A year after Personio added an employer of record (EOR) service powered by Remote, Jep Esteve, GM of Payroll at Personio, and Pim Altena, GM of Remote Embedded, sat down to talk about what's changed for customers and where the partnership goes next. They covered how AI is reshaping what companies expect from HR technology, why payroll is becoming a strategic, boardroom-level decision, the customer demand that led Personio to add global hiring — companies wanting to hire the best talent across borders without the complexity of setting up in each country — and the role trust plays in making the partnership work. It's worth a read for HR and payroll leaders building or supporting international teams, and for anyone building a solution that helps companies hire the best talent compliantly across borders.
"Global companies want a unified experience — all their people data in one place — but without added complexity as they grow. The flexibility to expand and hire internationally, without the operational complexity that usually comes with it, is what they're really looking for." — Jep Esteve, GM of Payroll, Personio
The full conversation
Lightly edited for readability.
Pim Altena (Remote): Hello, I'm Pim Altena, GM for Remote Embedded and VP of Partnerships at Remote. Joining me today is Jep Esteve, GM of Payroll at Personio, for this fireside chat. Thank you for joining me.
Jep Esteve (Personio): Very happy to be here — always great to chat, Pim, and I'm excited about our partnership. As you said, I'm the general manager of payroll globally at Personio.
Pim: Thanks for making the time. I'd love to talk more about the partnership, but before we do, let's talk about Personio in general. A lot is changing in HR tech, with AI coming up. When you look at your customers at Personio, what's different today than it was a year or two ago?
Jep: I can't avoid the AI topic — it's central to how our customers look at the tech space, and to us being a key anchor for them. They see increasing value in having a unified experience, a unified platform where they can hold all of their structured data. That really boosts their ability to transform with AI. So they look to a company like ours to provide an end-to-end, horizontal experience across anything people-related, and to use us as a catalyst to transform with AI. That's transforming our role in how companies look at us.
The other side is that we see increasing demand from global companies for that unified experience — but done in a way that doesn't add complexity. What they're really looking for is flexibility without increasing complexity. The more we can deliver through that lens, especially for global companies, the better.
AI also transforms the role payroll plays. Hiring and payroll used to be something that happened in a dark room in the back office — very manual, heavily complex, restricted to the experts. That meant many HR managers and even executives didn't have the transparency payroll could give them for strategic decisions. As we make that data digestible, reportable, and analyzable — which AI helps with — payroll becomes more relevant and important at a strategic level. In many of the customers we partner with, it's quickly elevated to the CFO, to the CEO, beyond the HR space. So AI isn't only transforming how we run payroll; it's letting payroll be used strategically, for important decisions.
Pim: It's powerful that Personio has both global HR and payroll — especially in the German market, where you've built your own domestic payroll engine and operations. You tie together a few shifts there: payroll becoming a bigger priority, AI changing companies' priorities, and expectations of what HR tech can do. Now — Personio launched this employer of record service powered by Remote about a year ago. What customer needs were you responding to at the time?
Jep: It goes back to wanting flexibility without adding complexity. Companies with a very fragmented tech stack have to deal with complexity, and we're trying to make things simpler, easier, and manageable by almost anyone in the company — by bringing experiences together in a unified way with single entry points.
But we also see that customers don't want all-in-one. It's not a value proposition if we go to market and say, "we bring it all together," but it's very shallow here and there and you're not going to get all the things you need. So we believe all-in-one is valuable, but only when it has the two criteria of breadth and depth coming together. We recognize Remote being best of breed in anything global payroll, employer of record (EOR), and many other things, which we talk about day in and day out. And that's where we see the tremendous value: if we can provide a really strong HR platform that goes deep into all our customers' use cases, and then go hand in hand with all the depth you provide through this partnership in EOR — that's where we can go to our customers with this best-of-breed all-in-one. And we can only get there if we join forces and bring it as one integrated solution.
"The moment we put in front of our customers that we had Personio EOR powered by Remote, that became a switching trigger for any customer on another standalone EOR solution." — Jep Esteve, GM of Payroll, Personio
Pim: I like how you phrase that, and it's how we see it at Remote too. Personio has this global HR tech platform — and especially in Europe you're extremely strong, catering to European businesses. You have this integrated HR, talent, and payroll experience, and then we add the global hiring capabilities on top, and it becomes almost as seamless as hiring domestically.
Jep: And clearly differentiated. We see many customers who love it, and there's real demand for that one place where you have depth in each of the use cases.
Pim: One thing I found a pleasant surprise when we started this partnership: so many Personio customers said, "Okay, if it's Personio EOR, then I want to switch." That brand trust, that brand equity you've built — it's pretty amazing. And I think it becomes even more important in the AI era, where there's so much noise competing for the customer's attention. Having a well-known, trusted brand like Personio to partner with matters.
Jep: I agree. And you said one magic word that's central to anything payroll and hiring globally: trust. It starts with trusting you're going to get it right. That's key in at least two directions — employer to employee. That trust cannot break, so you need to get payroll right, always, non-negotiably. And then trust within the company — having the data and the capability to make decisions on top of it. It's a very trust-based product we operate. The more our customers can trust us, the more value we can bring them.
Pim: One thing I'd add on trust is the trust between our two companies — and even between the two of us. With these partnerships you sign an agreement at some point, but that's just the starting point. Trust isn't made in what you put in the contract; it's in how two companies share values and objectives and operate transparently with each other. I've always enjoyed that about working together.
Jep: A hundred percent. You've heard me say, when people ask what I like most about this partnership, that it's the trust, the culture, and the relationship we've built around it.
Pim: Absolutely. Now that the partnership has been in market for about a year — what's the response from your customers?
Jep: There are three things I'd call out. One — to your point — the moment we put in front of customers that we have Personio EOR powered by Remote, that became a switching trigger for any customer on another standalone EOR solution. The value of bringing it into a unified experience is tremendous, so we see that switching dynamic as central to the partnership's success.
Second, it's allowed us to engage customers on the very strategic question of how they hire internationally — which we couldn't do before. This partnership is influencing customers to rethink their international hiring strategy, for existing international employees or future hiring. We see many companies embarking on the employer of record journey because of this partnership.
Third, customers repeat. Once they hire one employee internationally, a high percentage add more over time, because they see the efficiency and value of hiring that way. All of these dynamics play together and validate how much value we're bringing.
Pim: I really like that — unlocking that opportunity. It reminds me that I first got to know Remote as a customer. At my previous company I was building a global team, and I remember trying to hire someone to manage an Italian partner — I wanted an Italian speaker. I found the person I wanted in Milan, and I told him, "You need to relocate to Amsterdam and be on a plane two weeks out of four to be on site." He asked, "Why do you do that?" I said, "Well, I don't have an entity in Italy — I don't know how to employ you there." To me it made sense at the time. But he pushed back and came up with the solution of Remote. It was an eye-opener: it becomes so simple. I don't need to have all this setup in place — I can just hire there. And that wasn't the last international hire I made through Remote.
Pim: A lot is changing in HR tech. What are you hearing from customers that's different than a year or two ago?
Jep: The theme of AI — we need to take our customers by the hand and walk that journey with them, help them run through it faster. Our aspiration is for our platform to help customers transform with AI. That puts pressure on us to bring the key pieces of the tech stack into a unified experience, so customers can leverage their data end to end and become more intelligent about business decisions. It's about unlocking the power of HR managers — which we can do if our platform is stronger and broader. We see HR data, time management data, and payroll data really coming together at global scale.
That means our partnership needs to keep growing. We need to take it to the next level and keep adding pieces of the puzzle — bringing together HR employee data, time, and payroll so the customer becomes an AI champion on top of it. That's what we want to build, and it's where I see our partnership extending beyond employer of record, into broader global capabilities around hiring and payroll.
Pim: I like what you said about building for the HR manager. I live in the Netherlands, and there's a morning radio campaign for Personio — the tagline is "Personio, for everything HR has become." That resonates: the HR professional has so many demands on their plate, and it's about supporting them the best way.
Jep: That's very central to how we live and breathe within Personio. In our all-team meetings we always remind ourselves what we're here for — we start with a picture of an HR manager and what we need to deliver for them. Staying true to that promise is what helps us. If today it's AI, we'll be there to make them the best AI user; if tomorrow it's the next thing, we'll respond that way. The more we think about our users and customers in a changing world, the better positioned we are to add value.
Pim: I'm really happy we'll keep exploring ways for Personio and Remote to partner even deeper — to support HR managers and their companies in hiring internationally, and to make that as easy as hiring domestically, in whatever form and wherever they need to hire. Thank you, Jep.
Hiring the best people shouldn't depend on where they live. See how Remote makes global employment simple →embedded.remote.com
Subscribe for the latest updates
Sign up for our newsletter to get the inside scoop on all things remote work and global employment.
