Multicultural Onboarding: Hiring Employees from Abroad

The rise of remote work has turned team building into a global process. Companies increasingly recruit specialists from outside their home country, and candidates move freely between countries in search of attractive career opportunities. As a result, the workplace naturally becomes multicultural, and teams bring together people with different experiences, languages, and communication styles.

In such conditions, the recruitment and onboarding process takes on a new dimension. Employees from abroad have to learn not only the organization and the role but also local cultural norms and how the company operates. Organizations, in turn, need to prepare their teams to collaborate in an international environment. It's a challenge - and at the same time an opportunity to build more open, effective, and diverse teams.

What is multicultural onboarding and how does it differ from the traditional kind?

Practice shows that many employers still underestimate the importance of onboarding. They don't always know how to design it so that new employees quickly reach their potential and the hiring process is smooth and predictable. We described the challenges employees face when joining new organizations in detail in our "Onboarding in Poland 2025" report.

For employees from abroad, there are even more challenges. On top of the standard stress of a new role come a change of country, new surroundings, a different culture, and often a language barrier as well. It's no surprise that without proper support, adapting can be considerably harder for foreign nationals.

‍At the same time, the Polish labor market increasingly relies on specialists from abroad - according to data from Statistics Poland (GUS), at the end of March 2025 there were 1,067,000 foreign nationals working in Poland, 5.5% more than a year earlier. Multicultural onboarding is becoming a reality for a growing share of companies.

To better understand the specifics of this process, it's worth turning to the 4C onboarding model - according to its definition, the process of onboarding a new person should cover the areas of Compliance, Clarification, Culture, and Connection. In an international environment, the Culture area comes especially to the fore - and it's not only about organizational culture. Just as important is introducing the employee to the culture of the country in which they'll be working, and supporting them with the practical aspects of functioning in a new environment.

Multicultural onboarding therefore requires a broader perspective and the consideration of additional challenges, such as:

• the language barrier,
• cultural and communication differences,
• legalizing residence and formal matters,
• the need to adapt documents,
• working in a different time zone.
  

These are only some of the areas employers should take into account when planning the onboarding of employees from abroad. A properly prepared process, however, can significantly increase their comfort, shorten the adaptation time, and raise the quality of collaboration across the whole team.

Onboarding more important than recruitment?

For employees from abroad, a positive recruitment outcome is only the beginning of the challenges. A new role often comes with the need to face an unfamiliar country, culture, legal system, and a series of formalities, such as legalizing residence or arranging a place to live. This is accompanied by a natural sense of uncertainty and stress that a local candidate doesn't experience to the same degree. That's why onboarding - and especially preboarding - becomes a key HR process here, one that can determine whether the employee finds their footing in the new environment at all.

Supporting the new person before day one, helping with documents, clear communication, and a predictable process significantly lower stress levels and let them focus on the actual onboarding into their professional duties.

Remote work doesn't make things easier - quite the opposite. For an employee from abroad it's an additional, this time geographic, barrier. There are no natural opportunities to get to know the team, observe the company "from the inside," or build relationships through everyday micro-interactions. In such conditions, the role of the buddy becomes even more demanding, because they have to consciously create space for the contact and support that happen "by themselves" in an office.

That's why organizations that hire employees from abroad should treat preboarding and onboarding as a strategic extension of the recruitment process. These are what decide whether foreign talent safely "enters the company's orbit" or drops out of it before they have a chance to spread their wings.

Why will most teams in companies soon be multicultural?

Until now, we've looked at the work of foreign nationals primarily in terms of temporary employment. Economic migrants appeared in the country long ago. In those circumstances, it was the staffing agency that focused on sourcing workers for its clients. In many industries - for example manufacturing or agriculture - the number of issued work permits grew year after year. Yet the foreign nationals employed in these sectors didn't require any special onboarding. Today, significant changes have taken place in the labor market. Specialists from abroad with professional services and expertise to offer appear in domestic corporations more and more often. In this case, recruiting employees from abroad can't do without well-thought-out onboarding, and the process itself has its clear causes. What are they?

Remote work opens up the global market

The dynamic growth of remote work in recent years has completely changed the way companies build teams. The digitization of processes, the automation of tools, and organizations' growing maturity in working online mean that today many jobs can be done from anywhere in the world - regardless of the employee's location or the company's headquarters. This has opened up the labor market on a global scale.

More and more companies recruit candidates from outside the country, because the difficulties in finding local talent are significant - over 70% of organizations declare problems with sourcing suitably qualified specialists. Extending recruitment efforts to international markets has therefore become a natural and often necessary way to expand the candidate pool.

On the other hand, the country is an attractive destination for specialists from abroad who are considering work in growing sectors and stable organizations. As a result, onboarding, translating documents, adapting formalities, and preparing processes for employees from different countries become not so much a convenience as a business necessity.

Modern tools, such as electronic registration, digital onboarding, or online training, significantly speed up the hiring and onboarding of foreign nationals, enabling companies to operate smoothly in an increasingly global work environment.

A country attractive to Shared Services Centers

Respondents to a Deloitte study ranked Poland among the top preferred locations for Shared Services Centers (SSC). In organizations of this type, working in an international environment is the standard. Many processes (for example in HR or accounting) from several countries are outsourced to an SSC in a single location. This requires hiring employees with various language skills, ready to work in a dynamic, multicultural environment - one in which reporting to a manager from another country is nothing out of the ordinary. What's more, in organizations like these, recruiting specialists with fluent French, German, or even Swedish or Greek is common practice.

In the Deloitte report, the country appears several times among the preferred locations for Shared Services Centers (SSC).

But where do you find a valuable candidate with experience as an HR admin and fluent Swedish? The number of such candidates locally may be limited... Employees from abroad fill this gap in the labor market perfectly, and their experience beyond the country's borders is added value for organizations.

Multicultural onboarding: the biggest challenges in onboarding people from abroad

Crossing borders to find satisfying work has a dimension that isn't only geographic. It often also means facing many challenges. These await both the employee from abroad and their new employer.

The employee's stress

Stress during the first days at work is completely natural. The stress level of a candidate from abroad, however, far exceeds that of someone from the local labor market. To increase such a newcomer's comfort, you have to attend to their needs on many levels with care and empathy. Without this, we won't be able to deliver effective onboarding, and the employee may quit very quickly.

The language barrier  

Among the significant challenges, in second place it's worth noting the existing language barrier. True, English has long dominated in international organizations. In practice, however, employees from abroad living in the country don't always feel at ease. From the very first day they land in surroundings where everyone also speaks the local language, at least in informal situations.

Effective onboarding is built on communication, and communication can't work without a shared language. A new employee not knowing the local language is no reason to reduce the scope of onboarding activities - on the contrary, it requires adapting the process so that it's fully understandable and useful for them. That's why the key elements of onboarding - materials, procedures, instructions, training, checklists, or welcome messages - should be available in a language the employee feels comfortable in. It's also worth considering involving a person who speaks that language and can serve as a first point of contact, especially in the first weeks of collaboration.

This minimizes the risk of communication barriers, and the newly hired person gets a real chance to step into the role quickly and comfortably - without the stress of trying to read "between the lines."

Cultural differences  

A Japanese employee who rarely takes vacation? Or a visit to the sauna as part of a business meeting in Finland? Cultural differences aren't always so striking. Sometimes they consist of subtle nuances that show up, for example, in the approach to communicating with a manager or the team. Even so, when onboarding an employee from another country into a new role, you always have to take them into account. It's an essential element of building open communication and trust, without unnecessary awkwardness.

That's why hiring an employee from abroad should involve onboarding them not only into their duties and the organization's operating rules but also into the local work culture. And that culture can sometimes be hard for foreign nationals to understand. Proper onboarding helps avoid misunderstandings. Especially when representatives of several or even more than a dozen countries meet in one place, for many of whom this is their first job - and even their first visit to the country.

Formalities

Hiring an employee from another country generates additional formalities, such as help with translating documents or even matters related to legalizing residence. When designing the onboarding process, it's worth reserving space for such topics too and assigning the related tasks to a specific person on the onboarding team. It's also a good idea to digitize the gathering of documentation and place it on a convenient online tool. This way, the new employee can fill out the necessary questionnaires and provide documents to the HR department at a time that suits them.

Settling in

It's hard to feel at home in a completely new place right away. You can, however, make foreign employees feel at least like welcome guests. A good practice is to support the newly hired person in finding an apartment or getting to know the city. Some employers go a step further and provide employees from abroad with a whole relocation package and concrete financial support "to start."  

Team integration

Distributed teams and remote or hybrid work are a challenge for team integration in themselves. If we add cultural differences, a different language, or even work in a different time zone, the challenge is doubled. Even so, it's worth taking on, so that the new crew member doesn't feel alienated and the rest of the coworkers can benefit from their experience and knowledge.

A sense of being lost  

New responsibilities, a new team, new procedures and tools - in such circumstances anyone can feel lost, all the more so if they're starting work in a foreign country. Multiplying questions and doubts, combined with a lack of support in a completely new professional (and not only professional) reality, are a straight road to crisis and quitting. A well-planned multicultural onboarding should take into account the challenges an employee from abroad faces and equip them with the knowledge and tools to feel safe and comfortable - and, as a result, onboard effectively into their daily duties. 

Does multicultural onboarding concern only people from abroad?

Working in a cross-cultural environment can be a challenge not only for foreign nationals. Local employees may also feel uncomfortable. For example, when seemingly small, neutral gestures on their part violate the business etiquette familiar to a coworker from another country. And an awkward situation is easy to come by... A simple thumbs-up gesture has a positive meaning in European countries, China, and the USA, while in Thailand or the Middle East it's read as a serious insult.

Communication isn't only the language we use in a given country, but also (and perhaps above all) the nonverbal sphere. It's far more subtle and harder to grasp at first glance. Not everyone has to know the basics of the language their coworkers use, but it's worth making team members aware of which customs or gestures can be problematic and which are received positively.

Over time, the newcomer will understand the local culture and, thanks to their experience, will largely adapt to it. This won't happen overnight, though. So the existing employees should show a greater dose of empathy and understanding toward the foreign nationals arriving for work.

Build cross-cultural competencies

If you employ many foreign nationals, don't forget about the needs of the local employees their new colleagues from other countries are joining. Equip them with the right knowledge as early as the onboarding stage, preparing them to work in a cross-cultural team. You can also take action at later stages of their career at your company. How? For example, by involving them in integration activities or cross-cultural competency training - an onboarding app will help you with this. This way you have a chance to build genuine partnership and collaboration among all members of the crew.