HR Without Borders. Payroll Without Limits. Workforce Management Without Complexity.

The future of work is being shaped right now, and UNLEASH Paris 2026 is where the world's HR, technology, business and AI leaders come together to decide what's next. Across three days, HR innovators, transformation leaders and technology experts will explore the trends, challenges and opportunities redefining work.

This year, SD Worx is bringing the power of local expertise and international scale to Paris.

Visit us at our booth and discover how organisations across Europe and beyond are transforming HR, payroll and workforce management through smarter technology, stronger partnerships and truly international solutions.

 Global payroll compliance doesn't end after setup. Learn how multinational companies can manage local regulations, payroll changes and compliance risks across countries.

In the latest episode of HR Without Borders, SD Worx experts Jo Lavrysen and Koen Putzeys discuss why managing country-specific requirements is actually the hardest part of global payroll compliance. 

Growing your business across borders can sometimes feel like climbing Everest... But it doesn’t have to be this way. SD Worx People, our multi-country core HR and payroll, is designed to help you centralize and digitalize your HR processes, making it easier than ever to manage your workforce in new and unfamiliar territory.

Global payroll compliance is more than an administrative task. Discover the biggest payroll, tax and social security risks international employers face and how to avoid costly mistakes. 

If your organisation runs payroll in three, ten or thirty countries, "payroll" isn't one process. It's a different rulebook, tax authority, reporting deadline and language in every location, all expected to land in employees' bank accounts on payday, every month, without fail. 

For HR and business  leaders managing multiple legal entities,  is about paying people accurately everywhere, on time, under dozens of legal frameworks at once, while still having time left for strategy and employee experience. 

Only 40% of employees say self-service HR tools are easy to use (Source: SD Worx Pulse report). The problem usually isn't the software, it's adoption. Training stops at go-live, and nobody keeps teaching people how to use the system as it evolves and new hires join.

Hiring internationally offers exciting growth opportunities for SMEs, but it introduces complex compliance challenges. While the immediate concern is often payroll, international employment, payroll and tax experts Jo Lavrysen and Koen Putzeys from SD Worx emphasise that a robust employment setup is the foundational step. This involves understanding local regulations, social security and tax obligations before payroll can be correctly implemented.  

International growth rarely follows a perfect plan. 

You find the right person in a new country. You identify an opportunity in a promising market. Or you complete an acquisition abroad. The business is ready to move, but your legal and payroll infrastructure is not. An Employer of Record (EOR) offers an alternative. 

Implementing pay transparency across international organisations requires a balanced approach, combining global principles with local adaptation. It involves structured processes, clear governance and consistent decision-making across hiring, compensation, HR operations and payroll. The goal is not to create identical salaries or a single pay framework for every country. The goal is to create a fair, transparent, and explainable system that applies consistent principles everywhere while respecting local realities.  

Internationally operating organisations are leading Europe on AI. They explore it more than domestic/local ones, invest in it more, scale it more. Which makes total sense because the needs are also more. And yet, when it comes to seeing real results, the gap between ambition and outcome is almost identical to that of their domestic peers.

Based on SD Worx HR & Payroll Pulse 2026 — Europe's largest annual HR research project, covering 5,936 HR decision-makers and 16,500 employees across 16 countries.