This process is managed by the People Operations Specialist team as the DRI, in partnership with Total Rewards. For any questions not addressed below, please email relocations@gitlab.com.
If you are considering a move, it is best to discuss this with your manager as soon as possible, always before you are thinking of moving, to understand the impact on compensation (including review of equity eligibility) or your role at GitLab. Moving to a new location is an exciting adventure to embark upon. However, there are multiple aspects to consider and eligibility to review.
Generally, team members may live or work outside their permanent residence for an aggregate amount of 183 days (6 months) per year. However, the amount does depend on the particular country (or state) and what it considers to be a "resident" for tax purposes, as well as what it considers the tax year. If you are not sure about the aggregate amount allowed by the country or state where you are visiting, you should check with your personal tax advisor. If you believe you or a team member you manage is at risk of exceeding (or has already exceeded) the aggregate amount of 183 days (6 months) (or less in certain countries), you must contact the People group immediately.
If the 6 month timeframe (or other timeframe, as applicable) is at risk of being exceeded or has already been exceeded, please contact the Team Member Relations Specialist team at teammemberrelations@gitlab.com
Team members have the responsibility to ensure their own work eligibility by communicating their location if at risk of exceeding the 6 month timeframe, and managers have a responsibility to their team member and to the business to ensure compliance.
Having team members for 6 months or more working outside of their contractual location poses potential tax liability for both the business and the team member. For this reason, it is of utmost importance to communicate transparently and promptly with the People Team.
The consequences of not communicating to the appropriate group, and/or exceeding the 6-month timeframe allotment outside of an individual's country of employment could result in underperformance management action or loss of employment, depending on the circumstances.
Keep in mind, GitLab retains discretion at all times whether it can accommodate you to continue your role in the new location. In some instances a move will not align to your proposed location, (e.g. a recruiter hired in EMEA to support EMEA would not be approved to move to the US), and in other instances the company may not be able to support a hire in the proposed location. Second, in almost all situations the compensation, including equity eligibility, may change. For an idea about the compensation impact, please check with our Total Rewards team for an estimate. The actual compensation amount will be reviewed and will need approval before relocation can occur.
If you are not changing your permanent location (where you maintain permanent residency), but instead are traveling to different locations over a period of time, you are responsible for maintaining your health insurance, visas, and any other item directly relating to your travel.
Since any short-term stay is your decision and not required by GitLab as part of your role, you will not be eligible to use the Business Accident Travel Policy or submit any expenses related to your travel. If you are hired in a role requiring a time zone alignment, you must still be able to fulfill that requirement.
If your short-term stay is for less than 6 months in a new location, there should be no need to update your address in Workday.
If you plan on staying in a location for more than 6 months in a single calendar year, or are in that location for an aggregate of more than 6 months in a single calendar year, that becomes your residence and you must complete the long-term relocation process described below. In most countries, tax residency is determined by the place where a GitLab Team Member keeps its vital interests over the span of a calendar year. This is the place where you are registered, where your SO and/or dependents live, the place where you work, where you live, where you keep your subscriptions etc.
** Please note that in some jurisdictions, even short term stays can add up to more than 183 days per year and can subject you to payroll tax in the new location. Anything that does not look like a temporary stay can be reviewed as staying somewhere to establish a residence for tax purposes. GitLab cannot provide you individual tax advice but you should always make sure to check with your tax advisor before traveling to any location where you will be performing work for an extended period of time, whether it is more than or less than 183 days.
If you are interested in a possible long-term relocation (defined below), you need to confirm that you would be eligible to work in that location. Except for the Netherlands, GitLab does not provide any form of sponsorship or immigration aid for team members who choose to move to new countries. For more information, please refer to our Visa page. GitLab cannot assist or facilitate a process to help you become eligible to work in a location if you do not already have that eligibility. You are of course free to apply and gain that eligibility if there are steps you can take that do not involve GitLab. Once you are certain that you are eligible to work in your requested Relocation country, you will need to provide proof of eligibility by uploading the proof in the Documents tab of your BambooHR profile. If you move before establishing eligibility to work, but then cannot establish eligibility to work in the new location within the first six months of residency, it may affect your ability to continue your role with GitLab.
A long-term relocation means that you will establish yourself in a new location outside of your current residential area. If you are ending your current residential living arrangement, spending more than six months in one calendar year in one location as part of an extensive period of travel and/or will have your mail delivered to an address in a different city, please follow the steps below.
It is at the company's discretion to determine whether it can approve the relocation:
Assuming that relocation is approved, the location factor of the new location may result in an adjustment to compensation, including equity eligibility. Depending on the location factor and the benefits offered in the particular country, this adjustment may result in an increase or a decrease to the compensation package. At the onset, this practice sounds harsh when moving to a lower-paid location. One might argue that it seems unfair for the organization to pay someone less for the same work in the same role, regardless of where they go. However, if you look at it from another angle for a minute and compare this practice to what most companies do, it should make more sense. For example, say you work for a company with physical locations and say they haven't accepted that remote work is as productive as coming into the office yet. If you wanted to pack up and move to a location where they did not have a physical site, you would have no alternative but to resign and seek new employment in your new location. You would find quickly that companies in the area pay at a locally competitive rate.
Now, let's say the company did have a site in your new location and they offered the flexibility to transfer. If they did not have a similar position open, you would have to either apply for a different open position in the same company or resign and apply externally (back to the realization that other companies will pay at local competitive rate). If you were lucky enough that they did have a similar role in the new location, a transfer would come with a pay rate based on the local market to ensure equity across all incumbents (people in the job) by location.
Adjusting pay according to the local market in all cases is fair to everyone. We can't remain consistent if we make exceptions to the policy and allow someone to make greater than local competitive rate for the same work others in that region are doing (or will be hired to do). We realize we might lose a few good people over this policy, but being fair to all team members is not negotiable. It is a value we stand behind and take very seriously.
Send an email to your manager with your relocation details and request they respond with their approval. This allows our team to document the approval for future reference. Example below:
Hello Manager, The first step in the relocation process is to request approval via email. Please respond to this thread with your review and approval/denial.
- Current Location:
- New Location:
- Work Eligibility:
Note: Assuming your relocation is approved, any applicable changes in compensation will not be effective until your move date (or the date you start working in the new location), which will be listed as the effective date on your new contract.
Below there is a description for the steps that need to be taken for approving a long term relocation. If the geographical location and/or country are different from the current location, the following steps will be followed:
uspayroll @gitlab.com or nonuspayroll @gitlab.com) for visibility on any upcoming changes.Contracts & Changes folder. This approval will include the converted salary where applicable in order for the authorised signatory on the contract / adjustment letter to audit against before signing.The contract phase is unique based upon the team member's relocation. The different options are as follows;
Make a copy of the Relocation letter and save it to the working documents folder.
Enter all applicable information based on the approval email and the team member's Workday profile.
Please note that the effective date of the change is the date of the expected move for the team member. If unsure, please confirm with the team member who is relocating.
Contracts & Changes folder in BambooHR.Note: If the team member is relocating away from a location with PEO Employment, they must give notice to the PEO directly, once the relocation has been approved. Most notice periods are usually 30 days for Employee:PEO, and 2 weeks for Contractor:PEO (CXC) but the team member must review their own contract, as it will be specified there.
Note: If the team member is moving to a different country with a PEO, ensure we coordinate with the new PEO about the change in contract. To be added
Note: If the team member is moving to the US, employment authorisation (I-9) is required for legal purposes. The People Experience Team will manage the I-9 process.
sent by email to: section must have a personal email address#people-ops-exp private slack channel.Contracts & Changes folder in BambooHR.
-If the team member is relocating to the Netherlands, please see the Relocating To The Netherlands process.Team_Member_Entity_Expense_Move_Request for the Accounts Payable team as soon as the relocation contract has been signed.Once your relocation has been approved but at least 30 days prior to relocation.
Once your relocation has been approved and the contract has been signed.
I9 Processed field in BambooHR under the Personal TabINELIGIBLE. Please check with the Total Rewards team before updating the benefits section in case there are any delays with deactivating benefits./pops run removei9 "bambooid" in Slack in order to terminate the team member in LawLogix. This will allow the I-9 to be purged at the correct time.The steps our People Operations Specialist team uses to support relocations to the Netherlands in addition to above relocation process:
** Review best practices for The Netherlands contracts **
These are the steps our People Operations Specialist team uses to send contracts to team members relocating to, or moving from Germany. All German contracts require a wet signature. As a placeholder, digital copies and signatures will be sent until our German Legal Counsel sends a copy of the wet signature documents.
Once the contract, tripartite agreement, or Mutual Termination Agreement (MTA) has been created by the People Operations Specialist, next steps are to stage the documents in DocuSign, while also sending the documents to the signatories to have them physically sign and mail them.
In addition to the relocation process complete the following steps:
Besides the relocation process complete the following steps as the contract phase:
At the start of each quarter the People Operations team will share a report with the People Business Partners and Stock Admin Team, CC: Director, Tax. This report will include the following information:
In the event that the team member decides not to proceed with the relocation. Not all of these steps will be needed, depending on how far into the relocation process has taken place.