The July 21, 2026 episode of You Should Know, hosted by William Tincup of WRKdefined, details a partnership between isolved and Remote that aims to make global hiring accessible to small and midsized businesses (SMBs). The episode, titled "How isolved and Remote Are Opening Global Hiring to SMBs," features Barry Gauch, Executive Vice President at isolved, and Pim Altena, GM for Remote Embedded and VP of Partnerships at Remote. The executives explain how their companies are eliminating the legal, payroll, and compliance barriers that have historically prevented SMBs from hiring internationally.
The discussion covers the origin of the alliance, from isolved's formal RFP process that narrowed ten providers to five, to the referral relationship that preceded the deeper embedded integration. Remote's API-first model, which offers three hiring modalities within a single platform—Employer of Record (EOR) for fast market entry, contractor management for flexible engagements, and global payroll for established international teams—is highlighted as a key differentiator. Gauch notes that "our customer demand for global hiring had picked up," and that isolved chose partnership over building because "it's not our key competency, but we know we needed to deliver it."
Altena frames the importance of the partnership in personal terms, recalling his experience as a Remote customer trying to hire an Italian candidate he could not legally employ. "You're hiring people for skills, right? Like, that's what you should do, but you're actually constraining yourself often unconsciously by just the compliance capabilities, the legal entity footprint that you already have as a business." The conversation also delves into the operational complexities of global employment, with Tincup noting that the State Department recognizes 192 countries with which U.S. companies can do business, each with its own federal, state, and municipal payroll rules. Altena points to extreme divergence in labor law, such as pre-employment medical exams being mandatory in some jurisdictions and forbidden in others, and highlights France and Germany's high employee-protection regimes.
Gauch emphasizes that affordability and white-glove customer treatment were non-negotiable criteria for the partnership. He also previews how the integration with ApplicantPro, now fully folded into isolved, will excite talent acquisition teams and staffing-company resellers looking for one platform instead of many. The episode underscores the timing of the announcement as skill-based hiring accelerates, making global talent pools more critical for SMBs competing for top talent. The full episode is available now wherever podcasts are heard.
