Major HR challenges companies face when expanding to Africa

Outsourcing your HR processes like employee onboarding and payroll when you expand to Africa doesn’t automatically spare you from facing HR issues…

But understanding the main issues that companies before you have faced will surely help you avoid these pitfalls yourself. Among them are:

1. Multiple HR and payroll systems

 Picture it: you are expanding to not just one, but to several African countries.

Your plate is full as it is with:

1. Expansion paperwork,
2. Trying to make your company profitable
3. Negotiating with investors and/or a board of shareholders
4. Looking for and negotiating with local service providers/partners
5. Finding talent that fits the bill
6. Navigating the obstacle course of regulations and laws in a specific African country
7. Being accountable to all stakeholders in your venture
8. Unexpected issues that crop up every so often

To this already loaded list of responsibilities, you, like many other managers find yourself adding an unnecessary task: juggling between HR and payroll systems for every single country you are present in.

This means keeping track of progress, employee reports, leave approval, and other crucial HR tasks on multiple systems, at the same time. Not only does this cause more human errors (which cost money), but it also means more time lost whenever an issue crops us. How? It’s simple: as the manager, you will need to get in touch with the point-of-contact for a specific country whenever you need information about an error.

This kind of mental load further strains your already busy mind. This triggers more human errors and turns HR outsourcing into a problem of its own, as opposed to a solution for your problems.

Payroll providers like Africa HR Solutions offer you a truly hassle-free solution. Thanks to a centralised payroll experience, you get a single point-of-contact, and a single HR system for ALL your needs across Africa.

2. Scalability

Hindsight truly is 20/20… Many companies expanding to Africa choose HR partners who fit their current needs. However, they usually fail to consider whether these HR experts will be able to stand by their side if their needs expand, shrink, or change significantly.

When your company and subsequently your HR needs are rapidly growing and all doors seem to open for you, nothing breaks your momentum quite like finding out that your current HR provider cannot support your evolving needs.

This inability to scale applies to processes like payroll, where HR providers cannot handle payroll if your team grows from 25 employees to 100 employees for example.

At this critical point, you may find yourself needing to look for and screen new HR providers in a rush – hardly an ideal situation.

This is why scalability must be at the top of your criteria list when you choose an HR provider like an EOR, PEO, or even a payroll provider in Africa.

3. Flexibility

When companies expand to an African company, they do not realise that their HR partners can only accommodate their needs at a basic level.

This issue stands out even more starkly when it comes to payroll:

1. Companies may need to pay their workers at a different frequency, for example. If a company employs both office workers and manual workers, the latter may ask to be paid more often, every 2 weeks as opposed to every month. But many payroll providers cannot offer this kind of flexibility.
2. In industries with a high turnover rate, many companies may need to offboard and onboard employees on short notice. Unfortunately, many payroll providers cannot handle this challenging rhythm, leaving companies at a stalemate when they should be moving in tandem with the trends that shape their activities.
3. Depending on the industry and on the cultural norms related to labour in an African country, things like notice periods may vary wildly for workers within one and the same company. For instance, if a company employs a person to do the cleaning full-time, and then also employs office workers to get administrative work done, these 2 types of workers cannot be expected to have the same notice period. Once again, some payroll providers won’t be able to accommodate these variations.

Naturally, these blockers stop companies right in their tracks, breaking their momentum.

To avoid these troublesome dealings, Africa HR Solutions makes sure to be accommodating of employers and industries with different needs. It is this dedication to flexibility, among other things, that earned us the “Regional Payroll Provider Award 2024” from the Global Payroll Association. Clients and prospective companies can rest easy knowing that their payroll and HR provider can support them through different situations.

4. Cybersecurity

How safe is your sensitive employee and company data when you expand to and operate in Africa?
When even world-renowned football clubs like Manchester United are not spared from employee data breaches, other companies have a right to be scared, especially when they are expanding in a foreign country.
In fact, some HR providers do fail to meet industry standards when it concerns cybersecurity. Data is not stored safely on secure servers, can be accessed by unauthorised personnel, and risks being breached. In fact, breaches of employee data increased by 41% in 2023, according to the law firm Nockolds.

Africa HR Solutions makes payroll, employee onboarding, and other HR services easy for you

With Africa HR Solutions, there is no need to worry about multiple payroll systems, scalability, payroll flexibility, or your employees’ data being breached. We know what your company needs to thrive, and we are ready to offer you customised and relatively hands-free EOR, PEO, and payroll solutions. Looking to find out more about our solutions? Chat with one of our experts now.