A partnership announced between isolved and Remote aims to simplify global hiring for small and midsize businesses (SMBs), combining isolved's human capital management platform with Remote's global employment infrastructure. The collaboration, detailed on the podcast You Should Know, addresses the growing demand for cross-border talent acquisition among SMBs, which have historically faced legal and compliance hurdles when hiring internationally.
Barry Gauch, Executive Vice President at isolved, explained during the podcast that customer demand for global hiring capabilities had surged, prompting the company to seek a partner rather than build its own solution. "It's not our key competency, but we know we needed to deliver it," Gauch said, noting that isolved conducted a formal RFP process, narrowing ten providers to five before selecting Remote.
Remote offers three hiring modalities within a single platform: Employer of Record (EOR) for fast market entry, contractor management for flexible engagements, and global payroll for established international teams. Pim Altena, GM for Remote Embedded and VP of Partnerships at Remote, highlighted the importance of removing unconscious constraints. "You're hiring people for skills, right? Like, that's what you should do, but you're actually constraining yourself often unconsciously by just the compliance capabilities, the legal entity footprint that you already have as a business," Altena said.
The partnership is designed to collapse the legal, payroll, and compliance barriers that have traditionally locked SMBs out of international hiring. William Tincup, host of the podcast, noted that the U.S. State Department recognizes 192 countries with which U.S. companies can do business, each with its own federal, state, and municipal payroll rules. Altena pointed to the extreme divergence in labor law, citing that pre-employment medical exams are mandatory in some jurisdictions and forbidden in others, and highlighting France and Germany's high employee-protection regimes.
Gauch emphasized that affordability and white-glove customer treatment were non-negotiable criteria in the selection process. He also previewed how the integration with ApplicantPro, now fully folded into isolved, will excite talent acquisition teams and staffing-company resellers looking for one platform instead of many. The partnership is expected to have significant implications for SMBs competing for talent in a global market, enabling them to hire based on skills rather than geographical constraints.
