Big Companies With Global Workforces Demand Payroll Innovation

Streamlining cross-border payments is a priority for many firms, especially among larger organizations that want to scale their international workforces.

Firms that generate more than $1 billion in revenue are the most interested in hiring more international workers and the most interested in innovating international worker payment methods.

Fifty-three percent of these firms said they were “very” or “extremely” interested in expanding their number of international workers, according to the “Cross-Border Payroll and Contractor Payments Report,” a PYMNTS and Nium collaboration based on a survey of 250 executives at United States- and United Kingdom-based companies generating more than $100 million in annual revenue.

Get the report: Cross-Border Payroll and Contractor Payments Report

Firms that generate more than $1 billion in revenue also exhibit heightened interest in innovating international worker payment methods, with 41% of these firms saying they are “very” or “extremely” interested in innovating their payment methods — which is around twice as interested as firms generating less in revenue.

Paying a Global Workforce

Paying a global workforce presents several key challenges, including issues with taxes, financial data security, regulatory compliance and fluctuating exchange rates. As a result, innovation in cross-border payment methods is top of mind for many firms.

Payments innovation has the potential to address key cross-border payment challenges, and it is an important enabler for firms of all sizes that want to grow their global workforces as a result.

Among the firms that are currently innovating their international payment methods, 70% experienced an increase in their share of international workers in 2021. Just 45% of firms that are not currently innovating their payment methods experienced an increase in their share of international workers that year.

The pandemic has accelerated digitization across the entire organization as well as shifting the way we work and spend money, Nium Chief Product Officer Robin Gandhi wrote in a PYMNTS eBook released in April.

Read more: B2B Payments Solutions — the Catalyst to Economic Recovery

“CFOs and treasurers recognized that they needed to start thinking about how to digitize B2B payments in this new world,” Gandhi wrote. “Paying suppliers, employees and partners was suddenly more seamless as banks and card networks innovated to become faster, more efficient and easier to use. In addition, more startups were beginning to focus on building B2B payments solutions that could truly revolutionize the back office in ways that had not been done before.”

Adopting Innovations

As firms grow, they become more likely to integrate their international workforces as employees. This suggests that as firms become larger and more used to international hiring, it becomes more likely they hire international workers as employees, rather than vendors.

International workers have been gaining prominence over the past few years, and firms with more than $1 billion in revenue are the most interested in both increasing their share of international workers and innovating their international payment methods to address financial security and regulatory challenges.

Larger firms are the best candidates for adopting innovations in international payment methods, as they have greater resources and are faced with a more pressing need to meet the demands of a growing global workforce.