Workations to visit family abroad: how AutoScout24 optimises compliance and costs with WorkFlex
Discover how AutoScout24 enables global and compliant mobile working with WorkFlex, meeting the needs of employees from 55 nations while achieving cost savings.
- Industry
- Automotive marketplace
- Nationalities
- 55
- Countries worked from
- 20
- Work-from-anywhere
- Up to 10 days
An international workforce keen to work from home countries
AutoScout24 is known as an online platform for buying and selling new and used cars. Although the platform was originally focused on the German market, AutoScout24 has expanded its presence internationally. This global focus is also reflected in the diversity of its workforce, who were keen to work from their home countries. For this reason, AutoScout24 has enabled its employees to work worldwide since the pandemic, so-called "Working from Anywhere". However, AutoScout24 had encountered many challenges, particularly with regard to compliance.
Making working from anywhere structured and compliant
Before the introduction of WorkFlex in September, working from anywhere was handled informally internally during the pandemic. The challenge was to find a structured solution that met the needs of employees worldwide while maintaining compliance. Because AutoScout24 was still struggling:
- Unstructured approach: AutoScout24 wanted to make working from anywhere more structured, especially after informal working from anywhere was the norm during the pandemic. WorkFlex provided a solution to enable this flexibility in an organised way.
- Lack of internal know-how: AutoScout24 initially tried to organise flexible working from anywhere internally. However, the company realised that it was a significant effort and that internal employees did not have the necessary expertise. The decision to use WorkFlex was made in order to overcome these challenges and obtain external support.
- Diverse employee needs: AutoScout24 has employees of 55 different nationalities. Many employees had the desire to return to their home countries and work from there. WorkFlex made it possible to meet these diverse needs.
Global coverage and a no-risk concept
After a careful selection of providers, the company chose WorkFlex for the following reasons:
- Advanced status: AutoScout24 emphasised that although WorkFlex was still considered a start-up, it was significantly more advanced compared to other providers in the field. The platform was able to offer comprehensive services that met AutoScout24's global requirements.
- Global coverage: WorkFlex provided AutoScout24 with the ability to offer not just European but worldwide workations, for all nationalities and different branches. This was particularly important to AutoScout24 due to their diverse workforce.
- Eliminating compliance risks: AutoScout24 recognised that there were significant risks involved in handling international workations with legal aspects such as payroll tax and social security law. AutoScout24 was particularly impressed by the no-risk concept that WorkFlex assumes liability for. The included travel health insurance was another major deciding factor in favour of WorkFlex.
- Good communication and support: AutoScout24 praised the good cooperation with WorkFlex, the quick response to questions and the continuous support, even for problems that rarely occur.
The automation of processes, such as the application process and communication with employees, resulted in significant time and cost savings for AutoScout24.
Global destinations, more flexibility, and cost savings
AutoScout24 has developed its "Working from Anywhere" company policy, which states that employees can work anywhere in the world for up to 10 working days. The success of the implementation was demonstrated by:
- Global destination countries: Since September, AutoScout24 employees have already worked from 20 different countries worldwide. 57% of the trips were to non-EU countries. The top destinations were not the typical vacation countries, but, in line with the diverse workforce, India, USA, Turkey, Greece and South Africa.
- More flexibility for employees: WorkFlex enables employees to work abroad for up to ten working days, particularly relevant for employees who often want to return to their home countries.
- Relief for the HR department: WorkFlex's expertise and support have reduced the internal workload immensely, especially in connection with forms, approvals and requests for non-European assignments abroad. WorkFlex automates many of these processes or takes over the issuing of all relevant documents such as A1 certificates, CoC, and travel insurance.
- Cost savings: Before implementing WorkFlex, AutoScout24 often hired expensive external consulting firms for issues related to payroll tax, social security law and other legal aspects. By working with WorkFlex, these costs are reduced as the platform offers specialised expertise, while eliminating manual forms saves administrative time and cost.