Working in the Netherlands

When a company plans to expand into a new European market, finding the right employees to drive the venture is critical to their success. A company wishing to expand to Europe will be confronted by the choice whether to transfer expatriates from your existing operations into the new market or if it would be better to appoint local employees.

Many global companies try to launch with personnel from their parent company or decide to build a local team from scratch.  According to Forbes this is time consuming, risky, and slows time to market. Using proven senior local executives allows the company to hit the ground running, quickly validate assumptions, and drive key readiness initiatives while the company hires the right senior management team. Headhunting the right executives with a deep expertise can save years of market development efforts.

Foreign companies have different options in acquiring personnel for the operation in the new market:

1. To contract expatriates from the home company to work there for a certain period,
2. Assign personnel on short or intermediate-term foreign postings,
3. Sent employees on long-term business trips to work in the new operation,
4. Transfer employees from the home company to the new country permanently,
5. Utilise virtual employees
6. To recruit domestic employees with the desired skills set.

In general, transferring an expat is more expensive and will cost an organization two to three times what the same employee would cost back home.  A higher salary must convince an employee to work abroad, and immigration and tax-related issues must be managed. Training in the foreign language, basic cross-cultural skills is essential to the success of the expat. Housing and moving costs for the employee and family members must also be covered. Expats regularly find themselves burning out because of culture shock and the stress related to being away from home and family.

The lower cost is in hiring personnel locally is a major advantage because they can start working more quickly because they won’t have the time-consuming issues of relocation and immigration or visa status. The main advantage that local hires provide is a deep knowledge of the market, culture, language, government regulations and prevailing communication and work styles. To appoint a local key senior manager will bring a wealth of knowledge of the local market.

However to find the ideal local candidate to appoint can be difficult and expensive. Europe has a tight labour market and there is a shortage of key skills. Companies will also find that the labour costs in the EU may be significantly higher than in the local market. It is important that companies must understand the labour market of the country they enter and do recruitment in a way that fit culturally.

To assist companies to be successful fast in Europe, we provide a Head Hunting Service (Executive Search) that is an effective way to find the right candidate for a key managerial position.

Benefits of our Head Hunting process

• Confidentiality – Competitors will not know that the company is recruiting key personnel,
• Targeted – Only potential candidates with the desired skills set are targeted.
• Finally, we move much quicker and proactively compared to traditional recruitment consultants.

We personalise our engagement with each and every potential candidate. We understand that an untargeted approach will not appeal to an individual candidate. We also take into account the fact that while candidates may not be actively applying for new positions, they may be interested when potential opportunities are presented to them.

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