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Case Study: Cloudsoft
Intro
Start the questions
Tonia:
Ludo:
So basically, we as cloud software company in Edinburgh, we have this is, you know, our only main HQ location. But we do work, especially with COVID, we do have hybrid remote, flexible working policy, but always been people from the UK, whoever, you know, being Edinburgh and being a software company, we have loads of international people within the company, I think we have about 16 different nationalities out of 35 people. So you know, that's, that's a lot. And because of that, I would say life moves on circumstances change for people, they might, you know, think of, different things that happen in life, which makes them potentially reconsider relocating to a different country, in the world. And so for, why we need Boundless so it's not necessarily the first place to be able to hire people from anywhere in the world. But for us, it started because we wanted to keep working with staff who needed to relocate outside of the UK. So this is how we got into Boundless being a small company, setting up a new company in a different country and so on was a bit too much to take on. And we thought since it's only you know, a handful of people that may be concerned and it's, it's just more handy and easy to, to go with someone like boundless in there. So, hopefully, that gives a bit of background, but I can go into details.
Tonia:
2. What convinced you that Boundless was the right choice for your company? I bet you were looking around for some alternatives.
Ludo:
Yeah. So I mean, to be honest, came from a referral from another company as well. So our CEO was discussing with someone and then someone referred to boundless and we thought oh, great, that's perfect. And just from the first call it seems all handy and I think the seriousness of on this and you know, everything seems, okay, that's good. Then we get a second person who were in similar situation who needed to move, at that time we explored maybe different options other than boundless, we had one very similar to boundless called remote. And we went with them with different you know, discussion presentations and so on, which seems great I think it was very appealing to say your first employee for one year would be for free that kind of stuff. The only thing that maybe gave us to stay with boundless was this fact of you know, I can't really explain it well, but the full compliance especially so the country in question was France and it's not the most straightforward country and you know, the question we're asking Remote some time it was a bit yeah, sure you know, everything will be fine and stuff but without necessarily the countenance like maybe boundless will say that, you know, we have fully 100% compliance on different things. I can't remember the wording that it was for Boundless, but that's kind of what makes us for now it's, it's good to stay with Boundless because we feel a bit more in safe hands. You see what I mean?
Tonia:
3. Would you say that the reply from Remote was vague, while ours was more professional?
Ludo:
yeah, I think I would say that because, you know, whatever they will tell us it was hard to, you know, it was almost take it for my words, but without necessarily the paperwork of things to see in there and so on. And so, you know, it's not as deep in terms of the contracting or that kind of stuff, which, that's why we stay, we've done this. We chatted with someone called Anthony and Tony, I don't know how big you all now, but you know, yeah, they explained, especially around that fully compliance. And he explained a lot of the Eor what do you have, and he explained the difference maybe between boundless and remote and so on. So you know, I mean, like with this, it just gave us a bit more confidence around the portage salarial. And the fact that, you know, Boundless was saying, we can only do that for three years, because the way it's set up in the country and Remote said, No, you can do as many years as you want. So, you know, this is where maybe we were not feeling 100% Confident. They know what they're talking about. And that's it. So he's just feeling confident, more with Boundless because of that, you know, you tell us you can't go more than three years, that's, it's, you know, there's no way around that. And, you know, this is the thing.
Tonia:
4. What makes you happiest about working with our company?
Ludo:
I mean, I think it's just like, every one we've been speaking of, as you said, like, we may be similar company and stuff. So, you know, it's been very easy to handle with, without, you know, all of the processes and things that he was just, yeah, let's jump on a call, let's, you know, by email, and so on, every time we ask a question, you know, we just had one day or two Max, that we get an answer. So, you know, everything was very responsive, and just being friendly, I would say communications in there. And then, you know, in terms of getting on boarded, and so on, you know, it was easy to understand, we've got a contract to start with, and then after preparing the contract with each employee who needed that. And then seems you know, I'm not involved in the, the kind of salary payments every month and stuff like that. But you know, I haven't seen anything that blocked in any way. So no problems in that way.
Tonia:
5.How has boundless helped you so far? So if you could tell us a little bit more about where were the employees, which were the circumstances of the these employees employed through our platform? how the problem was solved and what felt for these employees after being employed through boundless?
Ludo:
No, of course, I'll show you the stories. And then after, as you said, like, depending how you want to use information, whether it's blog posts communication website, I can let you know if they're happy that they can share, I don't think there will be any problem because they worked it that's budgets, I can let you know, but so for one it was she was Nikki for a while, and her husband is actually a rugby player who got a contract in France to play in France for three years. So because of that, then it's kind of okay, let's, you know, you're gonna go to France. I'm not going to travel every week to see you back between UK and France. So we need it, you know, she wanted to move in France for a few years while displaying the seasons in the south of France and she's been closer for five years and She's actually part of the executive leadership team. So, you know, for us, we really wanted to keep working with her. And, yes, so this is how it started, we, on this made things easy.
Tonia:
6. And how they feel now that they, you know, they got to move
Ludo:
exactly, I mean, you know, except that maybe they miss, you know, going at the pub with the team and so on, you know, we will still try to visit at least once a quarter in Edinburgh, but other than that, you know, a lot of people working remotely, even within the UK, some people I would see less than being in the UK that them coming back once a quarter from France. So in a sense, you know, they still feel part of the team, and so on. So most, barely any disruption. The drawback would be, but it's basically on the country where you go, where friends, it's more tax and everything. So obviously, it in fact, impacts people's lives. But other than that, then everything went smoothly. So you know, I mean, so it's just great. You get more benefits and friends to
Irina:
7. Do you remember the time Ludo, when she came and said, Look, my husband is moving to France. What can we do? Was it kind of an immediate thing of like you knew of this concept of employer of record? Or you kind of you know, when full mould, what do we do? Do we start a company contracting?
Ludo:
So it wasn't me at the time where this happens. I wasn't involved when this happened. But as far as I knew, it was more okay, what do we do when we thought about, you know, like you said, setting up a new company, but it's a lot of effort and work and stuff. So it's almost like its first thing you think of, but then after it, that's kind of the first thing we were thinking it's not right, there must be something else. We thought about, there was some other stuff where just like fairly light, some sort of contracting, and so on, but then you know, just by yourself. But then when we realise so much implications with tax and employments and stuff like that, we thought that going through Boundless wings for dealing felt a bit more appropriate. So yeah, I think so that's kind of how it happened. And because then someone put a recommendation, and you needed to move pretty fast in a way. So you know, we just say let's, let's go with that. To start with. And now it's been more than a year and a half. So no, we're happy with this.
Irina:
8. And from the moment, she said that she wanted to move to her actually moving and everything being forward. Any recollection of what timeframe we're talking about?
Ludo:
I think it's almost, you know, I think within a month, it was kind of all set up. And I think she had to move within, you know, so I think, yeah, was less than a month, I would say. So. It's pretty good to think peoples in that spirit that that kind of stuff. So it was good. And just Yeah, the other story was more like, so it was a French colleague, has been here for 10 years in Scotland, and so on, they just got a baby and with COVID and missing family and everything. So it was just, you know, they wanted to be closer to the family, and so on. So that's why the move back to friends. But again, he was really good contributor to Cloudsoft. He wanted to stay with us. So we also granted that in a way. So we make it work for him to still to keep working with us.
Tonia:
9. What exceeded your expectations since working with us?
Ludo
I think, again, you know, kind of the support we get, for example, if we now do you know, in the sense that we would say, well, we could hire potentially anyone from anywhere and just to see, you know, having jumping on a call with our account manager or whatever her role is, just to explain a bit more, you know, actually, depending on the country, it's not as easy as France. They all have different rules and stuff like that. So actually just almost giving us advice to say, yes, it is possible, but you need to know that maybe if you go with Germany, then after six months, then you won't be able to employ in there. So it's kind of a temporary solution, you know, so it's good to know the background and things like that. So having that support, because you can spend hours on the internet, and it's gonna be hard to find the actual right information. So having kind of that filter down view of what is possible, what does it mean, exactly, it feels much easy for that, so that's what maybe I would say, in terms of support
Tonia
10. cool, thanks and on a different note, what’s the main reason you would recommend our product?
Ludo
I think, again, like going back to, like, you know, what you're doing. Because of that, then it just feels right. To me, it's like, like, almost like a no brainer. You know, if it's two people and things like that, I would see when you start the journey in this, if you're not ready to, you know, we ended the Amazon where we have, you know, a company in every country in there, then it feels like, you know, for midsize company, it's the perfect fit, because it's just, you know, you talk to someone, you know what you're talking about, and it's, you know, we don't have a big HR department or anything that's basically handing it over to someone else, then you can get on with your actual business. And, yeah, that's what I would say, you know, I think fees and stuff still feels reasonable, I would love to be more a fixed fee rather than percentage, but then that's your operating model. And that's different. But it just feels, you know, sometimes it'd be packages or something, I don't know. But, you know, it's always something to look for. This was one of the reason why we looked into Remote, for example, which offered a fixed price compared to yourself as a fee. Depending at certain point with different salaries. And you know, the higher you get, then the, obviously, the bigger impact it takes. That's why it's having some sort of CAP may be interesting, because it seems to me that whoever you employ, you spend the same amount of time, regardless of the salary. So that's why it feels to me more natural to have a fixed fee rather than percentage fee. And I just thought about why I was looking for this hard, that's all.
Tonia
11. Okay thanks, and now, we would like to ask you some sort of suggestion, let's say, so looking at what we've done so far for you, what do you think we could have done differently?
Ludo:
Yeah, no, I really can’t think of anything just know about that.
Irina:
12. I suppose the package thing is actually a good idea. And, like, it's very helpful to know that it will be more helpful
Ludo:
for you. Yeah, I think is as well, like, more something that came recently or not, I can't remember now, but I got a demo of a new feature of benefits. But more about some perks or something like that. But it's so I was very excited because obviously, in UK we try to find as many perks but more you know, tax free or tax saving that kind of stuff. So basically, then you know, like cycle to work scheme, where you can basically buy your bike but you don't pay tax on it before the salary sacrifice and so on. So in UK, you have a lot of stuff like that. We have like you know different things like this. Obviously, when they move to France, they would lose directly a lot of those perks. We took that into consideration in the overall package. But so when I see Boundless is now offering that but then actually, when I look at the demo, it was very disappointing in a way that's actually it's just a flexible bonus that you can add, but it doesn't have any advantage whatsoever. In a sense, it's more a thing you can add as an extra to see. But then I would say I can do that myself. So yeah, there was nothing which was an error maybe because it was just fine. Since the country, but none of those were, you know, it was like they can think it was more like, give 100 pounds, and then they can use it to use it for hairdressers, stuff like that. But then at the end, they just submit the receipt and we refund them, but there was no benefit from either the employer or the employee. Because if the employee doesn't use it, then he doesn't get it. And if we use it, then it feels like we're just adding more and it just didn't make sense. So for me, I thought it would be okay. Maybe you know, like in France, you have tickets, restaurant tickets, where you buy them for 10 euros, but they are worth 20. We said maybe this is this kind of thing. And this is where we'll be looking for. But no, it's not.
Irina:
Yeah, no, that's, that's fair enough. And that's where we hope to be going. Right? That's, that's definitely the aim that, you know, we basically allow companies such as yours that don't necessarily can't buy in bulk, the way a Google can, or HubSpot can, you can do that just because we operate this, but it's where we're hoping to get there. For now it's this, I suppose the only thing I'd say that maybe is slightly in that direction is that some of the refunds would actually not be taxed, because they would fall on their benefits in kind of subsidies. So again, depending on the country, you know, say in Ireland, for example, you know, your first 500 euros of benefits in kind are actually tax free. And, you know, in countries like Italy, you have like, say first 50 euros or something like that. So there is that, which is kind of a little bit of an add on to essentially being like a Receipt Bank, kinda ff thing. But again, super valuable, super valuable feedback.
Ludo:
Yeah, I think it's just like, you know, the way it has been shown as benefits and stuff filled is actually just to increase the salary that may not be used in a way. And to me, unless it's more specifically say, you know, if there is a benefit with, you know, an additional benefit, like in tax savings, or that kind of stuff, then make sense, or make it more obvious than it is because otherwise it feels okay. So, you know, this is why to me, I felt confused when, you know, when reading all of the stuff, and then at the end, a good demo is like, okay, that's not at all to be some sort of expensive way, you know, expenses thing, submit your expenses, we found you, it didn't feel like I wouldn't call this a set of benefits.
Tonia:
14. Thank you. Good point. Last question. If there was three words that you could use to describe your experience with us, which those would be and why
Ludo:
I think I fell for like, you know, easy, confidence, serious and also very open, and also honest, maybe because everything was clear. And then you can't do something you would say it because for valid reason, you're not going to try to haggle your way through it. So, you know, it's I think that's, that's what I think what matters to us.
Irina:
15. Is the ability to employ anywhere changed your approach to hiring?
Ludo:
Yeah, so I think I mean a bit of like a bit of uncertainty and so on. I think because we found quickly enough Boundless and we seem okay, this is going to be a way maybe as we said, like the impact will be adding new different taxis and pay and so on. Is it still you know, will that person find a job in the country where They go better, you know, for us because of the additional payments and fees and stuff like that. And with that person still want to work with us being abroad way from maybe some time to time face to face. Things like that, it was more like uncertainty about Would that work for everyone? You know, for us we really wanted to keep that maybe that was the stress, where are they going? Are we all going to be happy with what we can do in here? Not necessarily in terms of, you know, I think Boundless came pretty quick in the process. I think there was less stress around that. Four the second question, I think, yes, it's just now we're just open from anywhere in the sense. So I'm taking away the view in you know, when CVs come through, and so on, depending on people's circumstances, we will consider that and to be honest, feels like it's it's easier, cheaper, quicker to hire someone from abroad and trying to get a visa now with UK, especially with the F B word. You know, just that. For us, it feels like we started to work as well with reading and just LinkedIn recruiter, there is some websites where now people just put this up when they want to find a job. And then you can see that people most likely, the first thing is I want to work remote 100% for them, whether they Paris, Amsterdam, London, I don't really care. Because at the end of the day, you know, it's it's the same. So that's why it's just a bit more open. Knowing with Boundless, it's just easy, saying, you know, this is the salary, we could propose if it was a new key, what would it mean for that person in that country. And again, usually, I don't know, if you can do it, yourself on the website, that's why like, I will remove it, like you could actually put the salary and then they will give you all the details of how much would that person get and how much tax will be paid for each country. I think you can do it, but we were just sending an email and then you will send us back some sort of simulations. But you know, if there was something like that, that you can do in the website that may be good, or even in the portal once you're onboarded, because then we could play with numbers and you know, things that that would be helpful. You know, if we have multiple candidates and things like that, then we have some options to waiting
Tonia
Well, thank you so much for the for the information, we gather precious feedback, just to recap with you where we are aiming to have these case studies and testimonials published. So we thought about having those on social media campaigns, website, blog, marketing, collaterals. And potentially on our communication that is going out to our customer database. From what I understood from your previous conversation, you would like to review the case study specifically when it comes to talking about the story of the employees, so definitely, I'm going to email to you everything that I'm going to create. So you can give us the green light. And you can also suggest us any feedback of course, we are totally open to hear what you think about you how we package let's say your story.
Ludo
Okay, sounds good. Yeah, no problem. Thank you. Thank you. Nice to meet you.
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