Transcript for "Going Global: What No One Tells You (Until It's Too Late)": goodness. I love this chatter. It's great. Good afternoon from Ohio. I guess it's afternoon. Alright. 01:00 on the dot. Alright. As everyone is kind of cycling in, we know it's hard to show up right on time sometimes. Let's just, do some little intros in the chat. We can say where we're calling in from. I will verbalize where I'm calling in from. I'm calling in from Northern Virginia where it is oscillating between forty and eighty degrees every other day right now, so it's a little hard to figure out what to wear. Karen, where are you calling in from? New York, the same. It's very hot and cold, very drastic. Right now, it's very cold. Erica? I'm gonna copy Karen, New York where it's freezing. Yep. It's almost winter. East Coast is having quite a season. Not a season. Oh, wow. And we've got a lot of folks from all over. Hello from North Dakota. I went to North Dakota last summer. Gorgeous. Really, really friendly people, I have to say. Some of the best, I don't know. It felt like good Midwestern vibes in North Dakota. Alright. So we're. gonna we're gonna slowly jump our way in. I'm sure some people will keep trickling in. But as you join, feel free to rub in how great the weather is wherever you're located. 81 that happen. degree. See what happen. Sunny sounds gorgeous. Yeah. Let's see. We have got a couple of quick things for everyone here. Let's see. I see someone saying sound is going in and out. Other people, feel free to drop in the chat if you're having trouble hearing us. If not, I'll keep kinda chatting. Okay. So we'll see if we can sort out sound stuff. Can only hear the host. Okay. Jenny and Ashley, who are on, can kind of help with us with that there. As we see and do our own little sound check, I'm gonna do a few quick lay of the land things for our webinar today. One, you'll see the chat function that is flying already. That is where you can drop in comments. So feel free to add your own 2¢, perspective, etcetera. We have a little separate section for q and a, so there's a q and a tab right up there. You can submit your questions in there. We will do dedicated q and a time at the end, but as they come top of mind, drop them in there so that we can go through them at the end. We are going to run one to two polls throughout. We will also be sharing out the recording of this webinar. So if you're, like, frantically taking notes, give your hands a rest. Don't worry. We've also got SHRM credits, so that code will be in the follow-up email if you are a SHRM professional. And then lastly, if you have questions after the webinar, the email to hit up is webinar@rippling.com. I think those are my main housekeeping items. So I'm gonna just see. We've got a good number of folks in here about three minutes in. I think we're gonna jump into it. So today, we are talking about going global. When you maybe accidentally or intentionally end up going across borders, you know, there's a couple different ways we get out there, and it often comes with maybe some surprises, some tough calls, a lot of new information, and a lot of stuff that you can really only learn about by doing it. So I'm joined today, by Karen and Erica, who are who have been through a couple of international expansions in very different ways. And myself, I have taken a couple of different companies international. And so we've got some really good perspective to share with everyone on what it really is like going global and what these big learning curves really feel like. So we'll start with some introductions. Erica, I'm gonna pass it over to you to introduce yourself. Yes. So I am Erica McGrath. I'm the chief people officer at The Channel Company. We are a global b to b media events and marketing services company. I just said we're global, but, hey, interesting enough, we didn't start that way. We actually spun off from a large global company many years ago. And when we did, we were US only. And then quickly, you'll hear stories of how we fell into expanding globally through acquisition faster than we anticipated, and we'll talk more about that during this time. Karen, how about you? Yes. Hi. I'm happy to be here. I'm Karen. I'm the SVP of people and talent at the guarantors based in New York. We are a US, operationally based company, and we will get into it, but we have also expanded our talent globally. And then in the past, a large portion of my experience is helping international companies, land and scale in The US. So I've seen global expansion from, different lenses, which I'm excited to dig into. Amazing. And I'm Emily. I am from Rippling. I am Rippling's HR evangelist. My background is fully in HR, and I have had the pleasure of bringing companies into Europe a little bit into Asia, Canada, of course, figuring out systems, cultural, all of those fun compliance hoops. And now at Rippling, I get to be a team member in a multinational company. So I think we are gonna have some good perspectives. Starting right off the bat here, companies go global for a lot of different reasons. Right? Sometimes it's super strategic. Sometimes there's just that one person in Rome that you must hire, so all of a sudden you're in Italy. And sometimes you acquire a company and surprise, now you are a multinational entity. So let's talk about what going global or becoming multinational really looked like. Erica, why don't you walk us through how how you ended up in multiple countries? Yes. Well, it's a fun and fast story, for us here at the channel company. Like I said, when we had spun off from a larger company, we were US only. And starting back in 2021, we had acquired one company. They were US only. And it coincidentally was the same time that I was doing an RFP for my HR payroll systems because I knew I was starting to grow out of what we had. And then 2022 came, the year of three fast, acquisitions all within, you know, months apart, and all two out of the three of those were global. So I had to stop. I had to pivot and say, alright. I'm in the middle of an RFP looking at what could accommodate us from a US perspective. What does that look like now that we're going to be global? Right? Because I knew right away, if I wanted to have that one system of truth, one experience, I had to quickly look at what would that be for us. So for us, that's sort of how that story went because we had to look at how to accommodate in countries where we did have legal entities, in countries where we did not have legal entities, in countries where we were owning the payroll where we were not. So that's sort of the beginning of the journey for us here. I think the, the acquisition route is classic. And for a lot of HR folks on the line, it's one that becomes a little bit more of a surprise than maybe a preplanned operation on the HR side. So that is great experience that we'll have to dig into. Karen, tell us a little bit about how you ended up global. Yeah. So I started really in my HR career working for international companies that were scaling in The US. And, four years ago, I decided to join a US based company with operations only in The US thinking, oh, I'll get a little bit of a different flavor and and focus on just The US. But that was, right on the heels of coming out of the pandemic, and we were growing very fast. We We had about a 100 people at that point. And, very quickly, it was, oh, we're hiring remote. We can hire anywhere in the world. And so that then opened up hiring global talent and looking at what makes the most sense, entities, third party agencies, EORs, and looking at all those options. And we've done a little bit of a mix of that, currently. I love that. I love the concept of being fully distributed and thinking, of course, now we'll just literally hire anywhere, So easy. Right. not real. much work. going don't it. we can't do it anywhere, not understand where and what resources we have and knowledge. Yeah. That's common. Yeah. Classic. Okay. Before we get in further, everyone in the audience, we're gonna put out a poll just so we can contextualize where we are. Tell us how many countries are you currently operating in. So in the poll tab, you will see your, our little poll pop up. Feel free to give us your answer. Amazing. We have some people dropping it in the chat. Alright. This is fantastic. We've got a really good spread here coming in. K. So we've got some some people who've gone through this chaos plenty of times, it looks like. Amazing. Okay. This is gonna be fantastic. I love seeing that we have people who have experience going global knowing that, no two experiences are the same. I think we're gonna get a lot of value out of this conversation. Alright. So I'm gonna move us into our first question. And with HR leaders, we're gonna talk about the people side to start. What was the first surprise moving internationally or managing a global workforce? What was the first surprise as it relates to managing people across borders? Erica, why don't you I'm picking on you a little bit, but why don't you tell us what you what surprised you or the first kind of roadblocks you ran into with managing people internationally? I think that you start to realize about the blind spots that you have. Right? You take certain things for granted. I definitely will say time zones. I think anyone on here who's managing in different countries, and we'll talk a little bit about that from a cultural perspective, how important it is to recognize that and to respect that. So that definitely was one about I mean, we're saying, hey, I could work in any country, but how different regulations are, right, in different countries. So all of a sudden, predominantly, we had US and UK, and anyone who's on the phone that manages in both places knows it's very different, the process with layoffs, redundancies, and that. And all of a sudden you have, wait, don't manage that situation the same way that you're doing it here in that country, or you're gonna get us into a little hot water there. So I think definitely that. Small things also, before the call, we were all talking about US benefits and how it differs. Well, in The US, you get wellness funds a lot of times with your benefits, and we would use wellness funds for these really fun, whether it was webinars or things that we're bringing to the office. And we're like, oh, wait. That's for The US. We don't have that, outside or the different holidays. So, you know, definitely stuff like that. I would say that you begin to realize that being equitable and fair doesn't mean being identical when you're global in different regions. So that was probably the thing that stood out the most. Yeah. I think at the early stage of going global, there's that initial conversation or assumption of, like, great. Let's just same. Same policies, same benefits, same communication habits. We'll just do the same. And very quickly, the people, will kind of let you know it can't be done the same in these different you know. Yes. they'll let you know. Karen, what were your early surprises? Yeah. I mean, I echo everything Erica said. And also, for me, it was the the local employment hot laws tend to hit differently. Even if you, you know, read, you know, the basics, there can be very, like, what seem minor but can have a huge impact, and just is is different than what you've built, internally or let's say that you've done it in three countries, but this fourth country that you added, it it's just different enough that it has a a legal or compliance issue. One of the the hurdles that we entered into is during, you know, COVID, and we had some layoffs. And in Germany specifically, there were termination processes around wet signatures on documents, and we didn't have anyone locally that could do that in Germany and just was a last minute hurdle, that that we weren't anticipating that, you know, you you just because you've done it in multiple country doesn't mean that it is gonna be identical in the others. Yeah. And I think even referencing Germany, I had this naive perspective, like, well, at least Europe will all be similarly because sometimes you just kinda think America, Europe, those are the two two sections. But European countries have really nuanced and different laws, especially as it relates to employment. So just because you're familiar with Germany doesn't mean things are gonna be smooth in. Amsterdam. Right? It's a little it's a little different. Okay. Well, so, Karen, you said something earlier in our prep sessions that I thought was really poignant. Right? Being legally compliant in a country is not the same as meeting what employees actually expect. Can you tell me a little bit more about your experience with that? Yeah. I think that often companies when you're looking to go into a country, you're doing your due diligence looking at, am I gonna be compliant? Are we following all the laws? And that is absolutely first step. But then you also need to look at, you know, what are the the cultural norms? What are employees expecting beyond that? And we had one instance where in a certain country, we, you know, offer the bare minimum for benefits packages, and it just wasn't enough for retention. And we definitely heard about it. But if we had known about it ahead of time or we had someone local that we could rely on for that information and build that out from the the get go, it would have eased a lot of the the pain points and frustrations that we had in holding out that team. Yeah. I I'm curious. So who who was your best resource going international? Like, when I first went international, I think we found, like, a a local legal counsel, which kind of explains doing the bare minimum. Right? You're asking someone who reads the laws. Who was your go to resource initially? And when you discovered these gaps, who who did you kind of lean into to get that additional context? Honestly, my external network. And, you know, tapping into if I don't know personally somebody in my network, do they know somebody that they can introduce me to? And I did a lot of just networking and and connections, to a point where I was able to find someone local that I was able to use as a sounding board and say, hey, this is what we're setting. up. What do you think of this? And they were a a fantastic resource to you. So I highly encourage anyone to utilize your network and their network if they're willing to introduce you to people. Yeah. I think networking is one of those necessary evils. Right? It's exhausting at the end of the day, but it gives you some of the best launch pads for where you are going. Erica, tell me about some of those surprises and grounding, grounding pieces of information that really helped you make sure you were building in the right direction maybe after landing. Yeah. I mean, because I'll definitely, you know, piggyback on what Karen just said, and I know we talked about this network a 100%. I totally agree. For me, I luckily I was lucky enough to have people in my network in some of the countries that we were expanding into, but also whether they were not in the country if they had experience, right, from an HR perspective. And then also, like you said, local, legal or local, regional people. But the network, I can't emphasize that enough. And I I couldn't agree more with Karen saying about just because something is you know, you're meeting regulations and local regional, what people are what we need to legally do. The problem is, though, it is. It's about employees' expectations. And we also had for us through acquisitions. So you can only imagine we had in the same country, now working in the same office with different benefits, but employed by different entities. And in certain countries, the benefits are connected to what entity that they're working with. So you start to have that. Then you have the question of who what are you like, what are you hiring people at? Which benefits? You do have people, right, like Karen said, that that are bringing things to your attention. You learn through your first redundancy. Oh, you only offer what the minimum is required, and that's not typical. Right? And you wanna make sure you're treating people well on their way out. So these things start to creep up on you Because I think, look, compliance keeps you where you're following what you need to do legally, but meeting expectations of what people have out on the market is going to build trust for you. So. I totally agree with Karen. We came across some of the same issues. I think you have a interesting perspective there, Erica, of, like, having multiple different benefit structures all in one location that you have to figure out how to consolidate. And, like, as we've all said, and I think what we're maybe not saying, is in The US, when it comes to benefits and things like that, we do somewhat compete for the minimum viable option. Right? That is just kind of how US benefits works. In when you go international, that is not at all the expectation. That is not the standard. And so when you are confronted with a couple of different versions in a country, how did you and your team think about where where to consolidate versus keeping some of those specialties different special. I? mean, that's where you start questioning, obviously. You have to look at grandfathering some people in. Right? You can't say, oh, you came with the more generous pension program. And since we're moving to the other one, you're moving to that too. That would not go over well. And there's regulations around doing that also that you can't do that with the two b process in The UK and stuff like that. So for us, it's been key. We're actually in full transparency, we're still in the middle of that. We still haven't combined all the entities. We did have to decide where we were hiring new people on what entity and which benefits, but we are actively in the process now where we have to do a holistic picture, understand. what people are expecting, not just what's the bare minimum, and start to combine so we have that. Because like you said, when they're in the same office, people talk. I mean, you can't. stop that. We'd love to think the world doesn't exist where people are not sharing salaries or sharing benefit information, and there's laws around now allowing people to do all that as well. So, yeah, it's stuff that you just have to go into knowing that you're going to have to manage conversations around it as you start. changing that. Yeah. And I think one of the other things is, right, you're you're still navigating the consolidation piece of it, which is is a really good perspective of these things also don't need to be solved on day one. Right? That is not the biggest fire that you're addressing. Right? Offering bare minimum benefits or figuring out the communication and time zone things. Those are the things that take precedent before consolidating and offering your cohesive structure, which I just think is a really important point to call out because it's what impacts the people. Right? I'm gonna use that as a little segue here. Exactly. We've talked a bit about benefits. We've talked a bit about compliance employment stuff. Thinking about the people, though, and their actual experience, that is a big piece that I think we often underestimate when we go global. There is, you know, this idea of we're moving internationally. Everyone will be really excited to join our company. We're gonna hire. Everyone's gonna work. It's gonna be easy breezy, fantastic, multinational, and usually, it's the people component that throws a little bit of a curveball. So I'm I'm very curious about how we advise US managers to manage someone in a different country. What what are the things that they need to know that they probably don't or may not have ever been confronted with with managing a local team? Erica, I'll I'll push this one right back over to you. Okay. I I mean, I know it's the obvious thing, but I always say common sense is not common practice. That's one of my biggest sayings in the world of HR, so I'm sure all you HR people can appreciate that. And the time zone thing is just so huge because you constantly have to remind people about scheduling meetings when you're sending someone a message on Teams. Even though you have an intention, you're sending an email and you don't need it now if it's someone's night and then they see it. Or scheduling. town halls, we're very conscious about if we need to do more than one because of time zones. Or even when you send an email, right, it it extends further. So, okay, we're gonna send an email about a change. And if you send that on Thursday in The US, then our people that are in our APAC region, like, okay. Now you're almost getting them on there Friday. Or if you send it on Friday, you're getting them on their weekend. So I can't emphasize that enough. I think we talked about in the pre call, like, what do you do about that? Do you do training around this? And I joked saying, yeah. Well, sure. But, you know, HR people know we we have to constantly remind, managers about that as well because our job is for the people. So I would say, I think anyone on this call that works globally understands the impact of that. So that's one of the biggest things. I know it sounds simple or even just holidays. Right? The UK had two bank holidays on Friday and Monday, and we didn't really hope US people were being conscious about that, that it's their holiday. So, yeah, little things like that, I think, go a long way. It is hard to expect other people to embed other cultural norms in, and it's feels like you're just kind of screaming into the void sometimes. But figuring out the framing of, you know, is it the responsibility of everyone to own their own notifications? Do we make it best practices to schedule, send things? Right? Like, finding those small little things you can do that actually make things feel a lot more manageable for multiple geographies. I I just am struggling with, you know, different words to use for countries in global. Multiple geographies. Like, those things can make a really big difference. Karen, tell me tell me about some of the fun little hurdles US people based manage US based people managers at your company ran into. Yeah. I think going back to communication still, but also around English proficiency. So if the the common language that everyone is expected to speak is English and, there's a certain level of English proficiency expected. Just because you're in the same language doesn't mean you're actually understanding each other. There can be even just, you know, if someone's in England versus The US, they're both speaking English as their native language, but the meaning of words can be different or cultural references and norms are different, then you take a non native English speaker and maybe their comprehension is a bit different. And so, as a manager trying to manage to those norms and and making sure that someone is actually understanding what they're saying and vice versa, right, has been a a huge hurdle. And, you know, speaking of going global and everyone remote, we actually have a team who everybody is remote and everybody's first language is not English. You think of that entire team, not just the manager, but the team working together, has been a challenge. Very interesting, I would say experiment in a way, but they've handled it beautifully, but it's it's definitely an active conversation that we have with managers. It's that I mean, I'll just take one of your examples. Like, my first time working with someone in London and they were like, yes. Let me just put that in my diary. I was like, wait. What are we what are we talking about? It's the the the simplest things. or even just like, you know, we're all chronically on the Internet. The jokes and and cultural references are so different. And so really trying to remember, we don't have all the same reference points. We don't have the same vocabulary. Being really intentional about that shared conversation and shared language is hugely important and kind of an uphill battle, quite frankly. Yeah. And, Emily, I just I do see in the chat a few things about unlimited PTO. I will say, that's. a great example. We have unlimited PTO. in The US. So something as simple as, are we going to tell employees just to take a half day, you know, Friday before holiday if they want? And, oh, they have unlimited time. They can do that, but they don't outside of The US. Right? So we have to consciously think about, well, then how does that apply to outside? How do we do it so it's fair? So I saw the unlimited PTO thing, and we live that too here as well. such a good example and a natural segue. I will briefly say I read a great little article the other day that was like, unlimited PTO in The US. People take less vacation. When unlimited PTO policies in Europe get rolled out, people take more vacation. So it is like the policy aspect is really important and fascinating because the way it's interpreted is also different country by country, which segues really nicely into how on earth do we build policies for a global workforce when there are cultural nuances, making sure that things work in one country one way and similarly or similarly enough in another country. Karen, I'm gonna I'm gonna kick it over to you. What are what are your processes for thinking through global policies? I mean, honestly, it's going back to my network and the the the local knowledge expert. So if you don't have somebody internally on the ground that that is in that location and understands it from an HR perspective, relying on your network. I have learned the hard way a few different times about rolling out a policy and thinking it's just going to land everywhere. And so first thinking, you know, even if you're not expanding globally, but you might in a couple years as you're building something new is thinking to yourself, is it adaptable? Can you be flexible with this policy? How hard is it gonna be to change it? And really thinking in the future, which oftentimes we're just trying to get, you know, something out and we're not really thinking, like, long term. So really vetting it in the upfront will save you time in the long run. Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna ask what what is a policy that you thought was gonna be golden and did not land very well? Honestly, it was around recruiting processes, not necessarily a policy. That's the first one that comes to mind. And this was before really global. This was before the pandemic hit. So it's not in my my current situation, and and processes. But, you know, the the vetting process, what you can and can't say to candidates was so different across countries, and we were trying to standardize and and normalize for the company internally. Yeah. And it was almost impossible to standardize globally at that time, of what candidates were expecting, and it really back fired with our candidate experience and hiring practices at at that time. And that one that one really hurt. That was that was that was a challenge to then also roll back what we were trying to build. Yeah. I think I mean, I think as I'm listening to you share, there's a high level of humility that needs to exist going global. Right? You need to know you are an but you're not an expert in this new location. And so having that humility to say, this is what I'd like to do. Here's why I think it's great, and then be able to take that force of feedback coming back of why it won't work. It is a really character building aspect of being in HR, quite frankly, and you come out so much sharper, but boy, oh, boy, does that ego have to take a back seat. Erica, tell me about some of the, global policies, processes that you have. How you think about building them so that they can accommodate a multinational group of employees? Yeah. I mean, so I'm gonna start that I love everything both of you are saying. Right? And that is so true, Emily. You have to have that humility that you're not it's okay not to know everything, right, and rely on in region experts. I'm very lucky to have someone really strong in region that manages for me in APAC. We have someone in APAC. We have a few people in APAC. We have a few people in APAC. But my director there is fabulous with her network, and I'm always going to say, hey. This is your expertise. Right? Or if we don't know, who should we go and ask? So I couldn't agree with that more because, listen, once you roll something out, the trust is lost in some ways if you don't stop thinking how is this going to land within different regions. Even something as simple, and I wouldn't say it's policy, but even something as simple as engagement surveys. Right? I think from an HR perspective, you have to think of how the questions are what how they read. Right? And will it mean the same, land the same? Will the data tell you the same story? So that's something huge that I would say also that I think that we have to do with it. And I'm trying to think if I answered your question there fully. Yeah. No. You did. And I and I do think I'm seeing a comment in here of, you know, doing this for the first time. Thank you for saying it's okay not to know. You don't it's trust us. We we will run into situations as HR. Right? All the time, you want to know what you're doing, and sometimes that information isn't available. One of my best resources has been some of the first people I hired in a new country who are very understanding through the recruiting process of, like, we're new in this country. So they have a little bit of an understanding of what they're signing up for. And then you roll out the policies and they will usually, as a an adult, a professional, they come and say, hey. This is not typical. This is not what I was expecting. And so really relying on those first hires to help you understand, oh, these are the cultural boundaries that I'm running into. That is a huge help, and it's super reasonable to ask employees to help you with things like sentiment surveys. Right? Like, does this question make sense to you in the context of Greek whatever? I'm just imagining working in Greece. Again, you'd be in an office not, not on the beach, but we can dream. We can dream. Yeah. Yeah. I think. great. One other thing I would say also, Emily, is I think we all know we live in the world of AI now also. So while, obviously, that would never replace speaking to the people that are actually there, but you do have that first round of, here. are my questions. Will this these are the countries that right? That so, you know, I do wanna put that out there because I'm sure people on this call are thinking I'm just gonna run that through, you know, my Copilot or Chatt TVT to, like, find out about if that is culturally sensitive. And so that is sometimes I'm not saying only. That does not replace speaking to your. actual employees and the experts. Please do not do that. But we didn't have that a few years. ago. Right? And so you do have a first line of defense to bounce it off of. Somewhere to get you one step further than where. we all started. Yeah. Okay. So at the beginning of this, you both touched on systems and, candidly, the chaos systems can create when you go global. As as we we all here know, managing your employee data, the systems and processes around your workforce, when you go global and you're confronted with multiple different setups, it creates so much more friction on top of these people and cultural components that we, that we've already discussed. So I know you both have had a lot of experience consolidating and figuring out what other tools we can use. Right? EORs, PEOs. I would love to hear a little bit about your experience consolidating systems to make that data side, process side less of a headache. Karen, I will kick it over to you first. Yeah. When I started, at the guarantors four years ago, we had a separate payroll for US and and benefits. We had a small entity still do in Canada, separate payroll for their separate HRS from those systems, and then we were very quickly rolling out, an EOR. So all of a sudden, we had multiple systems just to keep the lights on, so to speak, and and and make sure people were paid. And it was absolutely impossible to manage all the data, have accurate reporting. There was so much redundant work, and just making sure that, everything spoke together, which required a lot of manual work. So, I very quickly, took it upon myself to make my priority number one of consolidating everything, and that was within the first two months I I started vetting, systems and and tools that I could house everything together. Yeah. Just the amount of time checking or updating across systems is so many painful hours late at night of being like, oh, payroll was updated all over here, but not over here, which is a dangerous game to be playing. Erica, tell me I mean, you were in the middle of an RFP and then, kablam. I had multiple countries to consider. So tell us about that, that thought process and due diligence. Yeah. I mean, so there's two main themes that stood out to me during that thought process and always stand out to me in my role as HR. Number one is around the employee experience. Your HR tools, your HR tech, your HR system, however your employees think of it, is how you show up to your employees. Right? So many of them identify a lot of HR with that system. I told you a joke that I had an employee once who put me in their contact list in their phone under our HR system name at the time. I, you know, like, that was just such a big part of HR. So right away, I thought, I don't want it to be fragmented and disjointed that I have people in one country saying they're on this system. And how do I oh, no. You oh, where are you from? You do that that way. Right? I wanted everyone to feel that connection, part of a community, all using one system. The second theme that I would say is around the power of data. I think all of us know in HR, we are strategic partners to the business, And I don't wanna be where I'm having my CEO or CFO reach out to me and ask me a question around the business, and I say, please give me some time as I dig and go into five different disjointed systems for that. I can go into one no matter what even though if we have them employed through employee of record or BPO, however we have them employed, that is still our one system of truth that all employees are going through being rippling. So I do think it's not about rippling. It's just about having that one system that can connect all those really powerful things that make us those trusted advisers within the company. Yep. Yeah. I love your your line of, like, your HR tech is a huge part of how you show up and your first impression. It's I had never thought about it that way, but as I think through all of my onboarding experiences, yeah, I have a lot of opinions about the company based on the system I'm working with. Yeah. So that is a really, really good point. And I think it also ties into what you both said ties into some of the stuff we talked about, communication and cultural habits. Imagine having to draft all of these policies and announcements and then have to customize them for multiple systems. Like, that is Right. You click here, but you click here. Yeah. And yeah. No. Yeah. Okay. We I wanna make sure we have time for a few questions at the end. Let's do a really quick rapid fire piece of advice. If you could go back and give yourself one piece of advice before going global for the first time, what would it be? Karen, you're up first. Talk to as many people in that location as possible that you can get connected with and get multiple perspectives, not just the the legal and, you know, due diligence compliance of really getting the perspective of what it's like to work for companies, the cultural norms, the expectations. I would really do a deep dive in into that side because then you can build your systems and processes around that information. Yeah. Erica? Mine would be don't underestimate the the harm or the power of have so the harm of being fragmented in systems and the power of having one. Right? There is the impact, like I just said, culturally, emotionally on the business also for employees. And I've heard when we went through acquisitions, no. Or people are used to their system. Maybe we should just keep them on it. You know what? They'll get used to something new, and they'll feel better about being part of that. So I would say don't underestimate that and really try to find where you can, that great partner to work alongside you with that. Try to help yourself. Put on your oxygen mask first and get your systems organized. Yeah. Saves you a lot of heartache for. sure. It will. Okay. We've got a really good couple of questions here, and I know we're coming close to the end. So we will kind of pack in a couple of questions, and then, we'll do a quick closing, and this webinar will be circulated about. So this is a really great question. We from Jimmy Romero. We have a mix of EOR employees through Rippling and international contractors. Some of our challenges are ensuring that managers understand the specific statutory requirements for each of their staff members. What is a good way to provide managers resources across several countries and employee types? That is such a good question because it hits, my gosh, the multilayered challenges of managing internationally. Karen or Erica, do either one of you wanna go first here? I I can take that. We actually had something similar. Our managers were getting so confused with the different employment types and locations. So we actually worked with those managers, and and my team and built basically a giant grid of the different employment types and locations and, you know, different holidays or or time off, and and that type of thing. And the common questions that we were getting are frustration points, and made that resource available to everybody that needed access to it to then go back and reference. Because you can have a conversation about a specific instance or a specific manager question, and then either, you know, a couple months will pass and they'll completely forget and Be like, oh, yeah. We talked about this, but. I don't remember the specifics. And now there's this resource that that lives that everyone can reference. It takes some time upfront to work on it, but it's worth it. And a a good plug for putting all of those inputs into chat or whatever your LLM of choice is and so that it's doing the building for you when you are spot checking. I totally agree, Karen. A simple framework, one pager that whenever the manager asks, you just send them that link. Send them the link that they could go to. Maybe they make a copy, put their team members in the category so they know. Really just giving something super clean, I think, is very, very helpful. Yep. Alright. I'm gonna jump into another question here. This one is great. I think this is, like, one we all probably have struggled with in many different aspects From Yuna, how do you get buy in from cross I realized Yuna probably posted this for someone. Okay. How do you get buy in from cross functional leaders and execs about switching tools and consolidation? What pain points are the most important to raise in those conversations? I don't know. Erica, if you have thoughts on this one or. if Karen, do. you can mean, jump in. hear most often that HR people, and I don't know the person asking the question, but have some, you know, disagreement with finance. There's times that finance team is very attached to whether it's their payroll systems, their you know, because you can connect a lot of systems, but I find that payroll and HRS is the problem a lot of times, so I don't know if that's what it's geared towards. I do think that to point out what that world looks like if you do not combine and where the pain points are right now from the HR side for the employees and for the business, we've definitely went through that. And I think, listen, if you're in two different systems, and I've spoken to people still that are, your HR system needs to speak to your payroll system. There's more, you know, hey. There's gonna be more room for error with that. Right? And I do think focusing on what does it look like, that pros and cons of both. But I do find that's where the biggest pushback can be. But to paint that picture of if we're all in one place, right, and reporting, if it is finance. I don't know directly if that's or even your executives, right, to understand that everything is connected about the data and reporting piece of what I said before about data. You know? I mean, hey. That is really a piece if it's all in one place. So I would just emphasize those things. Karen, any other perspectives I was? gonna say having a source source of truth for data and reporting, and that was my biggest selling point. And I that's what I would focus on, and being able to showcase where those pain points, as Erica said, are and what consolidating, where the it will solve. Yeah. And I do see a comment about, someone from finance got migrating. That is such a great point. I mean, that's what it is a lot of the times too. Right? It's not easy work to migrate and switch to another system, especially if something's working well. So you do have to go in with an understanding of it will take work, I get. Yeah. Right? So that's a great point as well. That's a really good point. Okay. We'll squeeze in one last more one last question. Okay. What from Anna. What if we don't have a network in country to ask for guidance? How do we ensure we are following all local laws and cultural norms? That's a great question. One, I think a lot of people on this call hopefully are open to networking, so, ping all of us and see how we can help. But, Erica, Karen, do you guys have perspectives on this as well? I I think yeah. I I reached out to my network if I didn't know somebody in that that country and said, do you have anybody that is in your network? And and just kinda kept going from there and and asking. Also, you know, if you're connected with somebody like a legal expert, and you're working for with, like, a law firm or something, do they have anybody that they can connect you with, or any other clients and and maybe some other HR folks? So Really just don't get afraid to ask and if someone will make a connection for you, it would be the easiest route, I think. Yeah. I would totally say the same. You you will find some experts, right, within one country might have expertise in another, or know someone. Or also if you are using an EOR to push on, hey. You know, you're the employer of record. I need some local expertise, and look to them for getting you that local expertise if they don't have it themselves. So that's something that we've pushed on as well. Yeah. I think, Erica, that's a a really good call out. One, yes, we all need to we all need to network so much more because we learn so much from each other. Right? I like to say no two HR experiences are the same. No two situations shake out the same way, so it's helpful to network. But when you don't have that network already built and it's a huge daunting task to go ask other folks, lean onto your EOR resources. Right? They are the employer of record. They have a baseline, a baseline plus understanding. They should have a whole suite of resources. Of course, I will say, like, Rippling's EOR product has really great resources. We have global HR advisors. So using the tools that you are working with and squeezing them for every penny you're paying is a really, really great, place to start, and then you at least feel like you have a frame of reference for what you're going into. Okay. We're at 45 on the dot. I'm going to wrap us up. For anyone who heard about Rippling and was like, oh, this this could be interesting on a systems consolidation, EOR, any of our global resources, We're gonna throw up a poll so that you can, opt in for, a demo or getting more information. And then for everyone else, keep an eye out for this webinar being circulated afterwards. We have a fantastic, ebook resource for going global that we will also share. And then, feel free to ping myself, Erica, Karen. I won't volunteer you for open emails, but we are obviously all on LinkedIn. So network with us, and we will make those international connections as needed. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you, Karen and Erica. This was fun. Thank you. Thank. you for having Alright. Actually, do we leave stage? Oh, I'll let us kind of, linger out here. Alright. I'm gonna hop off main stage, Karen. Great.