isolved and Remote Partner to Bring Global Hiring Infrastructure to SMBs
On You Should Know, host William Tincup talks with isolved's Barry Gauch and Remote's Pim Altena about a new embedded partnership that gives small and midsized businesses enterprise-grade international hiring, payroll, and compliance across 192 countries without building it from scratch.
Charlotte, NC (Newsworthy.ai) Wednesday Jul 22, 2026 @ 7:55 AM EDT
Ryan Leary
“For me, future work is building teams around skills, not limited by geography in the future. That's what I would... iSolved's a people-first, customer-first business.”
The July 21, 2026 episode of You Should Know, hosted by William Tincup of WRKdefined, brings listeners inside a partnership that could reshape how small and midsized businesses compete for talent. Titled How isolved and Remote Are Opening Global Hiring to SMBs, the conversation features Barry Gauch, Executive Vice President at isolved, and Pim Altena, GM for Remote Embedded and VP of Partnerships at Remote. The two executives detail how their companies are collapsing the legal, payroll, and compliance barriers that once locked SMBs out of hiring internationally, and why the timing matters as skill-based hiring accelerates.
Tincup guides the discussion through the full arc of the alliance, from origin story to rollout. Listeners hear how isolved ran a formal RFP that narrowed ten providers to five, why a referral relationship preceded the deeper embedded integration, and what makes Remote's API-first model different from competitors. The trio unpacks Remote's three hiring modalities inside a single platform:
Ryan Leary
“For me, future work is building teams around skills, not limited by geography in the future. That's what I would... iSolved's a people-first, customer-first business.”
- Employer of Record (EOR) for fast market entry
- Contractor management for flexible engagements
- Global payroll for established international teams
Gauch is direct about what tipped isolved toward Remote after research showed SMB and mid-market demand for cross-border hiring was climbing. "Our customer demand for global hiring had picked up," he explains, adding that isolved chose partnership over building because "it's not our key competency, but we know we needed to deliver it." Altena frames the opportunity in personal terms, recalling his time 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." Pim Altena, Remote
The conversation digs into the operational reality behind global employment. Tincup notes the State Department recognizes 192 countries with which U.S. companies can do business, each carrying its own federal, state, and municipal payroll rules. Altena points to the extreme divergence in labor law, citing that pre-employment medical exams are 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, and 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.
About You Should Know
You Should Know, from WRKdefined, is a podcast that unpacks the pivotal leadership challenges shaping the modern workplace. Hosted by industry veteran William Tincup, the show engages HR practitioners, talent acquisition leaders, and anyone invested in the evolving world of work through candid conversations with the executives and operators driving change. New episodes drop regularly. This episode on isolved and Remote is available now wherever podcasts are heard.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How did the isolved and Remote partnership originate?
- According to Barry Gauch, isolved's research arm identified rising SMB and mid-market demand for global hiring, prompting a formal RFP that narrowed ten providers to five. Remote was selected after careful evaluation, and the companies began with a referral relationship as a proof of concept before moving to a deeper embedded integration. Gauch and Pim Altena finalized direction at an isolved conference.
- What three global hiring models does Remote offer inside the isolved platform?
- Remote provides employer of record (EOR), contractor management, and global payroll, all within a single platform. Gauch emphasized that this simplicity was a key selection criterion, because SMB and mid-market customers can pick whichever option best suits a given country or business situation while remaining compliant, without learning multiple systems.
- Why does Remote build its technology to be embedded rather than sold only direct?
- Altena explained that Remote has invested in an API-first, embeddable architecture since 2019, proving the product in its direct channel while treating partnerships as the real value driver. That approach differs from competitors and lets isolved customers purchase EOR, contractor, and global payroll services under the isolved brand within the same product experience they already use.
- How does this partnership change hiring for SMBs specifically?
- Gauch argued that SMBs and mid-market companies (roughly 1 to 500 employees) can now compete with enterprise recruiting arms by sourcing on skill rather than geography. Altena added that many customers unconsciously constrain themselves to their existing legal entity footprint, and embedding Remote inside isolved removes that limitation without requiring customers to stand up entities abroad.
- What is the rollout timeline for the embedded integration?
- Gauch said isolved's org readiness process typically takes six to nine months, covering development, communications, marketing materials, and price guides. Soft launch materials and customer communications will precede a full push, with Gauch targeting early 2027 to have the embedded offering fully clipping along across isolved's customer base and reseller network.
- How will the ApplicantPro acquisition intersect with this partnership?
- Gauch confirmed ApplicantPro has been fully integrated into isolved and is being rebranded into the isolved family. He expects talent acquisition professionals and recruiters to be energized by the ability to source globally by skill and hire compliantly, and noted that staffing-company resellers have been waiting for a single platform rather than juggling multiple providers.
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