Remote Work Assistant

Remote Work Assistant – Enable New Work. Avoid Risks.

Digital solution for remote work abroad

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The key advantages at a glance

  • Enable your employees to temporarily work from abroad ("workation" or “bleisure”)
  • Mitigate all involved tax and legal risks effectively
  • Minimise manual efforts through our automated process

Working remotely abroad and workation: what companies need to consider

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way we live and work forever. More and more employees are about to turn into digital nomads, as new arrangements allow them to work flexibly from home or other locations. As part of this trend, the demand for flexible cross-border work arrangements is continuously increasing. Employers must meet this demand in order to attract new talents and avoid unwanted attrition. In the context of New Work, remote work from abroad is on the rise, often combined with holidays (“workation” or “bleisure”).

However, depending on the work location a number of tax and legal risks must be mitigated for both the employer as for the employees. This includes labour and immigration law, wage tax and social security aspects and in particular risks in relation to Permanent Establishments risks from a corporate tax, transfer pricing and VAT perspective. Up to now, these risks either need to be investigated on a case-by-case basis or could only be identified retrospectively, leading to time-consuming processes and considerable costs. These risks can also have significant consequences, including missed registration and declaration obligations abroad.

Remote Work Assistant – A comprehensive work management solution

The Remote Work Assistant is an all-in-one solution that puts PwC's global tax and legal expertise into an easy-to-use solution, enabling employees to work from up to 40 countries with very effective risk mitigation. 

Employees submit their request for remote work abroad through a web-based tool that collects all the information for the tax and legal assessment. The decision logic is automated and in real time. All aspects of labour law, immigration law, income tax, social security as well as income tax and VAT risks are included in the decisioning rules, based on unique individual country information delivered through the global PwC network. Low risk requests can be directly approved through the tool, while high risk requests will be rejected. Only the few remaining requests require a manual decision from the HR or tax department.

All requests will be collected and summarised for further evaluation and monitoring in comprehensive dashboards. In addition, individual requirements and criterias regarding the decision logic can be added.

Your benefits

  • Strengthen employer brand

    Promote your company as an innovative employer to attract new talent!

  • Enable New Work

    Engage your employees by offering an attractive benefit that is almost cost-neutral for you as an employer.

  • Minimise risks

    Remote work from abroad involves numerous (tax) legal risks. With the Remote Work Assistant, these risks will be effectively mitigated. All decisions will be documented accordingly and consistently.

  • Increase efficiency

    Our solution creates a fully automated decision-making process, minimising manual efforts for assessments and ongoing monitoring. As a result, you can free up capacity in your HR/Tax teams for more complex work.

Enable remote work from abroad – it's that simple

  • 01
    Preparation

    We jointly assess your individual requirements for remote work from abroad based on your entity and employee structure. This assessment includes individual decision criterias and rules. 

  • 02
    Implementation

    We set up an individual tenant of the Remote Work Assistant for your company and integrate it with your single sign-on environment to avoid additional login procedures for your employees. 

  • 03
    Ongoing usage

    Employees enter their remote work request into the tool and will be guided through a specific questionnaire. The risk classification will be made in real time for up to 40 different countries.

  • 04
    Documentation and Monitoring

    All requests will be recorded and made available in dashboards to ensure comprehensive monitoring and reporting capabilities  at any given time.

Pricing

  • Implementation
    from € 40,000
    one-time

Get in touch

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FAQ

How long does it take to assess a remote work request?

The risk assessment is carried out immediately in real time and fully automated after the employees have submitted their request via our tool. The check takes about 2-3 minutes.

How many countries does the Remote Work Assistant cover?

The standard Remote Work Assistant package covers 20 European countries. This list can be extended to up to 40 countries for which all risks are assessed with regard to labour law, migration law, wage tax and social security as well as in relation to permanent establishments risks in terms of corporate tax, transfer pricing and VAT. On request, we can develop individual assessment logics for countries that are not on our list yet.

How reliable is the risk analysis?

The analysis is based on the tax expertise of specialists from the various disciplines of the global PwC network (corporate tax, VAT, wage tax, social security, labour and immigration law). While other solutions are based on generic blanket assessments across country groups, the Remote Work Assistant offers a country-specific assessment. The result: In comparison, more requests for remote work abroad are approvable, so that you can make the benefit as attractive as possible for your employees - without taking higher risks.

How high is the technical implementation effort for us?

From a technical point of view, the only effort your company will have to make is connecting to your single sign-on environment. However, this is usually only a minor configuration effort.

What are the user requirements?

A modern browser and internet access are sufficient. Of course, the Remote Work Assistant also works via smartphones and tablets.