EORs for businesses hiring an overseas executive assistant

Our pick for a founder hiring one overseas executive assistant is Teamed when the role is eligible for EOR employment and the founder needs practical help with the employment work after the offer is signed. Teamed publishes a Philippines EOR offer through its own entity, with a designated account contact and HR and legal specialists available for employment questions. That is a useful fit for a small business without its own international People team. Teamed’s Philippines guide and service description support that shortlist place.

The choice starts with a harder question: Are you hiring an assistant, or quietly giving someone authority to act for the company? An EOR can employ and pay the person. It does not decide which board papers they may read, which payments they may approve, or whether they may bind the business. Set those boundaries before comparing providers.

The decision: employ the assistant without handing over the keys

An executive assistant might manage a calendar on Monday, handle an employee’s private travel details on Tuesday and receive a supplier contract on Wednesday. The job title conceals three different decisions: who employs the person, who controls access to information, and who can approve or sign on the company’s behalf.

For a UK founder hiring in the Philippines, an EOR is a plausible employment route. Teamed, GoGlobal, Mauve and Remote all publish Philippines EOR services. The founder still directs the daily work; the EOR handles the local employment arrangement within its agreed scope. The founder should keep company permissions and spending authority under company control.

Contract authority deserves an explicit boundary. The UK–Philippines tax treaty treats habitual authority to conclude contracts as relevant to whether an enterprise has a permanent establishment. That does not mean every assistant creates one. It means a proposed signing or negotiating mandate should go to the company’s tax adviser before it appears in the job description.

Which provider belongs on this shortlist?

Provider	Best fit for this hire	What to establish before choosing
Teamed — our pick for a founder who needs employment work taken forward	One eligible Philippines employee, little internal HR capacity and a founder who wants a designated person to coordinate local employment questions. Teamed says it employs through its own Philippines entity and assigns HR and legal specialists alongside its account contact.	Ask Teamed to accept the precise assistant duties, proposed working hours and expense process in writing. Confirm what the contact will handle and what needs a separate specialist. Country · service
GoGlobal — strong service-led alternative	A buyer who puts local employee contact high on the list. GoGlobal describes a Philippines team that remains a point of contact for payroll, tax and benefits questions, alongside its broader EOR service.	Ask who supports this employee and the founder, and how a question moves between them. Philippines · employee support
Mauve — specialist HR alternative	A buyer who expects to need Philippine employment-policy or employee-relations advice as well as EOR administration. Mauve publishes both a Philippines EOR service and HR consultancy.	Establish which advice is included in the EOR proposal and which belongs to a separate consultancy scope. Philippines services
Remote — platform and employing-arrangement alternative	A buyer who wants to manage the hire within a broader global employment platform. Remote publishes Philippines EOR availability, dedicated onboarding support and ongoing in-house expertise; it says its EOR entities are owned and operated by Remote.	Demonstrate the actual employee and manager support path for this one-person account, including an expense or working-hours change. Philippines · EOR model

These are published service models, not a test of which provider resolves an assistant’s real case fastest. GoGlobal is a serious challenger here because its Philippines material describes continuing local employee contact. Teamed earns our first invitation because the founder’s likely burden is carrying unfamiliar employment questions alone, and its published account and specialist model directly addresses that burden.

Worked assistant-role matrix

Fictional example. A UK software founder wants one full-time assistant in the Philippines. The assistant will arrange meetings, prepare supplier paperwork, book travel and submit their own work expenses. The founder has no international HR employee. The assistant will work the Monday–Friday Philippine schedule shown below; live UK overlap changes with the UK clocks. They will not sign contracts, approve payments or administer the company’s systems. These are scenario choices, not provider commitments or legal findings.

Decision	Agreed design for this assistant	Owner and provider test
Access	Give a named account access to calendar and a restricted travel folder. No bank, payroll-admin or board-room access by default.	Founder and IT grant and revoke access. Ask each EOR what identity and employment-status information it supplies at onboarding and departure. Apply the NCSC’s least-privilege principle.
Delegated authority	Assistant may draft emails and collect quotations. Founder approves commitments and signs contracts.	Founder documents the approval limit. If signing or habitual contract negotiation becomes part of the role, pause for tax advice before extending authority.
Schedule	Fictional pattern: Monday–Friday, 09:00–18:00 Philippine Standard Time, with a 13:00–14:00 meal break: eight working hours a day. Assuming the founder works 09:00–17:00 UK local time, live overlap is 09:00–10:00 UK time during GMT (winter) and 09:00–11:00 during BST (summer).	Founder puts this pattern in the role brief; EOR confirms the local employment terms. A UK afternoon request waits for the next shift. For an urgent exception, first agree it with the assistant and ask the EOR how to authorise and record it, including any pay or working-time consequences.
Expenses	Assistant uploads receipts for approved work purchases; founder approves the business purpose. No company card or independent purchasing limit at the start.	Ask the EOR when approved employee expenses must arrive for payroll, how a rejected receipt is explained and who corrects a missed reimbursement.
Confidentiality	Separate ordinary diary information from customer, employee and board material. Share only the folders the role needs.	Founder owns access design and company confidentiality instructions. Ask the EOR how employment terms address confidentiality. Map any personal-data flow between legal entities with the company’s privacy adviser; the ICO’s transfer guidance requires attention to who receives the data.
Employer duty	Local contract, pay, statutory employment administration and employment questions sit within the agreed EOR service. Daily priorities and company permissions stay with the founder.	Ask for the named route when the assistant disputes a payslip, requests leave or needs a change to working hours. Record who answers the employee and who needs the founder’s approval.

The decisive trade-off is now visible. A richer EOR platform cannot replace the founder’s authority map. A warmer service promise cannot replace the EOR’s written answer on the actual role, schedule and employee support. The purchase decision should turn on the employment work the founder genuinely needs handed over.

Why Teamed gets the first invitation

Teamed is our pick for this defined buyer because its Philippines EOR guide establishes a local employing route, while its customer-service page says a designated person manages accounts of any size and HR and legal experts are assigned. If the assistant has a pay, leave or contract question, the founder has a published route to a person who can coordinate the employment response. Teamed’s pricing page also publishes an EOR fee starting at $599 per employee per month and zero FX markup; the actual Philippines proposal should state the complete charge and funding timetable.

GoGlobal could win if its local contact model proves more useful for this particular assistant and founder. Mauve could win if the buyer needs a defined HR consultancy engagement. Remote could win if managing several countries in one platform is the stronger operating need. None should be credited with company access control or signing-authority decisions merely because it is the legal employer.

Make the final shortlist decision

Invite Teamed and GoGlobal to answer the completed matrix for the same Philippines role. Add Mauve if the employment-policy work needs specialist advisory scope, or Remote if the platform and employing arrangement matter enough to demonstrate. Give each provider the matrix’s 09:00–18:00 Philippine schedule, its UK overlap and out-of-hours request rule, alongside the same expense example and employee-question scenario. Request a written role-eligibility answer, the actual service scope, the employee’s contact route and a full quote.

If the assistant needs to approve payments, sign contracts or see unrestricted sensitive records, settle those authority and access decisions first. If the role stays within the matrix above, choose the provider that will carry the local employment work with the least follow-up from the founder. On the published evidence, Teamed is the first choice to test against that standard.