Francoise Brougher
Chief Executive Officer, Pebl
The next workforce advantage is having the flexibility to act when conditions change. Global hiring is becoming more than an expansion exercise; it is how companies can access scarce skills, test markets and stay adaptable through uncertainty.
For businesses, resilience increasingly means having the flexibility to respond when circumstances change. Yet many organisations still build teams around a fixed map of offices and legal entities.
“The strongest workforce strategy starts with knowing where the skills, customers, and opportunities exist, then establishing the infrastructure to support them,” explains Francoise Brougher, CEO, Pebl. “Resilience depends less on predicting every change, and more on creating the room to respond.”
Putting flexibility to work
An Employer of Record (EOR) gives organisations of any size a flexible way to access global talent, enter new markets and respond to business change without first establishing a local legal entity.
“The question should no longer be, ‘Where do we already have an entity?’ It should be, ‘Where is the talent or market opportunity, and how quickly can we act?’” says Brougher. “An EOR can help a business hire a scarce AI specialist in Poland, retain an employee following an acquisition in Germany, test a market with a salesperson in the UAE or support an international assignment.”
Employers that can make it easy for people to work across countries,
cultures and teams will have a real advantage
Meeting global expectations
Alongside organisational priorities, flexibility matters to employees. Pebl’s 2026 UK Gen Z Workforce Survey found that 88% of respondents are highly interested in employers that allow temporary work from another country, 68% would prefer to remain UK-based while gaining international experience, and 88% believe working across cultures would make them better leaders, challenging the status quo that you can’t have both a British career and work globally.1
“This desire for flexibility is significantly ahead of what many employers currently offer,” says Brougher. “Global career access must increasingly be designed into workforce strategy. Employers that can make it easy for people to work across countries, cultures and teams will have a real advantage competing for the next generation.”
Resilience by design
The businesses best prepared for uncertainty will not necessarily be those that predict every shift correctly. They will be those with the workforce infrastructure and decision-making discipline to act when talent, technology or market conditions change.
“Global workforce flexibility is not about hiring everywhere,” concludes Brougher. “It is about giving leaders more than one way to respond, and letting opportunity, rather than organisational geography, determine where a business can go next.”
[1] Pebl, 2026. UK Gen Z Wants Global Careers Without Moving Abroad. tinyurl.com/mr48u6fj
