- State specific employment laws in the US. We are in NJ and if I hire out of state, we need to register a business in that new state. Large companies have money and teams for this. Smaller companies, not that easy. I have done it personally so speaking with experience
- Internal hiring can add more issues. SUre we could find a EOR or just do 1099 etc but it is never that simple. I lost a good senior candidate recently because he wasn't comfortable working as a contractor legally since he is in the UK and he would have preferred local UK benefits/tax system etc. He didn't want the hassle of doing his own invoicing etc. We looked into EORs but didn't seem good enough for just 1 person.
- Tax, Labor and Legal implications due to the point above
- Timezone issues. No, a fully remote job cannot be completely asynchronous even in tech. You have to be available for the team whether it is meetings, urgency or collaboration in general. If you want to be fully async, you are better off working as a freelancer (even then, you will need to meet your clients though)
- Remote work in my opinion requires a higher level of discipline, honest and integrity. Yes, I truly believe that as I have experience hiring some terrible remote workers (outright liars) vs some of the best ones. The best ones have all those qualities. Not that easy to find. Lot of people need a bit of discipline frankly and remote work makes it even harder.
It is not that we don't want to hire remotely. We do but the barrier to entry is higher in my opinion especially for smaller companies.