Founder and CEO of Syndesus, Marc Pavlopoulos, was recently featured on the HR-themed podcast, HRchat. The podcast is part of HR Gazette, a media website publishing fresh perspectives on topics connected to Human Resources and improving the ways we work. Marc and host Tim Baker chatted about the founding of Syndesus, coordinating a workforce across the US-Canadian border, and changes to the US H-1B visa policy.
Give the full podcast a listen.
Prior to forming Syndesus, Marc recognized a problem in the increasingly competitive domestic market for attracting engineering talent to startups. His background includes time spent living in Canada, so when Marc began to develop a solution, he realized connecting Canadian engineers to US-based startups could be the key:
“I just realized, wait a minute, there’s a great opportunity here…Originally it was a recruiting company. I build software engineering teams in Canada for VC-backed startups in the US.. These were young companies growing. They didn’t have time to figure out operations in Canada. One of the best services I could offer them is building an employer of record.”
The employer of record (EOR) model that Syndesus utilizes has advantages compared with other methods of employing workers from outside the US, as Marc explains:
“The EOR model is unique because what it allows the US company to have a greater say in the employment of the person. . .the model I have is not a staffing agency. It’s more of letting the company in the US have the choice of who they employ. Then when that decision has been made, Syndesus Canada as an EOR can help them with legal employment of that worker in Canada.”
With changes in Washington, more and more H-1B worker visas are being denied to tech employees, so Syndesus is poised to help companies who want to retain capable employees whom cannot stay in the US:
“It’s the idea of moving displaced workers on H-1Bs who can’t stay in the US…to Canada. There’s a model to do that, or just outright building new operations up there for those workers.”
These ideas and more on the unique services Syndesus can provide are discussed in-depth on the HRcast recording.
