How to Convince Your Employer to Let You Work Abroad

Five Tips to Convince Your Employer to Let You Work Abroad as Digital Nomad

As an employee of a company, you are entitled to numerous financial benefits and perks apart from various allowances. Expenses related to healthcare paid leaves or vacations, and children’s education are usually covered in your pay package as an expat worker. However, if you are feeling stuck or bogged down in your office or tired of the daily commuting for hours, you would need a solid plan to convince your employer to let you work abroad as a digital nomad.

The reasons for choosing to work remotely can be diverse. Needing sufficient time to explore your expat destination, reduce your commuting hours, or spend quality time with loved ones. Telecommuting is undoubtedly a great solution, especially during these times when social distancing is a must to stay safe from the dreaded COVID-19. Still, you may face an uphill task to convince your boss that you are better off working remotely.

Here are 5 tips to convince your employer to let you work abroad:

Plan Out the Logistics in Advance

If you want your boss to take your proposal of working from home seriously, you should have a detailed plan. It should cover how remote work can benefit both parties. For instance, you should be able to figure out how to connect to the office VPN if you are working remotely. Many companies are very concerned about network security so you had better have that figured out and secure. You should have valid answers for questions related to telecommuting and how you would overcome various obstacles that may come on your way.

Prepare Yourself with Adequate Research

To convince your employer to let you work abroad, have solid data to back up your plans to work remotely. Through research, you can easily find enough data to prove why remote working is beneficial for both parties. There are data that proves that the attrition level is lower in companies that encourage remote working.

Employees will be more productive and the cost per employee would be less as the infrastructural expenses can be drastically reduced. It needs to be a win-win situation for everyone. You will also need to make sure you have high-speed internet access that is reliable. Take note that it is not always the case in some developing countries.

Focus on How this Will Benefit Your Employer

You must put yourself in your employer’s shoes when you plan to work remotely. Put your company first when it comes to making such decisions. Ask yourself simple questions like – Will a project suffer because employees want to work from home? Is it possible to stay focused on the ultimate goal of the employer of ensuring seamless services? Does it matter if you are physically present in the workplace? If you think that the work won’t suffer and your project can accommodate people who are working remotely, you can propose the remote working option to your immediate boss.

If this is not possible in a particular project, you can always hop into another one that doesn’t demand regular office attendance. You have to be able to convince your employer that you working abroad will benefit the company.  You have to prove that you will be productive when working abroad.

Propose a Couple of Trial Runs Abroad

You may have worked remotely for several organizations in the past. However, this doesn’t entitle you to seek remote working as soon as you join a new job as an expat professional. You can plan to take one step at a time. You can propose something like working from home one day per week. If your first teleworking day works fine, your boss may likely agree to your next plans of working remotely for two days in a week.

However, your productivity during these remote working days has to be the best. It will give you the leverage when asking for perpetual work from home facility. You have to gradually prove that you are a reliable professional who can work effectively no matter where you are. Eventually, your boss will appreciate your hard work and agree to your requests for working remotely for many days at a stretch.

Try Not to Give Up

If working in the traditional 9-to-5 shift has been the norm in your organization, convincing your employer to work remotely can be a tough task. Remember, major changes in any organization takes time, so you should be mentally prepared for it. Don’t think that the resistance is because of your boss’s strict ways of functioning.

Often in most cases, companies need the time to decide and accept a new normal. If nothing works in your favor, you should be more than happy to change jobs. Opt for one that offers the flexibility of working remotely. Ultimately it is up to you to decide what works best for you and your family. So, don’t give up on your quest for a happy and happening life abroad as an expat.

What About Global Health Insurance for Digital Nomads?

Your domestic health plan will not cover you while abroad for more than a month or even less. Even that is only for emergencies. Unless you have a really generous employer, they are not going to arrange and pay for an international health insurance plan that will cover you both abroad and back home. You should setup up and pay for the international medical coverage yourself.

Note that any individual medical plan that covers expats and global nomads will be individually underwritten – which means that you and your dependents have to be in good health to be approved by the expat health provider. Of course, we offer a variety of plans to suit almost any budget and requirement. Also, note that travel insurance will not cut it when it comes to living abroad as these plans are meant for short trips abroad while keeping your medical care back home. You will need international health coverage that covers both emergency and non-emergency medical care locally, regionally, and globally.