Working at home from abroad—what should employers, employees & their lawyers know? Juliet Carp identifies some of the legal pitfalls & offers some practical suggestions
In brief
- Challenges of homeworking abroad: first stop immigration.
- What should a diligent employer do? Global mobility compliance.
- Where do lawyers come in? Recognising limits.
A lot has been written about homeworking and most of it applies equally to people working ‘virtually’ from abroad. After all, if you are working from home via the internet does it really make a difference if your home happens to be somewhere sunnier or closer to family overseas? The short answer is ‘Yes, it does!’. Extra compliance challenges and costs can be very substantial indeed. While it may make sense to address these when making a strategic decision to move into new markets, it rarely makes commercial sense for one individual who would simply prefer to be somewhere different.
Challenges
So, what are these challenges? First stop immigration, because without immigration compliance, both employee and employer (and sometimes
