What country to choose for employing IT staff?

[EliasIT]

I have a protal that I run that reminds me a bit of this forum. To get things going, my group is ready to establish an office with 2 - 3 employees.

The work itself is not particularly difficult, you can be trained in 3 - 4 months max.

It is important to have 100% control over the employees.

Outsourcing doesn't work, we've tried with Indians, Pakistanis etc... unfortunately they just say YES to everything, then you spend 10 hours on them to explain and show and in the end it's all crap they do. I'm sick of that kind of thing and don't want it anymore.

We are considering establishing the whole thing in Switzerland, where our group of companies is also partly established.

Then it is easy to manage the employees and at the same time you can establish a real office in Switzerland which will provide other opportunities.

I'm just overly aware that it might be an expensive solution, so I'm looking for advice and good suggestions 🙂

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[JohnLocke]

Are you sure it is IT staff you need? If I read you correct you‌ will need researchers, people that are good in finding information and rewrite it to help‍ your forum!

I hope you have deep pockets to do so!

 

[JohnnyDoe]

You can find top level staff on toptal and Upwork. You just need to search in the right way, conduct interviews and offer appropriate salaries.

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[EliasIT]

That might be the problem, I can't figure out how to search properly. I also‌ think that this with remote employees can cause problems in the long term. You can't‍ just go to them and say that this and that must be done like this⁠ or show them the same way if they do something wrong.

 

[JohnnyDoe]

EliasIT said:
That might be the problem, I can't figure out how to search properly. I also think that this with remote employees can cause problems in the long term. You can't just go to them and say that this and that must be done like this or show them the same way if they do something wrong.
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You can do all this and more. Of course you need to have a good head of HR and hire those kind of people who perform better in a remote work environment.
I think you should hire a local HR manager who can help you with this task.
Finding talents is probably the most difficult part of any business!

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[Marzio]

If you need developers then take a⁤ look at this: Which Country Has the World's Best Programmers? Here are the Stats

In particular look at the "most tenacious" ranking and you'll see that Pakistan and India are⁣ at the bottom of the ranking.

The best i found to be in eastern europe,⁢ balkans and CIS countries because they do have great coding skills mixed with the "work︀ till you drop" attitude.

 

[JohnnyDoe]

marzio said:
If you need developers then take a look at this: Which Country Has the World's Best Programmers? Here are the Stats

In particular look at the "most tenacious" ranking and you'll see that Pakistan and India are at the bottom of the ranking.

The best i found to be in eastern europe, balkans and CIS countries because they do have great coding skills mixed with the "work till you drop" attitude.
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There are lazy Indians/Pakistani as well as lazy Romanian/Ukrainians.
Google's CEO is Indian. Just saying.

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[JackAlabama]

You can do this.
You can even make them share their screen etc and⁣ do 1:1 on zoom as long as you like.

It seems the missing part is⁢ how to manage your coders in an effective and engaging way and communicate what you︀ want in a way you will get what you think…

It is common for swiss︁ IT companies to do this themselves. Charge a fortune but employing cheap labor offshore. They︂ have staff who is only responsible for bridging this gap.

Thats mainly bc people︈ look for cheap *** labour and the cheaper the better and this is often offered︉ by mentioned nations.
Skilled people will not work well for a badge of honor and︊ for cheap when they know how people in the western world earn 1000s of $︋ / month for doing the same.

I worked with Portuguese, Spanish and Hungarian as well︌ as Vietnam outsourcing besides some others. The only thing which matters are the language skills︍ and some cultural awareness.
With that cleared, you can have lazy freaks and smart genius︎ pretty much everywhere.

 

[Marzio]

The point here is that for ONE Satya that became‍ Google's CEO there are thousands that will waste your time saying "yes sir, i⁠ can do it" only to discover later that this is not the case.

If you⁤ have the time to skim through candidates then go for it.

I stopped hiring in⁣ those countries simply because the probabilities are against me, not because i have something against⁢ indians.

Lazyness has nothing to do with work culture.

 

[JohnnyDoe]

marzio said:
The point here is that for ONE Satya that became Google's CEO there are thousands that will waste your time saying "yes sir, i can do it" only to discover later that this is not the case.

If you have the time to skim through candidates then go for it.

I stopped hiring in those countries simply because the probabilities are against me, not because i have something against indians.

Lazyness has nothing to do with work culture.
Click to expand...

You can't generalize in a country with a population of 1.3b.
Anyway, when you post a job and select candidates for interviews you can quickly exclude those that don't seem right to you, including based on provenance (it is prominently displayed on the freelancer's profile).

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[Marzio]

I find my time better spent hiring in other countries.

 

[Mike Forman]

We have a corporation in Philippines handling all our back office tasks (accounting, marketing,⁣ IT, customer service,..) . Depends on the IT skills needed as highly skilled IT people⁢ are hard to find anywhere.

With upwork and Indians we have had only bad experiences︀ so never anymore.

We established our own corporation and rent our own office in Philippines.︁ It took some time to find highly qualified people, but we got now a great︂ team and three HR people guaranteeing finding good candidates and keep them engaged (important if︃ you want you employees to stay and stay focused) .

All educated people speak/write fluent︄ English. Full wfh (work from home) doesn't work well, so we offer a hybrid working︅ environment with min 2-3 days in the office and 2/3 days wfh.

 

[EliasIT]

That's a good one, useful.

As I mentioned above, it might not be IT staff‍ directly. We need someone that can do PHP and MySql and has a good understanding⁠ of Linux hosting servers. That would be the part for IT. The other persons may⁤ be researchers which also need to write fluent English and of course understand it. they⁣ need to be like Google, read relevant topics, find your own answers to the topics⁢ and express yourself professionally.

And finally we need someone with Internet Marketing experience, not some︀ SEO guy, but someone that understand online business.

As you may see, it might be︁ difficult to operate this with people abroad!

 

[suzy]

You said it 100% correct! I'm⁢ in the same boat
where is the leader of this PH organization sitting, country ?

 

[Mike Forman]

It was setup by‍ myself, being present in Philippines during setup for over two years. Now the business can⁠ run 100pct remotely since there are several people that handle daily operations excellently and can⁤ be fully trusted together with a solid organizational structure with manages and checks in place.⁣

To get to that point is another story and the challenges I wouldnt wish anyone⁢ going through,but after one year trying different setups (external Bpo, then with partner and finally︀ own corporation), it functions well.

Not too complicated tasks one can outsource those to a︁ BPO company, there are plenty in the Philippines .

Simple tasks such as data analysis,︂ customers service, call center etc, especially if scale is required and a training is provided︃ works well by outsourcing. Most US corporations outsource their call centers in Philippines.

We offer︄ now such services for some Chinese and European clients (marketing, customer service, social media,design, accounting,︅ .. )

 

[Eldorado]

@Mike Forman may I ask for website to your company? Seems we can make some‌ business

 

[Frank Funk]

People in the Balkan's are pretty good, maybe first try Serbia. Also ton of staffing‌ agencies there.
From my experience they offer a very good cost/reliability ratio.

 

[Eldorado]

From my experience Bulgaria/Romania or even Greece - quite cheap, educated labor⁠ force and EU members. Bulgarian tax regime is also quite competitive in EU

 

[tolstoy]

Could provide human resources as per your requirement.

 

[Mike Forman]

Can you send me a private message as we‍ won't share company details in public

Bulgaria And Romenia are indeed where most EU BPO⁣ centers are located, it all depends on the language skills required. In the Philippines or⁢ India you will only be able to find English speaking skilled talent, we just had︀ French, Dutch, Russian or German speaking staff who are foreigners living abroad.

North Africa is︁ also an option for French speaking skills.

Setting up a business in any of those︂ countries poses always a challenge, even if you are there. Without being there or having︃ a trustee I would say forget about it. It takes 1-2 years to setup a︄ company with a good organizational structure, and you need to be present to find that︅ one person by chance you feel you can trust and let handle partially your operations.︆

We can offer services in Philippines and if needed also China, although we are reducing︇ our headcount in China.

Philippines has good skilled people if you are willing to pay︈ a bit more than standard salary (which is stoll much lower vs US or European︉ staff) and provide a pleasant and professional environment, which is key for local that are︊ very family oriented and emotional.