Home office: Brazilians work in foreign companies – 04/29/2023 – Market

The pandemic has changed work culture, giving many employees the opportunity to work from home for the first time.

And for some, not being tied to an office means being able to move to a different city or even a new country.

Since 2020, at least 30 nations have started offering digital nomad visas, in the model called “anywhere office” (“office anywhere”, in free translation).

The issue, however, begins to become more complex when employees fail to inform companies that they are traveling – or even that they have permanently moved to another country.

This is the case of Diego*, who moved to Italy in 2019 and started a job there in the customer service area, 100% face-to-face. With the pandemic, his position began to function fully at home office.

He returned to Brazil in October 2021 – but until today he has never told anyone at the company.

The decision to keep his “anywhere office” hidden, he says, is due to the fact that there is a law in the European Union that cannot have call center services outside the group’s countries.

“The issue of receiving in euros [daqui do Brasil] was also a big factor for me. But the big reason for going back was that Europe was going into a depression. I wasn’t very happy, Italy has a very elderly population and I missed Brazil”, says the young man.

One of the tricks Diego uses to avoid distrust of the company is having two cell phones: one with the Brazilian number and the other with an Italian code. “No one at work has my social media either, I never passed it on to anyone, not even when I was working face-to-face”.

However, the greatest care, he says, has to be in relation to the working day, as it is always necessary to calculate the time zone when meeting the demands.

Does the workplace still matter?

A survey by HR consultancy Topia revealed that up to 40% of people management professionals in the UK and US found that employees had recently moved.

In the same survey, 66% of employees in the United States admitted that they did not inform HR about all the periods they worked away from their home location and 94% think they should be able to work from anywhere if this does not affect the delivery of work.

According to Tais Taiga, a job hunter (a professional who advises on job and career changes) and a specialist in outplacement, many companies still have a very strong culture of professional micromanagement, wanting to know where the employee works from.

“This issue of having face-to-face work will often cause companies to lose great talent. Another point is that Brazil may lose professionals: many countries are opening their borders to foreign workers, countries with stronger currencies and models more flexible”.

For Karen*, who, like Diego, works in Brazil without her European company knowing, a great positive factor is the flexibility of working hours that her job allows.

As she is unregistered – acting on a similar model to freelancing – she didn’t feel she owed the satisfaction of letting the company know where she was working.

But he still takes precautions: he has two phone numbers and keeps social networks away from his co-workers.

Karen says she intends to stay with the company for a long time.

And, despite having to work often at night due to the time difference, she does not see this as a bad thing: “I have a lot of free time, maybe if I want to go back to college or take a part shift work elsewhere wouldn’t be a problem.”

The worker’s hours flow depends on the time of year and, even in the months of lower demand, Karen says that the salary is still worth it when compared to that of a Brazilian operator.

“Here in Brazil, I manage to have a better quality of life than living in Europe with the same salary”.

Both Diego and Karen believe that they would not be fired if their bosses found out that they had been in Brazil for more than a year. But, in any case, they don’t want to risk it.

Am I required to tell my boss where I am working?

For Juliana Inhasz, Professor of Macroeconomics and Macroeconometrics at Insper, the question above depends on the current employment contract.

If the employment contract provides for the person to work face-to-face, even if the company has at some point allowed remote work, he remains a face-to-face worker.

Therefore, if there is a change of model, the person must ask for an amendment to the contract, so – if there is no obligation in person – he has the free right to change city or even country, comments the professor.

“The more we deepen this idea of ​​truly remote work and, above all, what is understood as remote by both sides of the relationship, the greater this flexibility becomes”.

Juliana points out that each country has its current labor legislation, so you need to be aware.

Some companies may be subject to additional taxes if employees spend a certain amount of time – usually more than half of the year – in another country.

In addition, they can also face fines if employees work abroad without the proper work permit.

To avoid this risk, along with cybersecurity and security concerns, many companies prohibit employees from working abroad.

“The person may be causing the company to be incurring in labor errors, but in fact due to pure lack of knowledge”, clarifies the specialist.

“We are talking about this issue when there is a contract, but it is very common to see more and more pejotization [referência ao termo “PJ”, ou pessoa jurídica, quando trabalhadores que são terceirizados e emitem notas fiscais aos empregadores como empresas]. She would not have that obligation, she would be autonomous. In that case, you only need to make the tax returns for the provision of services between the parties and understand how the other country’s declaration works”.

*Sources in this story Diego and Karen spoke on condition of anonymity to protect their careers, but the BBC has verified their identities and jobs.