Deanna Shimota (00:00:05) - Welcome to The HR Tech Spotlight podcast. I'm Deanna Shimota, CEO of GrowthMode Marketing. The HR technology market is crowded, and we know it can be hard to find the best software solutions for your business in the sea of sameness. On this podcast, we shine a spotlight on some of the best up-and-coming technology options out there. Check it out if you are interested in learning about new, innovative solutions available in the market. And if you are with an HR tech company and interested in being considered for a guest spot, stay tuned for details at the end of the show.
Hello and welcome back to the HR Tech Spotlight. In this episode, we are shining the spotlight on Solar Staff, an agent of record service with a freelance management platform that enables companies to onboard, manage and pay contingent workers in 190 countries across the globe, ensuring your company stays compliant even in hard-to-reach regions. Joining me for this chat is founder and CEO of the company, Pavel Shynkarenko - which I'm sure I butchered your name.
Deanna Shimota (00:01:14) - Feel free to correct me. Yes. Welcome to the show, Pavel. So tell us about your background in the HR tech space.
Pavel Shynkarenko (00:01:24) - In HR tech. I started with my legal expertise and legal experience and legal practice before running Solar Staff. I had my own legal practice, and I help companies to manage their legal issues and build a lot of infrastructure. Business infrastructure in different countries included, including HR infrastructure for their purposes, and I help my clients to manage their freelance forces in different countries as a legal advisor. And after then when I recognized there is the common problem, the management of the small contracts is the headache for the corporations. I start and run the businesses. Named it Solar Staff. Ten years ago that happened.
Deanna Shimota (00:02:19) - So tell us, Pavel, what is the story behind founding the company? I know you are the founder and the CEO. How did the company come to be?
Pavel Shynkarenko (00:02:28) - Yeah. The story began from my legal practice. I had the previous business named the Cynical Corporation, and it was the legal firm.
Pavel Shynkarenko (00:02:44) - And we work with internet companies and help them to, Automate the legal procedures for them. And one time 12 years ago, one of my clients asked me. Please help me. I cannot manage a lot of freelance agreements for my company. I have to automate all of that because I have more than 1,000 contractors. And it means 1,000 agreements. And I have not enough resources for or the legal expertise on the document flow. I have to automate that. And I bring my team and we organize everything. We spend half a year to do everything for this client. And when we finished, we receive another the same. And when I received the third one, I think, okay, it looks like a business. It's not what I really have to do without any kind of automation. And I would like to start to offer this type of service as a service. And that was 11 years ago. And ten years ago we created Solar Staff. It was one of the first fully automated contracts of record service, and we built our own business infrastructure and legal infrastructure and automation of all the procedures of concluding and execution, the freelance deals for our clients and start to provide that as a service for our clients worldwide.
Deanna Shimota (00:04:45) - As an agent of record that specifically specializes in the world of freelance and contract workers. Obviously, there's a lot of complexities when it comes to compliance across 190 different companies. What would you say are the typical challenges or problems that you see facing companies that are managing that contingent workforce on such a large and global scale?
Pavel Shynkarenko (00:05:11) - The first of all. Of course it. It is the difficulties they faced with a lot of local rules and regulations in different countries, and when the huge corporations start to proceed with that small agreements, it means for them they spend a lot of resources, the time and money, just to clarify all the regulations, all the requirements. But the amount of the deal is it could be a couple of hundred US dollars and the time spent on checking. Could be ten hours. Of your legal department, and it cost you much more than that freelance work. Could cost you. That's why we build our own business infrastructure and legal infrastructure and own contracts and own document flows to automate all of that and give our clients just the possibility to press the button, invite their contractor inside the system, and we will check.
Pavel Shynkarenko (00:06:35) - Everything to make sure everything is clear. All documents are good. that person is compliant. And you could start with the task. With the work. With new contractors, it looks like an onboarding, legal onboarding procedure, KYC and contracting as a service. the that challenge in a legal perspective. Another challenge inside the management and management skills. Of course, after the pandemic, not all of us, but a lot of us receive the experience of remote work, of management, of remote teams and hybrid teams, etc. but before the Covid, it was just the niche. Maybe six. Up to 10% of the companies use a lot of freelance forces and remote teams and hybrid works. Mostly IT and web-based companies did that before Covid in. Nowadays, we received the situation when a lot of infrastructure and HR infrastructure are already remote. First, when you even start up your business with couple of managers inside your team, you already have all that software and solutions and templates ready for mold, but that nowadays, before Covid, it wasn't here and only a couple of percent of companies could use the right management skills, the right and necessary sets of documents and understand how it could be that remote KYC, that remote KYC procedure, that compliance procedures and etc. etc. and they cannot manage their that huge.
Pavel Shynkarenko (00:08:51) - Different regulations and different types of works. On the other hand, the procedure of finding the right talent, it is difficult. The finding the right employee is also difficult. In the same difficulties, another type of relationships, but the same difficulties. You should know what you exactly need to be done to find the correct person available to give you the result.
Deanna Shimota (00:09:26) - So obviously it's very complex and your company helps with that. Can you explain to our listeners who may not be familiar with what an A or agent of record what it is?
Pavel Shynkarenko (00:09:40) - It looks intermediary between your company and your freelancer or contingent worker or. And any kind of alternate employment person Uber worker, platform worker doesn't matter. We are in the middle. You conclude the deal with our company and ask us. We will act like an intermediary. We buy and sell freelance services for your company. If you would like to, for example, you find the Indian influencer and you cannot imagine what type of contract and due and payment you should proceed with. What kind of restrictions and regulations.
Pavel Shynkarenko (00:10:29) - We'll be there. What kind of tax reporting should be? Inside that deal. You're. Just ask us. Please go and buy that services from that influencer and sell it to me. And that means you conclude the deal with our New York-based company, and we will conclude the subcontracting deal with that freelancer instead of you. That looks like an intermediary service. We provide the business infrastructure, the intermediary service automation, legal procedures, and paperwork's all. Looks like an outsourcing of all that process for your company.
Deanna Shimota (00:11:17) - And how is solar staff different from other competitive options out there in the outer space?
Pavel Shynkarenko (00:11:24) - We focused on the relationships between the customers from western part of Europe, eastern part of Europe and US, and freelancers from hard to reach countries like an Asia-Pacific region, like African countries, like X countries, etc. in those kind of countries that have a lot of restrictions in regulations, a lot of sometimes weeks bank systems, sometimes a lot of local rules and legal procedures, sometimes difficulties in KiB and KYC or other restrictions.
Pavel Shynkarenko (00:12:11) - And to we built our infrastructure to conclude that type of deals and to manage all that difficult processes for our clients make it easier.
Deanna Shimota (00:12:28) - What type of companies are the perfect fit for solar staff?
Pavel Shynkarenko (00:12:32) - We like to work internet services, some kind of platforms with internet advertisement services. They manage a lot of influencers and bloggers. We like to work with online educational platforms. They use a lot of contractors. Also many different types of businesses using us.
Deanna Shimota (00:12:56) - And what impact have you seen organizations that work with solar staff experience?
Pavel Shynkarenko (00:13:01) - Sorry, could you repeat?
Deanna Shimota (00:13:03) - Yeah. What are the results when companies work with you? A lot of times they're looking for the ROI.
Pavel Shynkarenko (00:13:10) - They reduce their cost of management, of contract contractor management, speed up all the procedures. Without our company, they spend 3 to 5 days to start to work with a new freelancer, with our company and our service. It could be done in a couple of minutes. if we will start to talk about reducing the cost, sometimes it depends on the procedure inside the corporation, inside our clients.
Pavel Shynkarenko (00:13:42) - But sometimes we reduce their administrative and management costs for 80%, sometimes for 40%. They start to spend less money on administration and management of their freelance forces.
Deanna Shimota (00:14:01) - What is your future vision for the company?
Pavel Shynkarenko (00:14:04) - We would like to build a set of tools for freelancers and for the companies, and start to be some kind of standard for alternate employment relationships. We will focus on not only on the freelance, but in contingent work in Team Lansing and another alternate employment relationships, and build sub-products for each of these types of relationships.
Deanna Shimota (00:14:42) - What would you say is the biggest hesitation that you see companies have when they're looking at a solution like solar staff or something similar?
Pavel Shynkarenko (00:14:52) - I think first of all, they would like to have some something. Really sorry, I hear something reliable. Yeah. Then stable solution. Because when they start to use freelancers from different countries and contractors from different countries, the situation with the restrictions and regulations could be changed, and they are faced with a lot of difficulties in that, and they are struggling for the reliable service that will help them to include that relationships inside their core business activities. Because the business is always about. I do not know something that you could use and reuse. A lot of time when you use your freelance talent pool, many times without any kind of additional cost, additional. I do not know how additional resources involved in that. It will give you an advantage and that advantage. We provide for our clients that advantage in the speed of concluding and execution deals and reducing the cost, especially when they contract with international freelance forces.
Deanna Shimota (00:16:25) - What final thoughts do you want to leave our audience with?
Pavel Shynkarenko (00:16:28) - I think after the Covid the situation has been changed and a lot of alternate. Employment appears and become and replace the traditional way of work and especially the generation choose that type of alternate employment. And that means you have to work with that. You have to change your processes. It is already there. And we already have a lot of infrastructure built for these type of relationships. And that means if you will be one not of the first, but of this kind of companies that already used that type of relationships, you will receive the competitive advantage of the future of work.
Deanna Shimota (00:17:32) - Where can our listeners go to learn more about solar staff?
Pavel Shynkarenko (00:17:35) - We have our own website. We are present on social networks and LinkedIn, and we make a lot of research and reports according to the freelance market. And you could read a lot of our articles. It is helpful.
Deanna Shimota (00:18:05) - Well, thanks for the conversation today. For those listeners who have a large global contingent workforce, check out Solar Staff. I'll be dropping the links in the show notes for this episode. Thanks for listening to this episode of the HR Tech Spotlight podcast, where we showcase some of the best up-and-coming HR technology options in the market. If you are an HR tech company leader who would like to be considered for a guest spot on this program, please contact me via GrowthModeMarketing.Com. Or reach out to me, Deanna Shimota, on LinkedIn. And if you found this show informative, subscribe. Connect with us on social media. And leave a review.
Deanna Shimota (00:18:49) - This is Deanna with GrowthMode Marketing signing off. Thanks for listening.
Deanna Shimota (00:18:54) - We hope you'll tune in again next time.