A Local National is any employee hired to work or volunteer inside their home country, or country of citizenship. Also called, a foreign national we are speaking about a Russian national working in Moscow or a Mexican citizen opening an office for you in Mexico City. As the expatriate employee handbook does not apply these groups need their own local national policy manuals on a country by country basis.

Local National Policy Issues

Do you have certain country operations that require immediate attention? Is there any synergy between what insurance solutions and policy you are using in each country? Is local national policy developed on the ground locally on an ad hoc basis?

We have published the ten commandments when it comes to international employee policy and we make this available for free to clients.

One of the ten commandments of international insurance, and close to the top of the list is: "Thou shall not use non-admitted insurance benefits to insure local nationals unless there are absolutely no other solutions."

Local National Policy Issues (foreign nationals working inside their home countries)

Dealing with local nationals can easily be the most challenging part of any benefits, risk management, or HR position. These issues can be almost endless:

  1. Legal and Compliant Insurance Providers
  2. Local labor law (hiring, firing (can locals even be fired in some countries!)
  3. Designing competitive fringe benefit packages
  4. Tax and Payroll
  5. Which items should issues be managed locally or from the home office?
  6. Designing local national employee policy.

Should Global Organizations Design Policy for Local Nationals on a Global, or Country by Country Basis?

For the most part, each country should have it's own "manual" and it's own set of policy and procedures outlining the items above.

A danger organizations face in dealing with foreign national issues and local country operations is one person having too much information, the information is not well documented, and if that person ever left the company the would be big problems. Of course, "if John is the only person that understands Thailand," this may be great for John's job security, but this certainly is poor practice and needs to be immediately resolved.

Which Local Country Operations Need Immediate Attention Today?

An Expatriate Web SiteWhat we see too often is the "swept under the rug syndrome" meaning that practices in certain countries need so much work that the home office management is almost afraid to take a close look (for fear of what will be found).

We can be a valuable resource in taming this monster. Even if past "regimes" in the benefits, risk, or HR department implemented these programs, it will be the current staff that will get blamed if something blows up. If you have certain country operations that are a legal tinder box, please call us for solutions.


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