How do you handle benefits when hiring through an EOR?

We’re starting to hire a few employees outside our home country, and one thing I’m still struggling to understand is employee benefits. We plan to use an EOR rather than opening entities straight away.

I’ve compared a few providers, and Globalization Partners is one we’ve been speaking with recently. I actually understand payroll and local employment side fairly well, but benefits get less clear when every country has different requirements and expectations. I don’t necessarily expect someone in Germany and someone in the UK to have identical benefits, but I also don’t want one package to feel noticeably worse just because of where the employee lives.

So, I have a question for employers already doing this, do you normally let the EOR recommend a standard local package and work from there, or do you set your own global minimum and then add whatever is required locally?

Globalization Partners’ advertising suggests that an aspect of their service is guidance about “international norms and practices[.]” https://www.globalization-partners.com/book-demo-lp/?utm_keyword=globalization%20partners&utm_device=c&utm_matchtype=e&msclkid=15028c2078481df198eee65f20427130&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=usa__search__branded__%5Ben%5D&utm_term=globalization%20partners&utm_content=branded.

One imagines its competitors too offer suggestions about balancing business goals, including:

obeying each set of national and subnational requirements,

meeting any contract requirements the employer-of-record imposes,

setting compensation (including benefits) to attract the workers the service recipient wants, and

setting compensation (including benefits) to meet the service recipient’s budget.

Whether one seeks or eschews reasonable parity across nations might relate to one or more of those factors.

While my former and current clients have workers in many nations, none has used an employer-of-record service, so I lack the experience you’re seeking.