Hiring abroad is notoriously difficult: New labor laws, entities, a lot of words you’d rather not hear again. But we’ve got good news—it doesn’t need to be that way. Below, we’ll break down your two main options for hiring in Sierra Leone (and the one we prefer).
If you want to successfully hire in
Sierra Leone
, you have two options:
Laws about hiring contractors are significantly more simple in
Sierra Leone
. Onboarding talent takes days, not weeks or months. Both you, the company, and your talent have more flexibility. And in many cases, since you’re remote, the talent you’re hiring is better classified as a contractor, anyway. Of course, it’s not possible in every case, but it’s what we built Panther for.
This is the long route. You can either establish a physical presence with an entity and register as an employer, or you can use an Employer-of-Record (EOR) solution. Odds are, you’ll find using an EOR to be the easier route. Still, using an EOR in
Sierra Leone
is expensive—it can often be $500 per month per employee—and sometimes prone to lengthy onboarding times.
Hiring contractors is normally the easier, faster, more flexible choice—but don’t just take it from us. Below are the specific benefits and drawbacks to hiring contractors in
Sierra Leone
.
Hiring employees takes months, at the minimum. When you hire with Panther’s locally-generated contracts, it’s a matter of days or weeks. This means you can hire the best talent, fast, without losing them to a hellish procession of paperwork.
It costs just $0 to sign up for Panther, then $49 per month to hire your contractors with Panther. If you hired employees manually (or did contracting on your own), you’d likely be on the hook for thousands of dollars each month. Setting up an entity alone can cost tens of thousands of dollars.
Hiring contractors in
Sierra Leone
means you’re generally not on the hook for things like health insurance and paid time off. This makes hiring flexible for you, and it gives your talent more options.
Hiring employees is a bigger commitment, and generally puts you at a bigger risk for legal fees. When you hire contractors overseas, your biggest risk is misclassification—but even then, misclassification penalties are often minimal and just require you to pay off any compensation that the person would have been owed as an employee.
The contractor life isn’t for everyone—some people want the security that being an employee often appears to provide. Though it’s rare, this does happen, and it’s one disadvantage of manage an all-contractor team.
Most countries’ contractor-employer relationship laws stipulate that the employer can’t set fixed working hours, among other things. These laws give contractors more freedom over how and when they do their work than an employee would have. In reality, however, most contractors are willing & able to work on the company’s schedule—it’s a matter of setting expectations beforehand.
If you’re hiring contractors in
Sierra Leone
, you can pay them with Panther in a single click. You won’t need to worry about complicated wire transfers, fees, or currency conversions. We’ll take care of it all. Just make a click and your contractor will get paid in their currency of choice. This is a valuable bonus for talent in countries where the local currency is particularly weak—most people appreciate the ability to receive their payment in stronger currencies.
If you’ve read up until this point, you’ll know that it’s easier, cheaper, and more flexible to hire contractors in Sierra Leone than employees. Still, there are valid reasons why you might want to hire employees instead. The content below is for you—we’ll cover employer taxes and obligations in Sierra Leone.
Employees are entitled to 19 days paid annual leave, which increases to 22 days after five years of service and then 28 days after 10 years. Vacation Time in Sierra Leone:
There are 10 public holidays.
Entitlement to sick leave is generally governed by collective agreement or the employment contract.
Employees generally receive at least five paid sick leave days annually.
Female employees are entitled to 12 weeks of paid maternity leave.
The employer pays the leave unless otherwise agreed in a collective agreement.
There is no paternity leave in Sierra Leone.
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An employment contract in Sierra Leone can be terminated at the end of the contract period (if for a fixed term) by the employer or the employee. Fixed-term employment contracts terminate at the end of the term.
An employer and employee can terminate an employment contract without providing notice during the probation period unless there is an individual or collective agreement that requires notice.
Notice of termination periods range in between one week to one month. However the employee’s services must be terminated for just cause.
Severance payments are not mandated by law in Sierra Leone. However, if an employee is terminated on the grounds of redundancy, they will be entitled to prior notice and compensation in accordance with their length of service with the employer.
The probation period iin Sierra Leone cannot exceed s six months.
The standard workweek in Sierra Leone 40 hours.
Overtime in Sierra Leone is paid at and additional 50%; work on rest days is paid at an additional 100%.
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