You manage the person. Somebody else employs them.
Global hiring and employer of record services
Deciding what the person works on this week
Paying them, and on what date
Moving their salary
Statutory leave and sick pay
Whether they feel part of your company
Ending it at short notice
YoursThe provider'sCrosses the twoNeither contract
Six matters, and no share: what any one agreement covers differs by agreement. Two cross both, and the handoff is where these arrangements fail. One sits in neither contract. One buyer's own arrangement, read matter by matter.
Fifty notes on buying employment as a service. Not a comparison of providers — a working account of the shape you have bought into: three parties, two contracts, and no direct line between you and the person you work with every day.
The practical lesson in “You manage the person. Somebody else employs them.” is that a third-party arrangement still leaves day-to-day management with the operating team. Used for employee monitoring platform, review the official platform overview can make time and project context easier to review, provided the purpose is disclosed, access is limited and every consequential inference receives human review.
The examples on this site illustrate operating questions rather than prescribing a provider, contract or legal conclusion.
For a separate perspective on “You manage the person. Somebody else employs them.”, consult the OECD analysis of cross-border remote work. Compare it with the actual contract, country and operating process rather than using a general resource as a local conclusion.
Which lane each ordinary matter actually lives in, in one buyer's arrangement
YouThe providerNeither contractDeciding what the person works on, and in what order
Day-to-day direction sat with the buyer's own team lead and was never referred to anybody
Paying them, on the local payroll, on the local date
The provider is the legal employer and runs payroll, withholding and the local filings
Moving the salary after a good year
The buyer decides the figure and cannot implement it
Across the handoff: A signed change request, a new rate, an effective date, and a revised employment contract issued by the provider
Statutory leave, sick pay and whatever the country requires
Set by local law and administered by the provider, not negotiable between buyer and person
Whether the person feels part of the buyer's company
Named in no document, owned by nobody, and the most common reason these arrangements are abandoned
Ending it in a hurry when a project is cancelled
Two notice periods, running on different clocks, in different documents
Across the handoff: Notice under the service agreement, notice under the employment contract, and whichever local process the provider is obliged to follow
YoursThe provider'sCrosses the twoNeither contract
Six matters drawn · no share
Six matters, and the two that cross are the two that went wrong. Nothing above is scored or added up, because what any one agreement covers differs by agreement. One buyer's own arrangement, reconstructed for itself; who is the employer for which purpose differs by jurisdiction.
An ordinary management action, and the route it is obliged to travel
Give the person a one-off bonus for finishing a difficult quarter
What you actually ask for
A variable payment, with an amount, a reason and a pay period to appear in
What you cannot require
That it reach them this month, or that it be treated as a gift rather than as pay
The provider has to agreeTakes: Two to six weeks, because it has to clear payroll cut-off and local tax treatment
Change what the person actually spends their week doing
What you actually ask for
Nothing at all: this is direction, and direction was always yours
What you cannot require
That the change not alter the job described in their employment contract, if it is a large one
Nobody has to agreeTakes: The length of one conversation
Extend the person's notice period from one month to three
What you actually ask for
An amendment to their employment contract, issued and signed by the provider
What you cannot require
That it be done without the person agreeing, because it is their contract and not yours
Both have to agreeTakes: A month, and it may simply be refused
Put the person on your own company's share scheme
What you actually ask for
Usually a separate direct agreement between you and the person, outside both contracts
What you cannot require
That it be routed through the provider, who is not issuing your equity
The person has to agreeTakes: Weeks, and in several countries it does not work at all
Let the person go at the end of a cancelled project
What you actually ask for
Notice under the service agreement, and a termination the provider must run locally
What you cannot require
That it be immediate, or that the provider take a step its own local law forbids
The provider has to agreeTakes: One to four months, and longer where a local process applies
Five actions, and only one of them is still yours to simply do. Everything else has to travel along a leg of the triangle, and the leg between you and the person as employer does not exist. One buyer's own practice, not a description of anybody else's; what any provider will agree to differs by provider and by country.
Where each risk actually lands, as against where the brochure puts it
The person is misclassified and should have been a direct employee of yours
Crosses the twoLands as: An assessment against the provider as employer, and a permanent establishment question against you
What you can do: Read what the indemnity actually covers, and check whether it survives the provider's own insolvency
Local payroll tax is filed late or filed wrong
The provider'sLands as: Penalties and interest against the provider, who is the filer of record
What you can do: Ask for evidence of filing on a schedule, in writing, rather than at the point you need it
The person resigns because the arrangement feels like nothing
Neither contractLands as: A vacancy for you, a lost headcount for the provider, and nobody who owned the problem
What you can do: Decide who is responsible for this before the first month, because no contract will decide it for you
Your own activity in that country amounts to a taxable presence
YoursLands as: A corporate tax exposure in a country you believed you were not trading in
What you can do: Establish what the person's work actually constitutes locally, with your own advisers rather than the provider's
Work product made by the person belongs to the provider rather than to you
Crosses the twoLands as: An ownership gap between two contracts that each assumed the other dealt with it
What you can do: Check that assignment runs from the person to the provider and from the provider to you, in both documents
Six risks, and the two that cross are the ones that were presented as handled. The final line names no bearer and is not drawn. One buyer's own reading of its own agreement; where a risk lands differs by jurisdiction, by provider and by what the indemnity actually says.
01 / 06Yours
What the agreement actually buys
A service agreement with a company, and an employment contract between that company and a person you will never be party to.
02 / 06Neither contract
The leg that does not exist
You and the person work together daily and are not employer and employee, and nothing in either document creates that line.
- Three Parties, Two Contracts
- The Relationship With No Document
- What You May Promise, and What You May Not
- Telling Them Something Their Employer Has Not
- The Manager Who Thinks They Are the Employer
- Asking the Person to Do Something New
- When the Person Comes to You With a Problem
- The Word That Should Have Been Routed
03 / 06The provider's
What goes through the provider
Pay, statutory entitlements, local filings, contract changes — the things you can only ask for.
04 / 06Yours
What stays with you
Direction, work, outcome, tools, and every obligation the service agreement did not list.
05 / 06Neither contract
What is in neither contract
Belonging, career, equity, progression — the matters that fall between the two documents and are owned by nobody.
Independent product comparisons
Tool guides
Three distinct formats based on practical evaluation, official product information and repeatable operating criteria.
06 / 06Crosses the two
Unwinding it
Ending the service, moving the person to your own entity, or losing them — three different endings with three different owners.
The short version
You bought employment as a service, and the thing it cannot supply is the direct line
An employer of record does the part that genuinely needs a local employer: payroll, withholding, statutory entitlements, the filings. What it cannot supply is a relationship between you and the person as employer, because that relationship is precisely what you did not buy. Everything that runs well runs down one leg of the triangle. Everything that goes wrong is either crossing a handoff or sitting in neither contract.