Case Study: How PGC Supported Santa's North American Expansion
We caught up with Santa Claus, CEO at a start-up in the North Pole, who recently expanded his workforce across North America.
Santa, can you give us an overview of your company?
We can probably be defined as an export company, producing goods for children across the world in exchange for their good behavior all year round! Our headquarters are in the North Pole. In the beginning, it was just myself and Mrs. Claus but, as demand for our service grew, so did our team! We now employ a huge operations team made up of elves, not to forget our shipping team led by Rudolph.
Why did you decide to employ workers in North America?
The travel ban as a result of the pandemic was a real logistics nightmare for us. We needed to make sure that our supply chain would be uninterrupted over the Christmas period. With over 80 million children in North America, it was a no brainer. They make up a significant percentage of our market. By having a workforce of local elves, the presents can be manufactured domestically and I can deliver them a lot easier on Christmas Eve night, which is traditionally my busiest night of the year!
Why did you end up using PGC as your employer of record to employ those elves rather than setting up an entity and, going about it yourself?
I had heard fantastic reviews from some of my network about how great the guidance and support was from PGC. The Tooth-Fairy emphasized how PGC were a true partner throughout their whole expansion process.
Between different federal and state laws on issues like employment and benefits, it can be difficult for an outsider to grasp these complexities. Our expertise is in Christmas cheer, not medical insurance or 401(K)!
As an Employer of Record solely focused on North America, their 20 years of expertise really shined through. We were able to have our first elf employed through PGC onboarded within just 2 working days and subsequent elves onboarded within 24 hours!
Due to different time zones, it’s incredibly beneficial that there's somebody to support our team members during their working hours. For example, if they are filing tax and have a query, we don't have the expertise to necessarily support them. Working with PGC means they can just pick up the phone and talk to them to get advice on their time zone.
PGC was able to essentially take the employment burden off us and allow us to focus a providing top-quality service to our clients across the globe.
Employing workers through PGC meant that we did not have to set up a business entity in North America. We were delighted with this as the business property market is a little bit less competitive in the North Pole.
Anything else you’d like to add?
Without going through an Employer of Record we likely would have directly employed elves in the US. Knowing what we know now, I don’t think this would have ended well. Reading articles about companies who have misclassified workers and were subsequently fined, I am pleased that we decided to use PGC and was blown away by their high-quality service. Consultative from the very beginning, it was clear they wanted to offer the best solution for our company expansion.
I don’t think I’m being over-dramatic when I say that PGC may just have saved Christmas!
Is US expansion on top of your Christmas list this year?
To help you put plans into action, we're holding our next free 'Coming to America' expansion clinic on January 5th.