How To: Set Up and Manage A Global Localization Team

Your business is expanding globally by leaps and bounds. You need a localization manager in Japan, a linguist in India, a testing engineer in Mexico, and a language lead in the States. How do you tackle this?

To get started, you need to answer several basic, but important questions, such as:

1. What are your staffing requirements?
2. How will employees or contractors be set up in terms of logistics?
3. What is the duration of the position or contract?

Then you’ll want to think about legal, financial and technical considerations:

1. Do you know about local employment laws and practices?
2. Do you have a legal entity already in the country you’re hiring into?
3. Have you established expectations for payment, especially with freelancers?
4. How are you going to set up your team technically (i.e. network resources, IT support, internet connectivity, etc.)?

Once everyone is hired, you’ll need to manage the team and this is especially difficult across cultures and time zones. We suggest that you communicate regularly with the entire team and receive regular (even weekly) status reports from each member. This will keep everyone on track, and keep your translation and localization projects running smoothly!

Learn more about setting up and managing globally distributed localization staffing teams.

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