A new partnership between isolved and Remote is aiming to remove the legal, payroll, and compliance barriers that have historically prevented small and midsized businesses (SMBs) from hiring talent across borders. The alliance was detailed in a recent episode of the podcast "You Should Know," hosted by William Tincup of WRKdefined, featuring Barry Gauch, Executive Vice President at isolved, and Pim Altena, GM for Remote Embedded and VP of Partnerships at Remote.
According to the discussion, isolved conducted a formal request for proposal (RFP) process that narrowed ten potential providers to five before selecting Remote. Gauch explained that customer demand for global hiring had increased, and isolved chose partnership over building in-house because "it's not our key competency, but we know we needed to deliver it." The integration leverages Remote's API-first model to offer 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.
Altena highlighted the operational complexity of global employment, noting 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. He pointed to extreme divergence in labor law, such as pre-employment medical exams being mandatory in some jurisdictions and forbidden in others, and emphasized the high employee-protection regimes in France and Germany. "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 make global hiring affordable and accessible for SMBs. Gauch noted that affordability and white-glove customer treatment were non-negotiable criteria in selecting Remote. He also previewed how the integration with ApplicantPro, now fully folded into isolved, will benefit talent acquisition teams and staffing-company resellers seeking a unified platform. The timing aligns with the acceleration of skill-based hiring, as companies increasingly seek talent without geographic limitations.
For SMBs, this partnership could level the playing field in the competition for global talent. By embedding Remote's capabilities into isolved's HCM platform, businesses can now navigate cross-border employment without needing to establish legal entities in each country. The implications extend to industries reliant on specialized skills, as companies can tap into international labor markets more efficiently. As global hiring becomes more feasible for smaller organizations, the move may also prompt competitors to offer similar integrated solutions, potentially reshaping how SMBs approach workforce expansion.
