How NTi Audio retained employees who moved home to Poland and Italy

About NTi Audio

NTi Audio is a manufacturer of test and measurement solutions for acoustics, audio, and vibration applications, headquartered in Schaan, Liechtenstein. The company develops and manufactures precision instruments, software, and reporting workflows used by professionals who need to verify acoustic performance and compliance, from industrial manufacturing quality control to public address systems in safety-critical environments. NTi Audio serves customers worldwide through subsidiaries across Europe, the Americas, and Asia.

The challenge

NTi Audio's situation was not a hiring push. It was a retention question. Two existing employees, a software developer and a product manager, wanted to return to their countries of origin, Poland and Italy, and keep working remotely for NTi Audio. The company had no entity in either country.

Before Rivermate, NTi Audio had handled this through direct contracts between the company and the employee. As COO Danilo Zanatta described it, his main concern was to comply with all the legal requirements in each country where the remote employees were actually working. Without local presence or local employment expertise, he had no reliable way to know whether those direct arrangements would hold up.

What was at stake

Two exposures sat behind the direct-contract setup.

The first was the employment relationship itself. A direct contract with a worker living and working in another country raises questions about which country's employment law applies and whether the company has met its social security and payroll obligations there. Danilo Zanatta's stated worry was exactly this: complying with the legal requirements in each country.

The second was permanent establishment risk. Danilo Zanatta asked many detailed questions on this point, and Rivermate's work ensured NTi Audio carries no such risk in either country.

Why they chose Rivermate

Danilo Zanatta gave two reasons. Rivermate is a European company with a strong presence worldwide, and, above all, it was easy to reach real people to discuss an issue or a new hire.

That second reason was also the decision moment. Asked when he chose to go ahead, his answer was simple: when he realized he could easily reach a real person if he had a question.

He had a few things he wanted to be sure of first, mainly that Rivermate was a serious company that would handle compliance properly in each country. So he asked detailed questions about permanent establishment risk, payroll, and expense reimbursements, and the team welcomed every one of them. Getting straightforward answers was exactly what put his mind at ease.

How Rivermate helped

Daan de Wildt, Account Executive at Rivermate led the engagement. The first employee was onboarded in February 2026 and the second in April 2026.

From the start, the work was as much about transparency as logistics. Danilo Zanatta describes Rivermate walking him through how the whole procedure works, including exactly how much the company would pay for an employee in a specific country and how much the employee would receive at the end of the month. For a COO deciding whether to trust an EOR with existing team members, that gross-to-net clarity mattered.

The detailed legal and payroll questions came early, and they were resolved early, covering the permanent establishment questions, payroll mechanics, and expense reimbursement handling. Short lines within the Rivermate team and a well-executed onboarding by Daan de Wildt kept the process moving.

Danilo Zanatta describes the day-to-day relationship with the Rivermate team as friendly and trustworthy, and the reality as matching what was promised: a smooth onboarding and easy day-to-day operations.

What this means for similar companies

If you're a European manufacturer or technology company with valued employees who want to relocate to their home countries, you face the same question NTi Audio did: how do you keep someone on the team when they move to a country where you have no entity? Direct contracts feel simple until you ask whether they comply with local employment law and whether the arrangement creates tax exposure for the company itself. Rivermate handles this pattern routinely. We take over employment in the destination country, make the full cost and net salary transparent before anything is signed, and answer the legal and payroll questions before onboarding, not after.