13 December 2019 
Amanda Darley, Head of Operations and Engagement
Article contributed by Sarah O'Riordan, PwC
Over the past few weeks, PwC and BUFDG have jointly hosted roundtables for universities whose employees are working overseas. The number of attendees and the popularity of these sessions demonstrate how widespread an issue this is for all HEIs, where traditional expat programmes are diminishing, and more informal arrangements such as working from home overseas are rising exponentially.
In a world that is getting smaller; employees expect to be able to work wherever they can and need. That comes with risks; travel risks, working in unsafe locations, but also compliance risks for the individuals and their universities from a legal, tax, and social security perspective, before even considering pensions and insurance. We saw a huge amount of discussion around the challenges faced internally within a university, in unearthing information, and knowing what to do with the information found.
It's fair to say that there is no one-size-fits-all solution, and that no university could say that they knew where all their employees were, at any one time. Universities are balancing the struggle between academic freedom and ensuring compliance and maintaining that duty of care to employees; a mobility team needs to be seen to enable mobility, not hinder it.
Across the diverse group of attendees and the universities they represented there was general agreement it was imperative that this issue needs addressing as a priority. Most were in agreement that to do this there needs to be a better process within their HEI to understand which of their employees were spending time working overseas. To do this, better engagement is needed both at employee and senior stakeholder level around the importance of understanding and managing employees working internationally.
The next steps for all universities, however far they are along their international journey, is to continue to focus on understanding the work pattern of their employees who spend time working internationally, educate their employees and stakeholders on why more controls are needed, to issue communications, and to ensure policies and processes are in place and followed to manage risk and improve effectiveness. A university that wants to operate in a global landscape must have a process in place that allows it to be competitive internationally, but that also manages the associated risk for both the university and its employees. By asking the question up front, having a simple conversation about a proposed international trip or flexible working arrangement, universities can save themselves significant costs and reputational damage of putting right historical compliance failures.
PwC is working with several Higher Education Institutions across the UK to help manage the compliance issues with regards individuals working globally. For more information, please contact PwC.
