Payroll Challenges Emerge As Companies Race To Secure Talent In A Borderless Workforce

Businesses want to hire globally, but their payroll setup often slows them down

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, January 20, 2026/APO Group/ --

Your developers are in India. Your designers log in from Estonia. Your project managers are based in South Africa. For many businesses, this isn’t an exception; it’s the new normal. Remote work and digital collaboration have made it possible to build teams anywhere talent exists, says Sandra Crous, Managing Director at Deel Local Payroll, powered by PaySpace (www.PaySpace.com).

“Global talent is now just a few clicks away. A generation ago, you'd rely on phone calls and faxes to collaborate across borders. Email changed everything. Then came shared digital files, and now modern collaboration tools mean you can onboard someone from the other side of the world and have them fully integrated by Monday.”

But as global hiring becomes easier, payroll hasn’t kept up. Many systems simply can’t handle the complexity of managing employees in multiple countries, pushing companies to patch together several tools or, worse, limit their global expansion plans.

Too many payroll vendors, too much complexity

Paying people across borders is complicated. Every country has its own tax rules, salary structures, currencies, leave policies, and regulatory changes. When your payroll system can’t handle these nuances, the result is usually the same: a messy collection of spreadsheets, local vendors, and disconnected payroll tools.

According to Forrester’s Is Global Payroll Truly Global? report (https://apo-opa.co/3LlQ1Gc), companies with international teams use six different payroll tools on average, and 86% split payroll between internal teams and third-party providers.

The cost of this fragmentation adds up quickly; financial errors, compliance risks, exchange rate surprises, and hours lost to manual interventions. Employees feel it too: delayed payments, inconsistent information, and slow support.

“Businesses want to hire globally, but their payroll setup often slows them down,” says Crous. “Teams are looking to consolidate, automate, and bring payroll into a single system. They want a simpler experience and the confidence that they’re compliant everywhere.”

The new standard: modern payroll for a global workforce

As more companies hire remote talent and contractors around the world, a new generation of payroll solutions has emerged to meet the complexity of global employment. Two major shifts are driving this evolution:

1. Managed, cloud-native payroll platforms

Instead of buying and maintaining payroll software, businesses subscribe to fully managed platforms. These solutions automatically update tax and labour law changes, enable digital onboarding, support employee self-service, and integrate with wider HR and finance systems. No more manual updates. No more version control headaches.

2. Employer of Record (EOR) services

When companies want to hire someone in a country where they don’t have a legal entity, they can partner with an Employer of Record. The EOR becomes the legal employer, handling compliance, contracts, tax registrations, and back-office admin.

The most effective approach? Combining both.

The real magic happens when an EOR integrates seamlessly with a modern payroll platform.

“Businesses offload the legal and administrative burden to the EOR while still managing payroll, reporting, and employee data through one unified system,” explains Crous. “With the right platform, one payroll solution can support every country you operate in. You stay in control and compliant without juggling multiple providers.”

Payroll has changed. Your tools should too.

Hybrid and distributed teams create more complexity than ever before. Regulations shift constantly. Leaders expect automation, real-time data, and smooth integrations across finance and HR systems. Traditional payroll software simply wasn’t built for this world.

“Payroll is at a turning point,” says Crous. “The ability to hire talent anywhere is a massive opportunity but it’s exposing just how outdated many payroll systems really are. Whether you want better automation, stronger compliance, or a simpler global hiring experience, cloud-native payroll platforms are solving challenges that older systems can’t.”