Organization overview: A UK-based NGO that provides support for children who have been displaced due to conflict and natural disasters. It offers access to educational services, counseling, and basic healthcare.

Background: Our customer was established in 2012 by volunteers interested in addressing the needs of children affected by conflicts and natural disasters.

The organization relies on local workers, hiring them as temporary contractors for the delivery of services in areas where relief is needed. Contractors are supported by the organization’s regional offices in the UK, Kenya, Singapore, and Costa Rica.

A late 2016 audit revealed that our customer had misclassified workers it hired in Australia earlier that year, and it was forced to pay nearly $100,000 USD in back taxes, social costs, and fines for each misclassified worker.

Primary challenge: Manage compliance with labor laws in countries where it provides temporary services

• Our customer hires short-term, local contractors to help address humanitarian crises.

• When crises remain unresolved for long periods — for example, in Gaza and Ukraine — the contractors often stay on site to offer continued support.

• Retaining contractors for long periods of time can violate the labor laws of some countries (particularly the US, UK, Germany, Spain, and Australia, where laws pertaining to the employment of contractors are very strict).

Secondary challenge: Enable expansion to satisfy donor’s conditions

• A major donor made a contribution on the condition that our customer would grow its capacity to simultaneously serve more people in more affected regions.

Our customer was under pressure to quickly find a better way to handle compliance, to extend its reach without taking on even more risk.

The 2016 floods in India illustrate the challenges:

• In 2016, severe flooding in the Indian state of Assam affected more than 1.6 million people.

• The organization hired temporary local staff to help the region’s children.

• Four contractors remained in place for more than one year to help restore several of Assam’s schools.

• State authorities cited and fined our customer for assigning temporary contract status to workers who appeared to be working full time for the organization. The fines, back taxes, social cost contributions, and other financial penalties totaled nearly $200,000 USD.

Customer objective: Identify an HR solution that will boost our customer’s global operational capacity and address compliance-related risks

Solution: After our customer approached Safeguard Global in 2024, we held a consultation to understand the organization’s operations and compliance-related issues and then proposed our Employer of Record (EOR) solution as the answer. Their senior management was impressed with the Safeguard Global EOR solution for several reasons:

• With our EOR solution available in nearly 190 countries, we were perfectly suited to help hire workers — no matter where in the world they’re needed.

• Our EOR solution can onboard workers in as little as two days, enabling our customer to respond to emerging humanitarian crises with greater speed.

• The EOR solution pays workers in their own currency and in accordance with local laws.

• Our technology allows the organization to monitor time and expenses more easily and analyze spending, turnover, and payroll taxes.

• As our customer’s employer of record, we assume the legal compliance risks the organization previously faced. This resolves a significant pain point for the organization.

Results: In June 2024, the organization became a Safeguard Global EOR customer, and it was just in time.

In March of 2025, an earthquake measuring 7.7 on the Richter scale struck the Sagaing region of Myanmar. Thousands were killed and many more were injured or displaced.

The Safeguard Global EOR solution:

• Reduced the time needed to hire and onboard local staff by 75%. We identified, hired, and onboarded four pediatricians, seven relief workers, and three counselors within seven days — a task that would have taken the organization’s Singapore-based team at least four weeks.

• Saved the organization roughly 30 to 40 hours of compliance work by eliminating the need to research local labor laws and check that contracts, payment terms, benefits requirements, etc., meet local standards.

• Enabled the organization to address children’s needs more quickly, reducing the response time by approximately 80%. We hired and onboarded staff and handled all compliance matters, allowing our customer to provide healthcare and counseling far sooner than they are typically able to.

• Saved the organization up to $700,000 USD by ensuring compliance with Myanmar’s worker classification laws.

Overall, the organization has benefited greatly from the Safeguard Global EOR solution and partnership. In mid-2025, it began executing its expansion plans and also entered talks with UNICEF on a potential partnership. These opportunities were only possible because of the savings in time and resources, and the elimination of compliance risks the organization achieved through the Safeguard Global EOR solution.