Over the years, Australia has become an attractive destination for finding highly skilled talent, thanks to its excellent tech and services sector and high living standards. However, hiring employees in this country involves a large amount of logistics, legwork, and paperwork. If you want to sidestep all this hassle, then partnering with a reliable employer of record (EOR) can significantly simplify things. The EOR service provider will hire, pay, and manage employees in Australia on your behalf.
Here’s all you need to know about how to seamlessly build remote teams, contract documentation, benefits, taxes, and more by availing the right Employer of Record (EOR) solutions in Australia. Remember, successful overseas hiring hinges to a large extent on the right choice of your EOR, in this case, EOR in Australia. Let’s jump right in!
Steps to hiring employees in Australia using an Employer of Record
Let’s face it. Having a roadmap to navigate setting up a global team in Australia can be a huge help. But, what if everything connected to hiring employees in Australia was taken care of by someone responsible, experienced, and with a proven track record of success and you didn’t have to do a thing? Enter Employer of Record in Australia.
Partnering with the right EOR in Australia can put you on the fast track for growth and expansion.
Here are some steps to hiring employees in Australia using an Employer of Record (EOR):
1. Identify your business needs: Does your business need individual contributors or a team? Full-time or part-time employees?
2. Decide on the type of employee: What is the type of employee your business needs? Their qualifications, experience, caliber. Any industry-specific requirement? The more you drill down to the basics, the easier and faster it is to get the exact and most suitable fit.
3. Assess costs and employment impacts Currency value differs from country to country as do the employment conditions. Make a careful assessment of how the finances stack up when you do decide to hire employees in Australia. Will this external, out-of-country hiring benefit your business?
4. Recruit an employee: EOR solutions in Australia will help zero in on the most suitable employees and in some cases also recruit them for you.
5. Prepare for the new employee: Onboarding a new employee always involves some degree of trepidation on both sides. However, if your EOR in Australia has done all the verification and vetting prior to hiring, then this will be a smooth process.
6. Share the employment contract and benefits information with the new employee: Get the employee to do all the necessary paperwork and make them aware of all that they are entitled to in terms of benefits, compensation, etc.
7. Gather tax and banking information from the employee to set up payroll: In order for their salaries to be processed smoothly month on month, ensure that all the information regarding tax and bank accounts of the new recruits are in order.
8. Provide a local point of contact to the employee: Finally, most importantly, make sure that your employee in Australia has a point of contact back there to sort out any issues that may crop up during the tenure of employment with your organization.
What are the benefits of using an Employer of Record in Australia?
Hiring from Australia can often be an expensive and time-consuming process. Add to that the many labor regulations that organizations are expected to follow in order to remain compliant. Not surprisingly, the whole process becomes one in which extreme care and caution need to be exercised to avoid getting into legal trouble.
An EOR can drastically reduce this effort and running around required to hire employees in Australia by managing the legal responsibilities of hiring and managing workers.
Some benefits of using an EOR in Australia to hire employees include:
- Quick entry into the market without setting up an entity
- Minimize the company's exposure to legal risks in a foreign country
- Significantly minimize expansion risks
- Help retain global talent
- Manage local regulations and employee agreements
- Help avoid the need to incorporate a legal entity
- Handle all employment paperwork and drafting employment agreements
- Quickly onboard new hires
- Take care of Admin and HR tasks
- Timely disbursement of employee salaries by managing payroll
- Securing your intellectual property and invention rights
How much does it cost to use an EOR in Australia?
The cost of using an Employer of Record (EOR) in Australia depends on several factors, including:
- - The number of employees you wish to hire
- - The services you require
- - The pricing structure of the EOR
- - The location where you want to hire the employees
Usually, EORs use one of two pricing structures:
- - A fixed monthly fee per employee
- - A percentage of payroll plus applicable taxes
EOR service fees can range from a few hundred dollars per month to over a thousand, depending on how new or old they are in this field.
Does your EOR help with Australian tax filings?
It is not enough to just hire employees in Australia. As an organization, you also need to be aware of the tax element involved. So, in addition to helping you hire full-time Australian employees, reputable EORs also handle all the legal requirements for complying with Australian laws for payroll, contracts, and benefits, including calculating and withholding taxes of employees hired.
Compliance, Leave Policies & Documentation
The EOR you partner with needs to be fully aware of all the employment laws, leave policies, and documentation involved when hiring employees in Australia.
i) Compliance
The onus of providing a safe and healthy working environment lies on the employer and the Australia EOR needs to adhere to this. Other employer responsibilities include safeguarding employees against all kinds of discrimination due to race, religion, nationality, ideology, political affiliation, sex, financial, social, or physical condition, etc; limiting working hours to eight hours daily; providing safe working conditions on par with Australia’s Work Health and Safety Act 2011; paying employees a premium (50% – 100% extra) if they’re required to work overtime; imparting the necessary training, resources, and mentoring needed by employees; reporting any workplace incidents and injuries to Safe Work Australia, and ensuring first aid requirements are met satisfactorily.
ii) Leave Policies in Australia
Employees are entitled to different kinds of leaves in Australia:
Maternity and paternity leave
Expectant female employees are entitled to 18 weeks of paid parental leave and up to two years of unpaid leave. The Australian government also grants two weeks of paid paternity leave with benefits to new fathers.
Vacation and holidays
All full-time and part-time workers get 4 weeks of paid annual leave, while shift workers are entitled to five weeks off per year. Annual leave not taken during the year, if accrued, is paid when the employment ends.
Public holidays
There are seven national public holidays in Australia in addition to state and territory public holidays.
Other types of leave include
- - Compassionate leave
- - Community service leave:
- - Long service leave
iii) Compliance documentation
It is extremely important for businesses to comply with Australian laws, especially those relating to regulatory authority requirements, internal company directives, industry regulations, and pass audits.
Some examples of compliance documents include
- - Employment Contract
- - Fair work information statement
- - Taxes
- - Superannuation
- - Leave
Get started with an Employer of Record in Australia
International hiring is never easy. Although it comes with a host of benefits, there are also myriad dos and don’ts involved. From trying to set up a local unit to the entire process of recruitment, employee contracts and taxes, etc, it calls for intensive involvement of time and resources.
That’s when a reliable Employer of Record can make things significantly easier by handling every aspect of hiring, onboarding, and paying employees in Australia. The entire work is efficiently taken off your hands and you get to enjoy the cost benefits of hiring employees in Australia without spending exorbitantly or having to navigate tedious regulations.
Get started with BGC and expand your global team in Australia today! Reach out to us for a free quote and consultation.
