International Employment

We employ staff where we have the legal ability to do so, and we’re always interested in expanding our portfolio in support of our clients' projects. Our ability to employ expatriates, third-country nationals, and host-country nationals varies across our entities. Where we can offer our employment service depends on:

• your project's activities
• your project's funding sources
• your project's duration
• our registration status and jurisdiction to operate in the selected country

Local registration is required before we can engage in certain activities (i.e., open a bank account; employ and pay staff; pay taxes; operate a long-term program).

In a location where we’re already legally established, we can likely add staff to our payroll. The staff must be legally authorized to work in that location. Based on our type of registration, restrictions may apply on the work, the location, or both.

See Where We Operate for the locations where we have ongoing operations. Note: We do not provide employment services in the US.

If your program will span several years and you’ll need office or lab space in addition to employment service, you may want to consider our office administration & operations service, which includes our employment service.

We offer pricing models tailored to your program and roll our employment service fee and the employment costs into your reoccurring invoices.

For example, in some locations where we operate, our employment service fee is $850 per employee, per month and there is also a one-time startup fee of $1,100. In other locations where we provide office administration services, the employment service fees are rolled into an annual administrative fee.

In addition to our service fee, your reoccurring invoices include employment costs that we pay on your behalf. This may consist of:

• employee salary
• assignment allowances (e.g., housing, cost of living)
• fringe expenses
• benefits expenses
• tax equalization
• employee reimbursements
• employer-owed taxes
• other applicable employer's costs

An optional tax return service for US expatriates and third-country nationals is available for an additional fee.

Our service fee covers our administrative and operational expenses and replaces the expense and effort that your department would otherwise incur managing these operations on your own. This may consist of:

• Harvard Global acting as the employer of record
• Dedicated team for international HR support
• Local employment contracts
• Managing labor relations
• Payroll processing
• Salary benchmarking (upon request and for an additional fee)
• Currency conversion
• Direct deposit into a foreign bank account
• Payment of bank fees
• Accounting
• Auditing
• Financial reporting
• Compliance tracking
• Legal counsel (may incur additional cost)
• Tax services (upon request and for an additional fee)
• Pre-assignment tax briefing (for U.S. expatriates and third-country nationals only)

Our service fee does not cover:

• Visa sponsorship and work permits
• Accounts payable (e.g., vendor payments) and employment costs (e.g., salaries, assignment allowances, and benefits). We bill you these costs in our reoccurring invoices

No, we cannot provide visa sponsorship.

We determine this on a case-by-case basis after careful review of the grant terms and other factors that govern allowability. We’ll work with Harvard’s Office for Sponsored Programs (OSP) to help you determine if our service fee is appropriate to charge to a particular grant. If allowed, the service fee should be included in the grant budget at the proposal stage. In some cases, only part of the service fee is allowable, which we’ll itemize as necessary.

Generally speaking, you'll continue to perform the tasks that you normally perform for domestic operations, such as:

• recruiting, selecting, and managing staff
• conducting performance evaluations
• maintaining direction and oversight of project programming
• procuring supplies or equipment needed for the project
• sourcing IT needs for overseas staff
• coding and submitting expenses
• approving expenses and payroll

Each case is unique and can take 2-6 months depending on our registration status and your project criteria. We'll advise you on expected timelines at the outset and continue to update you throughout the set-up process. It's important to plan early. Administrative delays are common when operating internationally. Your project timeline should account for flexibility and build in extra time to account for international office closures around holidays, backlogs in paperwork processing, or sudden changes in government policies and labor laws.

The following criteria influence your overall time frame:

• Location where your project will occur
• Your project’s funding source
• Number of employees to hire
• Employee(s) immigration status and work authorization in the selected location
• Our legal presence or jurisdiction to operate in the selected location

The activities to undertake include:

• Scoping the project to understand your activities and needs (HG and client)
• Researching the country requirements (HG)
• Developing and negotiating a service agreement (HG and client)
• Recruiting and selecting employees (client)
• Hiring and onboarding employees (HG)

Some of the activities can occur in tandem, while others are conditional. In locations where we're registered or already have jurisdiction to provide employment services, these activities can take 2-3 months; in countries where we're not registered, these activities can take 6 months or more.

For payroll, benefits, and work authorization purposes, we categorize employees into the following three groups:

Expatriate: a US citizen or permanent resident working abroad on international programs. Expatriates may be hired specifically to work outside of the US or be transferred from a Harvard University position to an international assignment scheduled to last six months or more. Some positions may have an assignment less than six months, and we review them on a case-by-case basis.

Third-country national: an employee working in an assigned country where they are neither a citizen of that country nor the US.

Host-country national: an employee hired to work within their home country; also referred to as a local national.

Our ability to employ expatriates, third-country nationals, and host-country nationals varies across our entities.

Our employees receive the following benefits depending on location and their employment category:

• Affiliation with Harvard University
• Harvard University ID (HUID) number and HarvardKey account
• Harvard email address
• Harvard University Library access
• Integration with Harvard University financial and HR systems
• Harvard University network access (e.g., shared drives, calendars, online databases), if required
• IT support (determined by respective School/Unit)
• Dedicated team for international HR support
• Direct deposit
• Global health benefits plan, which includes options for bundled health care (medical, dental, vision), supplemental life, and long-term disability insurance; or local health benefits plan, which includes medical, accident, and life insurance
• Harvard Global business cards (if requested)
• International SOS emergency response services and resources*
• Pre-assignment tax briefing (for US expatriates and third-country nationals)

In most locations, we use local contracts that reflect the benefits mandated by local employment legislation.

*Eligibility for Harvard's International SOS membership varies based on employment category.

Harvard Global employees are considered to be employees of an affiliate of Harvard University. They can describe themselves as members of your lab, department, or School. As we are their legal employer, any documents that list the legal employer will specify the local Harvard Global entity that is their employer of record; these documents include HR forms (e.g., conditional offer letter, employment agreement, employment verifications), tax filings, and business cards.

This service is ideal for Harvard University-affiliated programs seeking long-term employment solutions of at least six months or more. Programs should also have an operating budget that can accommodate our monthly administrative fee in addition to general employment costs (i.e., salary, benefits, fringe expenses, and employer-owed taxes).

If our service isn’t a viable option, review the other international hiring options outlined by Harvard Global Support Services.