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Team Council
The First Hire Is a Decision About the Whole System
Members,
March was the month we put more of our shared work on a firmer footing. We adopted Rules of Procedure, began the Fellows program, and continued turning members’ reports into evidence that can be tested and acted on. For Team Council, the message from our first month of reporting is direct: hiring costs are not a niche concern. They are the question an owner must answer before deciding whether a first formal hire is possible.
What moved this month
On 3 March, the Secretariat issued its statement on the World Bank’s B-READY 2025 findings, RC/SEC/2026/2. On 17 March, Team Council filed its first evidence submission, RC/TM/2026/S.1. That submission is part of the record we are building—not a verdict on its own.
On 19 March, the Assembly adopted its Rules of Procedure, RC/A/2026/2, by ballot. The rules give members a shared process for moving from reports to a tested pattern, then to a proposed fix, consultation, and a decision. The first Fellows were confirmed as part of this month’s work. Their contribution matters because careful review is essential: members’ experiences should be heard, but claims and proposed solutions still need to be examined.
On 23 March, Team Council published an open letter about what it really costs to hire a first employee, RC/TM/2026/20. The letter makes a case for looking at the full cost and administrative burden together, rather than treating payroll registration, contributions, and rules as unrelated obstacles. On 24 March, the UK government published its response to the late-payment consultation. That is a separate policy track, but it is a useful reminder that small-business conditions depend on several systems at once: being paid, handling obligations, and having the confidence to grow.
The numbers we have
As of 27 March, Reseated had 302 members in 47 countries and had received 675 reports from 49 countries. The reports were distributed across the councils as follows: Platform, 443; Cashflow, 160; Fair Play, 30; Red Tape, 23; Trade, 11; and Team, 8. These are reports, not a count of unique businesses or a measure of how many people face each problem. We should keep that distinction clear.
Team Council has 20 members from 13 countries. Its eight reports came from four countries: Canada contributed three, Germany two, Italy two, and Brazil one. All eight concerned hiring costs. The median amount at stake was approximately US$8,028. In the team-size breakdown, 38 per cent of reports came from businesses with two to nine people, 12 per cent from businesses with 10 to 49, 12 per cent from businesses with 50 to 249, and 38 per cent from owners working alone. All eight Team reports were filed in the last 30 days.
Those figures are still a small evidence base. They do not tell us that every employer faces the same cost, or that one policy change will solve every case. They do show that the issue has reached us from more than one country and from owners at different stages of running a business.
One member’s experience
One anonymous member brought a hiring-cost problem to Team Council. I will keep the account at the level the record supports: the report is classified as a hiring-cost issue, and the member has not chosen to be identified. The practical decision behind that category is familiar to many small employers: whether taking on a worker formally is financially and administratively manageable, before that worker’s contribution can help the business grow.
That is not a story about an owner being unwilling to hire. It is a story about the conditions surrounding the decision. A clear estimate of the cost, a predictable set of rules, and a single route through registration can make the difference between planning a formal hire and putting the decision off. Our proposal is to examine phased social contributions for a business’s first ten hires, simpler one-stop payroll registration, and more predictable rules. The evidence must now tell us which parts are shared, where they differ, and how a fix could work in practice.
What we learned
First, a small number of reports can still give us a useful direction, but not permission to overstate. We need more evidence before treating eight reports as a complete picture of employment costs across countries. Second, the range of business sizes in the Team data matters. The challenge is not limited to a business with no staff, nor does it disappear automatically once an owner has made one hire.
Third, the costs and the administrative steps belong in the same conversation. A lower contribution rate would not be enough if registration remained confusing; simpler registration would not settle an unpredictable bill. And finally, our process is a form of protection for members as well as a route to action: anonymous reports can contribute to a public pattern without making a member’s business identifiable.
International estimates reinforce why this work deserves care. The International Labour Organization estimates that micro, small and medium-sized enterprises account for about 70 per cent of employment worldwide, and that around 80 per cent operate in the informal economy.1 The United Nations describes MSMEs as representing approximately 90 per cent of businesses, 60–70 per cent of employment, and about 50 per cent of GDP worldwide.2 These are global figures, not a description of every country or every member. They do underline why the rules around formal hiring matter beyond any one business.
What comes next
In April, we will continue the monthly Open Tables and invite members to add detail to the Team Council evidence, especially on the real steps and costs involved in a first hire.
On 23 April, the first Board election and the Q1 report are scheduled. The report will give members another opportunity to see how our evidence and process are developing.
As evidence grows, Team Council will continue comparing employment costs and testing the First Ten Hires proposal against the five-part pattern test: volume, frequency, consistency, spread, and corroboration. We should not draft a standard before the evidence is ready.
Thank you to every member who has filed a report or helped someone else take part. And thank you to Ana in Toronto, Marco in Milan, and Lena in Leipzig for contributing time and care to this month’s council work. Your participation makes the evidence stronger while keeping the focus where it belongs: on the shared problem, not on exposing an individual business.
We are at the beginning of this work. We have eight Team reports, not a finished answer. We have a clear question, a process members have adopted, and a responsibility to make the next step worthy of the people who trusted us with their experience. Let us keep listening, checking, and building a fix that a small employer can actually use.
Nikola JurićChair, Team CouncilLeipzig, Germany