The Future of Work is Remote and International: Deel COO Dan Westgarth

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Dan Westgarth is the chief operating officer at Deel. Deel is a remote-hiring company. The platform helps more than 6,000 companies hire, pay and comply with local laws abroad with human resources, payroll, compliance, perks and benefits.

Below are some highlights of the podcast featuring Dan. Listen to “The Blind Ambition with Jack Kelly” above or on your favorite podcast app.

How does Deel work?

Deel in a nutshell: We help companies and businesses hire anyone, anywhere, which is very different [than] pay[ing] anyone, anywhere.

We actually help businesses legally engage employees and contractors in another country. So in simple terms, a company based in the U.S. can come to us, get an account on our platform and start hiring people in multiple different countries around the world, everywhere from Mexico to Japan and everywhere else in between.

What to consider in an international job

… When looking for the next opportunity, you should focus in on the company itself. I think the company’s culture, the way the company is designed, and its attitude to remote hiring will be reflective of how an organization runs in general.

I find remote hiring [and] hiring cross border… something which is still relatively new. It’s something which needs to be understood and something which requires good execution… in order to do well.

So, I think it’s really important to find a company that is forward thinking enough to adopt all of these different areas… that are required to make this work well. I’m not just looking for a company that says, “Oh yeah, I can hire you in Mexico…”

Getting paid through Deel: Why you might want to get paid in another currency

I’ve seen individuals working in tech and other sectors working for U.S. or European companies and getting paid in other currencies. I think that that’s really, really interesting.

Let’s use Argentina as the example. Argentina has seen… depreciation against the [U.S.] dollar, inflation is nearly 50 or 60% year-on-year, [so] giving that individual that’s working the opportunity to get paid in a decentralized currency or the U.S. dollar is so impactful.

We’ve kind of experimented with this stuff. We have a product called cash advance, where remote workers, specifically contractors, can take an advance on their earnings at a rate that’s far better than what they would be offered in their country.

We’ve also launched a Visa card. We call it the Deel card. So, remote workers can get paid directly onto this card, and that card can be used anywhere that Visa is accepted. That’s really powerful because it’s instantaneous—Visa transactions are instant. So the day that you’re paid, or the day that you take that advance, you can actually go down the street and buy something… let’s say there’s some new technology that’s available, maybe it’s the iPhone, maybe it’s something else… being able to use the Visa card [to] buy that thing is game-changing.

The impact of international hiring on local communities and economies

[It] creates a great network effect because their peers, which see them earning, say, a base pay, which is a multiple higher than someone that’s engaged locally. And having the option to get paid [in] another currency just makes it so much more attractive. I think that that’s really going to help the [local] economy… because those people are going to spend more locally.

Companies which are hiring domestically are going to realize that they have to pay more to secure good talent, which is going to create more demand on [venture capital] and… technology.

I think overall, it’s a net positive thing for the country and the economy itself. It’s not just something which is going to be consumed by a small, close community. Yes, it started off as small, but there’s no reason why it can’t be opened and why it can’t grow to be much, much larger.

Is it difficult to pay employees in cryptocurrency?

It was not too difficult. I think that the… barrier to entry or barrier to adoption usually sits with the infrastructure stakeholder.

… So while crypto can be quite challenging and tricky to get into the mainstream public domain, I often find that the blocker is with the infrastructure. Players are gatekeepers, but we’re lucky that we don’t rely on them. We build all of our own infrastructure, so we can get this [to] market and… used by thousands of people around the world.

Why remote work will create new types of employee benefits

We’re also seeing that a lot of the big tech companies… are now investing heavily into remote benefits because those real estate-centric benefits are not being consumed. And what I mean by that is, I can think of various companies in the [San Francisco] Bay Area which… serv[ed] breakfast, lunch, dinner, on-premises gym or yoga.

… You know those benefits can no longer be utilized, and incoming talent… they’re remote. They’re looking for remote type[s] of benefits. Can I actually get furniture which supports my body as I’m working? Can I get access to online communities? Can I get access to the real estate, but can I only do it for a couple of days a week?

Deel Careers: How to get a job

We’re kind of at the stage now where we don’t hire… junior positions. Most of the positions [we] are hiring for are mid-level, senior and above. So we want candidates that are specialized, that have done “X” or some of it before, so they can really hit the ground running.

If you’re in this bucket, I think it’s really important to lay out [in the] interview process how quickly you can get up to speed. How quickly can you understand the topics that we’re working on? How quickly [will you] be able to impact the business? Because speed is really everything at this stage.

If you’re… a junior candidate… I think it’s all about commitment… I think [you] need to prove to us [in] the interview panel that you’re really committed and willing to go the extra mile, willing to learn the different skills that are required to be successful.

We have regional focuses that [are] usually skills-linked. For example, we’re hiring… the equivalent of HR business partner in 50-plus countries so [that] we can help our clients’ employees should they need help… We have a posting right now for the employee experience, Germany, [where we] are looking for someone [who] is skilled in German HR. They don’t necessarily need to be based in Germany, but we need to have that skill.

The company culture at Deel

… I think the biggest opportunity [lies] in our flat management structure… We don’t have that many layers… This prevents politics, prevents BS, frankly. And we want to be really kind of direct and collaborative… A flat management structure means that a team can have a lot of impact because they’re not hiding behind a hierarchy.

Then, if you combine that with our really kind of fast growth… the opportunity for promotion is there… We need to promote people to managers… and generally speaking, [we are] big advocates of promot[ion] rather than hire. I’ve seen a lot of people be promoted within the organization as opposed to hiring external talent to come in.