With Boundless, Cloudsoft has managed to retain two key employees who wanted to relocate to France, one of Europe’s toughest countries to employ in, and is now broadening its hiring horizons.
Cloudsoft is a software company hailing from Edinburgh, Scotland. Until the pandemic, remote work was a sporadic occurrence rather than their default. If anyone did work remotely, it was still within the UK, so employment across borders wasn’t a challenge.
In early 2020, almost overnight, that changed. With a diverse team hailing from 16 countries, the need for a global employment solution was not an if but a when. The growing popularity of remote working meant that cross-border employment became a question Cloudsoft needed to address.
A few months later, the first request came in. Cloudsoft’s Finance Director, Anél du Preez, asked to relocate to France, where her husband was being transferred for work. The team briefly considered establishing an entity in France, only to quickly figure out that this would not be a viable option; the cost and time for managing the French company, plus any future entities that would need to be created for new requests, meant that it would be too complex for Cloudsoft to manage.
So they turned to the idea of an Employer of Record and began their search for the right provider….
As they started looking for an Employer of Record, Ross Gray, Cloudsoft’s CEO, got a recommendation for Boundless from Cloudsoft’s lawyers. The employee needed to relocate quickly, and Ross felt confident to move forward with Boundless after speaking with our CEO Dee Coakley and learning about our approach to fully compliant employment. He further found the rest of the team he interacted with very friendly, transparent and experienced in the area of global employment. Less than a month after signing the commercial agreement, Cloudsoft had its first cross-border employee, compliantly employed through Portage Salarial, the Boundless employment model in France.
In 2021, another relocation request came in. Thomas Bouron, a Lead engineer at Cloudsoft, was returning from paternity leave and asked to move back to his home in France to be closer to family. Ludovic Farine, Head of Operations in Cloudsoft, handled the relocation request. The Employer of Record industry was growing rapidly by this point, with many providers offering tempting incentives that any startup would find hard to pass. Ludovic decided to speak to a few EORs and find the best option for Cloudsoft.
What ultimately convinced Ludovic to stay with Boundless for the second relocation was our clarity, openness and deliberate approach to Portage Salarial.
“Boundless was very clear on how long Cloudsoft could use the Portage Salarial model in France. Others offered workarounds to go beyond 36 months, which did not inspire confidence,” Ludovic says and continues, “With Boundless, we felt Cloudsoft was in safe hands.” That level of safety beat any discounts that were put forward to Ludovic.
With that second employee, just as it had been with the first, Cloudsoft found Boundless very easy to work with and really flexible. “Whenever I had a question, I quickly got an answer, either via email or a call. Everyone has been very responsive and friendly,” Ludovic says. The support Cloudsoft gets from Boundless is something that continues to exceed their expectations.
As a result of the ease with which Boundless handles global employment, Cloudsoft’s eyes have veered towards other countries, not just in preparation for more relocation requests but also as potential places to find great new team members. However, every new country is a clean slate regarding local legislation, and understanding it before any hiring decisions are made is vital. (For example, in Germany, the model can be applied for only 18 months, while in Norway, it can only be applied for project-based work).
“You could spend hours on the internet researching and have a really hard time finding the accurate information whether a country’s legislation is a good fit for your needs,” Ludovic says.
However, that has never been something Ludovic has had to deal with.
The information on any country currently offered by Boundless is a stone's throw away and comes in a variety of forms - a call with a knowledgeable customer success manager, detailed in-app employer obligations and thorough country guides.
Ultimately choosing and staying with Boundless has been a no-brainer for Cloudsoft. It has allowed a scaling startup to operate as a compliant multinational employer with ease and without any added admin for Ludovic. Not having to deal with international employment complexity has allowed Cloudsoft to focus on the complexity that matters to their growth - orchestrating and governing enterprise hybrid IT environments.
Easy. Confident. Serious. Honest. Very open. (Yes, we know that is 5). “For us, those are the things that truly matter!”
Thank you Cloudsoft ❤️
