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Our verdict
Safeguard Global is a well-established employer of record. It supports hiring and onboarding, payroll processing, recruitment, compliance assurance, and HR administration in over 170 countries. Safeguard Global can also provide customized HR analytics and assists in legal entity setup.
Pros
- A wide range of custom services and an experienced team of global workforce experts
- Advanced company incorporation capability
Cons
- Offering may be needlessly complex for some small businesses
- Pricing not publicly listed on website
How is this calculated?
We calculate the Overall Rating by combining the ratings of several testing categories.
Learn more by reading our testing and review methodology.
170
Not publicly available
Direct deposit
Safeguard Global is a well-established Global Employer Of Record (EOR) with a large network of offices and consultants worldwide. The service includes an impressive suite of ala carte offerings that can be customized to fit the needs of companies in many industries and with varied international expansion goals.
Global EORs help companies tap international labor markets by standing in as the local employer on behalf of a client business. While the client still makes all work-related decisions and pays all salaries and fees, the EOR handles compliance, payroll disbursement in local currencies, and benefits administration. Safeguard Global combines this with outsourced accounting and HR, recruitment services, local entity setup, and other features to provide a complete and customizable international expansion package.
Overview
Global EORs have exploded in popularity recently, as startups and tech companies reorient their workforces to enable remote teams and look abroad for highly skilled, competitively priced industry professionals.
Safeguard Global, however, goes beyond the needs of small startups alone. It provides Global EOR services, payroll outsourcing, recruitment services, entity setup, and outsourced accounting and compliance assurance. These features can all be used together, or they can be purchased one by one depending on the needs of the company. This gives Safeguard Global an edge in helping to streamline well-established companies in addition to the remote startups typically served by newer Global EORs.
For example, a client could use Safeguard Global to recruit home office and EOR employees around the globe, establish a new entity for regional distribution staff it with a mix of EOR and direct employees, and consolidate payroll for all employees and contractors worldwide. This breadth of service and level of flexibility is a powerful capability, but it may not be the best system for everybody. Read on as we take an in-depth look at Safeguard Global to determine whether it is the best solution for your business.
Key features
1. EOR
As companies’ needs grow, it assists in converting international contractors to full time works through their EOR services.
Unlike some Professional Employer Organizations (PEO), Global EORs assume full liability for international employees. Under a PEO arrangement, workers are officially “co-employees”, meaning that although the PEO is the legal employer, the client business or “worksite employer” may have some work-related liabilities. For companies hiring in countries where they have no legal entity, the full liability, EOR solution is often necessary.
Safeguard Global owns some of its international entities, while in other regions it contracts with local providers. With more than 15 years in the industry, though, it has a clear advantage over much of the competition in terms of experience.
Additionally, Safeguard Global has over 15 offices serving clients and employees around the globe.
Safeguard Global — how to expand into other countries
2. Payroll
The payroll service offered by Safeguard Global, Payroll 360, can be purchased on its own or in tandem with other services. Payroll 360 is not an all-in-one software solution, but rather a global payroll service that can be integrated into a company’s existing Human Resources Information System (HRIS).
If a company’s HRIS does not cover every country in which they employ workers, Payroll 360 is able to provide the needed service and integrate it with the existing platform. It can consolidate all payroll payments, and also break down the data into specific countries and currencies for analytics. It can integrate work hours and time off data with the payroll system to increase efficiency.
Safeguard Global employs specialists in over 150 national labor markets and tax regions. This provides compliance partners on hand at all times, able to advice on nearly every jurisdiction globally.
It also provides payroll outsourcing services, titled Payroll Express. Payroll Express users can purchase payroll processing for a workforce in a specific country; it will handle all processing, filling, and tax compliance for the workforce in that country whether the workers are direct employees, temporary, EOR, or contract workers.
3. HR
Safeguard Global supports full-time, temporary, and contract workers in over 170 countries. It can recruit and hire on behalf of the employer, process payroll and handle reporting, take full liability as an Employer of Record, or any combination of these based on a business’s particular needs. The company promotes its extensive global network as a powerful tool for finding and employing workers with desirable or unique skill sets, seasonal workers, and even C-level executives.
The HR support team at Safeguard Global is dispersed throughout the world, and is available in all time zones, in the workers’ native languages.
Safeguard global advertises its ability to support not just international remote teams, but cross-border employment as well. They can compliantly manage payroll and employment for US citizens working for US companies but based internationally, for instance.
4. Compliance
As a Global EOR, Safeguard Global assumes full legal compliance for international employees hired under the system. Their compliance offerings go beyond just EOR employees though. Safeguard Global can provide risk and strategy assessments regarding all potential tax liabilities, including corporate tax, PE risk, GST, and VAT. Through their international offices and experts in multiple global jurisdictions, they can guide clients on regulations and compliance risks around the world. These flexible services allow businesses with more complex international growth issues to benefit. For instance, a US-based company that imports from China, hires employees in Mexico, and maintains a separate legal entity in Europe could work with Safeguard Global to mitigate the tax, compliance and reporting issues for its entire operation, and not just the EOR employees.
Platform
Business owners using Safeguard Globals EOR services can manage remote employees through the GEO platform. Employees can also access the platform to report expenses and work hours. Payroll 360 users can access payroll analytics data through the Global Unity platform, which tracks global spending, costs per country, turnover rate, and other workforce trends. For clients that already use an HRIS, Safeguard Global can integrate its services into their existing platforms.
Pricing
Pricing information is not publicly available. Potential clients must contact a consultant and describe their needs in order to receive a quote.
Pros and cons
Pros
Benefits of choosing Safeguard Global include:
Recruitment — all Global EOR services assist with the onboarding of international employees, and some offer background check services as well. Safeguard Global takes its service a step further by assisting with the creation of job descriptions, sourcing potential new hires, screening resumes, and even interviewing. It can provide compensation and salary data for job markets worldwide, then utilize its proprietary network of multilingual recruiters to help employers find the best match for them. The recruitment service can be used in conjunction with EOR services or by businesses who wish to hire through their own legal entities
Analytics — Safeguard Global operates a sub-brand, Global Unity Analytics, which provides a custom dashboard for tracking workforce data across a global workforce. The system can track and compare total cost per employee, payroll taxes in different regions, turnover rate, and other data in real-time. This will be especially useful for employers of large global teams who wish to achieve maximum efficiency in their hiring strategy.
The large network of local offices allowing for greater face-to-face interaction than that offered by many competitors.
Proven experience — as a well-established company with more than 15 years experience enabling international business expansion and outsourcing, Safeguard Global provides a wealth of practical experience.
Cons
Potential downsides of choosing Safeguard Global include:
- Pricing is not available on the website.
- Possible complexity — Safeguard Global offers a portal for global payroll management and analytics, and another tracking of EOR employees, as well as assistance with integration into existing HRIS systems. Small companies with limited HR capabilities may find the system more confusing than the simple all-in-one platforms offered by some competitors.
Unique Selling Point
Most Global EORs position themselves as an alternative to establishing wholly owned legal entities around the world. After all, the process takes time, can introduce extra tax burdens and liabilities, and can be costly.
Safeguard Global takes a different tactic by providing assistance with international expansion for those who need it. This can be advantageous to producers who want greater access to a market, manufacturers, construction companies, resource extraction companies, and those in other industries where entity establishment is necessary. IT, Fintech, and other companies with a light physical footprint may also wish to establish a legal entity at some point in their international expansion as well, in order to open a physical office, expand their services, or simply reduce their EOR fees.
RemotePad Score for Safeguard Global
8.8/10 Our expert score for Safeguard Global
Our team came to this score by considering the following components in the following weightings:
| Employer of Record features | 25% |
| Payroll features | 10% |
| HR features | 10% |
| Compliance features | 10% |
| Platform features | 10% |
| Pricing | 20% |
| User reviews | 15% |
For each component, Safeguard Global received the following score:
| Employer of Record features | 21/25 |
| Payroll features | 9/10 |
| HR features | 10/10 |
| Compliance features | 9/10 |
| Platform features | 10/10 |
| Pricing | 18/20 |
| User reviews | 11/15 |
Top alternatives (competitors)
Top provider for:
IP Protection and compliance
Monthly fee
$599per employee
Top provider for:
HR support
Monthly fee
$770per employee
Safeguard Global — our verdict
Small companies with no plans to incorporate in multiple jurisdictions, who want to build a fully remote team supported by a simple automated payroll software system may find Safeguard Global cumbersome due to its lack of an out-of-the-box software platform.
More well-established companies, however, may stand to benefit greatly from the service. Safeguard Globals’ payroll, accounting, and HR services can streamline global HR for companies operating in multiple jurisdictions, integrating all functions into an existing HRIS that can be managed by a small team at the home office. Companies expanding into new territories to tap into labor markets, expand their manufacturing base, or access consumer markets can benefit from Safeguard Globals’ years of experience and range of services; the combination of recruitment, EOR, global payroll, and entity set-up services will be just the strategic expansion assistance that many are looking for.
FAQ
Safeguard Global is a privately held company, established in 2008. It has completed 4 funding rounds, the lead investor in the company is MMC Ventures.
Safeguard Global is headquartered in Austin, Texas. It has regional offices in the United Kingdom, India, Mexico, Germany, China, France, Hungary, Italy, Moldova, Portugal, Romania, and Spain.
Safeguard Global acquired WorkfFor Group in 2019 and Global Upside in 2022.
Safeguard Global is privately owned and funded. Its last significant equity investment was announced in May 2019, from Accel-KKR, a leading Silicon Valley-based investment firm.
