy with the work that their teammate is delivering? And if you are there, that’s all that really matters,” Alex says.
As for team building and bonding with remote employees, Alex says the team is still learning. “We have team retreats every six months, we all get together someplace that we’re very excited about going and spending time together.”
The Deel team uses a buddy system as part of their onboarding. Alex also personally spends a lot of time in the first few months with his new teammates, regardless of their specific roles “unless it’s something I can’t do because of the scale.”
“It’s just a matter of measuring output rather than input like, are you satisfied as a team? Is the team happy with the work that their teammate is delivering? And if you are there, that’s all that really matters.”
— ALEX BOUAZIZ, CO-FOUNDER AND CEO AT DEEL
💡 Get ideas for team building events and activities
Want more of Deel? Get the full story of how Deel is making it easier to hire anywhere in the world at the SyncUp with SwagUp podcast!
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