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How to hire remote employees in
Laws about hiring are complicated. Zambia’s no different. But there are ways to sidestep the headaches—if your company hasn’t already established a physical presence in Zambia, you have two real options when it comes to hiring. We’ll detail both below.
If you want to successfully hire in
Zambia
, you have two options:
Laws about hiring contractors are significantly more simple in
Zambia
. 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 Thera 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
Zambia
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
Zambia
.
Hiring employees takes months, at the minimum. When you hire with Thera'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 Thera, then $25 per month to hire your contractors with Thera. 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
Zambia
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 can open you up to increased liabilities and regulations. When you hire contractors overseas, your biggest risk is misclassification—but laws surrounding contractor classification are often significantly more straightforward.
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
Zambia
, you can pay them with Thera 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 Zambia 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 Zambia.
All employees, except temporary or casual employees, contracted to work for 12 months or more are entitled to annual paid leave calculated at a rate of two days per month or 24 days per year.
There are 14 public holidays.
The duration of sick leave entitlement is based on the following:
In Zambia, under the Employment Code Act, under the provisions of section 41, if the female employee with at least two years of continuous service is entitled for 14 weeks' maternity leave with full pay.
Fathers who have one year of continuous service with their employers are entitled to 5 days of paternity leave, to be taken within 7 days of the birth of the child.
There is no provision in the law on paid or unpaid parental leave.
Family Responsibility Leave - Employees with at least six months of service are entitled to seven working days of paid leave.
Employees are entitled to seven days of leave.
Employees are entitled to 12 days of paid compassionate leave for the death of a spouse, child, parent or dependent.
A worker who is re-hired by the same employer for the same job within two years from the contract termination date is not required to go through probation again, provided that the termination was not performance-related.
The employee is also entitled:
The notice period in Zambia is:
Severance is not payable to employees working under a fixed-term contract or so-called long-term contract (defined as a contract for service exceeding 12 months, renewable for a further term or for a specific task/project with a predefined end date).
Instead, they are entitled to an end-of-service lump sum gratuity equal to 25% of the employee’s base pay over the term of the agreement.
Provisions were created for probationary employment of up to three months, which may be extended one time.
The standard workweek is 8 hours per day and these should not be more than 48 hours per week.
By including the lunch and prayer time in hours of work, working hours should not be greater than 9 hours a day.
Work that is performed in excess of 48 hours a week is to be paid overtime at one and-a-half times the worker’s hourly rate of pay.
Work performed on paid public holidays or on a Sunday(where Sunday is not part of the normal working week) should be paid at double the worker’s hourly rate of pay.
Time off may be substituted for overtime pay.
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