For companies looking to future-proof their business and grow their talent footprint across borders, the barriers to entry are lower than ever.
Mark Frein is the COO of Oyster HR, a global employment platform that enables companies to employ talent from anywhere in the world. He notes that the demand for skilled labour remains extremely high, but that “many startup and SMB recruiters are hiring from ever-shrinking national talent pools in which the largest enterprises hold the best recruitment cards.”
Spool back to January 2020 and these were the very problems that two San Francisco-based entrepreneurs, Tony Jamous and Jack Mardack, were wrestling with before co-founding Oyster. They decided that the global playing field should – and could – be levelled.
Their vision was to unlock job opportunities for global talent and new markets for startups and SMBs by launching a platform that cut through the complexities of cross-border employment, enabling customers anywhere to access the global talent pool. By equipping smaller players to build borderless, distributed teams quickly and compliantly, this technology would be game-changing.
Many startup and SMB recruiters are hiring from ever-shrinking national talent pools in which the largest enterprises hold the best recruitment cards
Guided by their vision to connect companies to global talent, Jamous and Mardack have built a global employment platform that enables companies to hire, pay, and manage a globally distributed workforce. Most crucially, it enables them to access talent in 180 countries without having to establish legal entities in those countries.
In less than four years, Oyster has gone from strength to strength, achieving a valuation exceeding $1bn (£800m). In June, the company earned B Corporation certification, becoming one of only 20 B Corp unicorns in the world and the only one in its space.
Matteo Bordin, VP of Product at Oyster, explains how the platform has made it possible and viable for smaller companies to access global talent. “We not only ensure that the contracts are legally compliant, we also enable companies to make educated decisions on their global workforce strategy without having to open local entities or employ local experts,” he says. The time and expense required to establish entities abroad would have otherwise been prohibitive. “Before we launched our product, smaller companies found it extremely hard to compete with large enterprises. That’s no longer the case.”
Looking to the future, Oyster is harnessing AI and machine learning to ensure that startups, SMBs, and mid-market players can compliantly navigate the complex web of employment law and taxation, which differs from country to country.
“What we have done is basically bottle up all of that intelligence,” says Bordin. “This is where AI, machine learning, and all of the other products come into play. We structure all of the knowledge around global employment across those 180 countries in an intelligence database where all the different rules about employment are stored”. In other words, they have created their “own in-house technology to formalise all this knowledge” and have “built our platform on top of it,” as Bordin puts it.
Given that the body of relevant legislation is vast and ever-changing, Oyster has created a low-code platform for internal use called SAGE (System to Automate Global Employment) to ensure that the intel it offers to customers is up to date and consistent. SAGE enables internal staff to encode and retrieve global employment knowledge. It uses “algorithms to collect, categorise and automatically update thousands of complex and nuanced employment laws,” Bordin explains.
Earlier this year, Oyster saw an opportunity to enhance its customer experience by supercharging the platform’s ability to answer compliance questions. This resulted in Pearl, an AI-powered chatbot that can answer questions about global hiring and remote work regulations.
Bordin explains: “Customers that employ internationally in several countries often don’t know the local employment rules. They commonly have to make quick decisions on HR matters, so there’s a greater demand for receiving instant advice. Our chatbot makes that possible because most of the answers are ‘software-ised.’ This means that customers can get quick solutions, no matter where they are, in the format they require.”
He adds that, while Pearl can be accessed free of charge on the Oyster website, the company is working on a higher-powered version that “will be integrated into the main platform in the future.”
Frein believes that this will prove to be a seminal moment for Oyster and its customers.
“The vast majority of the answers can be found on the platform, but more complex and niche queries often require the help of a human being. With increasing fidelity over time, AI will be able to synthesise and harness all the algorithms to provide a self-service answer for the customer in more and more cases,” he explains.
“That said, our vision, mission and core values will never change. Our customers trust us to hire, pay and care for their global employees. We’ll continue to do that, so that they and the international members of their teams can also thrive.”
For more information, visit oysterhr.com
