What the agreement actually buys
A service agreement with a company, and an employment contract between that company and a person you will never be party to.
The service agreement with the provider
The employment contract with the person
Who the employer is in law
What you are buying with the fee
YoursThe provider'sCrosses the twoNeither contract
Four matters, and no share: what any one agreement covers differs by agreement. One crosses both, and the handoff is where these arrangements fail. The distinction everything else in this collection rests on.
A Service Contract, Not a Hire
An employer of record agreement is a purchase from a company, and the person it concerns is not a party to it.
The Two Documents
One you signed and one you will never see, and almost every difficulty in these arrangements lives between them.
Reading the Service Agreement
Read it for the list of what the provider will do, because everything absent from that list stayed with you.
What the Fee Covers
The fee buys employment administration in a jurisdiction, and the list is shorter and more specific than it sounds.
What the Fee Does Not Cover
Recruitment, equipment, benefits beyond the statutory floor and most of what makes somebody want to stay.
The Indemnity, and What It Is Worth
An indemnity is a promise to pay, worth exactly what the company making it can pay when the claim arrives.
Liability Caps
The cap is usually a multiple of fees, and the exposures it sits against are not sized by fees at all.
Service Levels for Something That Is a Person
Payroll runs and ticket response times can carry a service level; a person's experience of being employed cannot.
Choosing a Provider Is Procurement
The questions that separate providers are commercial and local, and none of them appear on a comparison page.
The Pilot Hire
One hire in one country tells you more about a provider than any amount of diligence, and costs less to undo.