Remote work is here to stay and that means big changes for mainstream insurers and many bigger brokers too. The call centre environment, with its dress down Fridays, charity collections, water cooler banter and more is on the way out. For many the relief they feel at not having to fund an expensive commute to work will be tempered by feelings of isolation, a lack of team spirit and common cause.
Then there’s all the shows and conference travel – will that come back at full throttle, and if it does, how will field staff cope with the slow decline of the office base?
However many companies are working on this new paradigm, like Omnipresent based in London, who have just raised extra funds to take their product to the next level.
Even before Covid-19, flexible and remote working was already becoming commonplace in modern companies looking to attract the best global talent. The Covid-19 pandemic has necessitated this trend but by embracing remote employment, many companies are risking non-compliance with international labour laws and regulations.
Here’s the word from Omnipresent;
We have addressed this challenge by building a tech-enabled platform that handles all of the complexity of international employment for clients and offering them and their remote workers a simplified, cost effective and legally compliant employment solution.
Fundraising news
We have raised $2m in a seed round led by Playfair Capital and Episode 1. The fundraise was closed within six weeks during the height of the pandemic with participation from investors including Entrepreneur First, Truesight Ventures, Charlie Songhurst, Andrew Goodman, Akash Gupta, Srin Madipalli and Ian Hogarth.
This financing will allow us to even better serve our clients internationally distributed teams by extending our coverage to 80 markets by the end of 2020, enabling the us to meet the explosion in demand from companies wanting to employ their interjurisdictional remote workers in a legally compliant and cost effective manner.
The demand from employees for remote positions has exploded. Employers, competing for any possible advantage in their market, are starting to understand the massive benefit of expanding the labour market from which they are willing to recruit talent, from local to global. “The most ambitious companies in the world need no longer be constrained by the available local talent,” said Dr Guenther Eisinger, our co-founder and Co-CEO. “Covid-19 has shed light on the opportunity for a new way of working and businesses have to adapt to it or face extinction.”
However, global employment brings with it significant challenges. First are the legal risks: Permanent establishment, transfer pricing, employers’ liability are just a few traps Omnipresent’s clients have fallen into before coming to the company for help.
With a network of legal entities across the world, coupled with an automation-focused tech platform, we cutting away the complexity and cost of global employment by offering what we refer to as “the premium global employment-as-a-service offering on the market.”
IE Note;
The great thing about innovation is that it knows no boundaries; gender, race, class, age, religion – all totally irrelevant. Those in the insurtech sector can find ways of blending portals and apps with real time management techniques that get the best from people, without making them feel spied upon 24/7.
London is NOT everything anymore when it comes to insurance. Let that sink in and visualise a new way of working.
You can disperse your key staff globally, let them enjoy a better lifestyle on the same salary – or less. Ability, work rate and flexibility are the key drivers now, not a 9-5 existence, unpleasant commuting and various HR problems when people are placed in close proximity to those who annoy them.
You also get to reduce your corporate spend on office rent, rates, insurance, IT equipment and recruitment agency costs.
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