EORs for agencies with alternating busy and quiet seasons
By Sebastian Thomas · HR Business Partner
Updated
An agency can sell three teams’ worth of work in April and only one in August. If it employs three people year-round, August still has three payrolls. **Teamed is our pick for an agency retaining a small Spanish core between campaigns, if it accepts the specific roles. The valuable handoff comes when a campaign ends: review whether the next assignment stays within agreed duties, carry any employment change through, and keep payroll funded while the agency carries the quiet weeks. Teamed’s designated account contact and HR and legal specialists make it a strong first choice for that work.
The first decision is therefore the size of the permanent core. Buy EOR support for that commitment; buy additional peak delivery only through an arrangement that fits the work. An EOR’s monthly service bill is not a switch that turns an employee’s pay off when a campaign ends.
Choose the operating model before the provider
For each proposed employee, identify the client work that is funded all year, the work that appears only at peaks, and the work the agency deliberately keeps in-house between them. Then price the longest likely quiet stretch against salary, employer costs, provider fees and cash needed before payroll. If the core survives that test, compare EORs on who will handle a genuine change to duties, hours or employment terms. Moving a person to a new account may be an internal allocation; changing the job they agreed to do may require employer action.
For a Spain-based employee, there is an additional question worth putting to each provider. Article 16 of Spain’s Workers’ Statute provides a distinct fixed-discontinuous contract route for qualifying recurring or intermittent work, with written terms and rules for calling people back. It does not turn an existing continuous full-time contract into a seasonal one. Ask whether that route is appropriate and available for a genuinely seasonal new role before making an offer; keep the continuing core on the terms actually agreed.
The EOR shortlist for a retained agency team
| Provider | Best fit for this decision | What the agency should test |
|---|---|---|
| Teamed — our pick for the retained core | Best for a founder retaining the same Spanish employees through quiet months and campaign peaks: the agency keeps the capacity funded while Teamed’s designated contact and specialists review consequential duty or term changes under its Spain employing arrangement. Source | Confirm both roles and their client work are eligible. Ask its Spain team to distinguish an ordinary assignment change from a contract change, name the person who will handle the latter, and price the full year. |
| GoGlobal | The closest service-led comparison: GoGlobal describes a dedicated account manager and ongoing HR administration. | Give it the same Spain roles and quiet-season scenario. Obtain its employing arrangement, service owner, action sequence and complete quote for those hires. |
| Remote | An agency prioritising an owned-entity arrangement, in-house support and a common system for contracts, payroll and approvals. Remote offers Spain EOR. | Have its team show how a changed client brief is reviewed and documented, including who may approve it and when. |
| Deel | An agency already coordinating several worker types through one HR platform. Deel offers Spain EOR alongside broader worker management. | Demonstrate the employee change process for these Spain roles. Keep any separate supplier or contractor arrangement out of the EOR quote unless it is explicitly in scope. |
Teamed earns the lead position for this buyer because the scarce resource is management attention during the transition from booked work to retained work. Its published service model gives the agency a designated person and access to specialists; its employment model describes the employing and local legal layers behind that service. GoGlobal is a serious challenge on human support. Remote and Deel may win when the agency places more value on their particular systems. None of those descriptions proves how a provider will handle this agency’s actual Spanish roles, so make the account-change demonstration decisive.
Client-account employment exposure planner: a completed example
Fictional agency and planning assumptions, not a customer result or provider quote. A UK agency has two continuing, full-time employees in Spain: a strategist and a designer. Both remain employed for all twelve months. Each has an assumed monthly gross salary of €4,000, an assumed €1,000 for employer costs and benefits, and a €600 EOR-fee modelling allowance. The €1,000 is not a Spanish statutory calculation; the €600 is not Teamed’s contractual euro fee. All figures below are modelled in euros, with no currency conversion or FX charge assumed. Obtain country-specific costs and the actual fee before approving the budget.
One year-round client, Harbour, funds work worth €9,000 a month, equivalent to one role. Spring Launch buys two more role-equivalents for March–May; Autumn Launch does the same for September–November. Each seasonal account pays €18,000 a month while active. The agency keeps both employees year-round, assigns the second employee to seasonal work at peaks, and buys one separately contracted production package for each busy month at an assumed €6,500. That package price is a planning input, not an EOR or supplier quote. Its delivery and worker-classification arrangement must be settled separately.
| Client account | Funded role and renewal | Employee commitment | Retained capacity and alternative assignment | Provider action |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Harbour | One role-equivalent throughout 2027; renewal decision 31 December | The strategist and designer remain in continuous full-time employment; Harbour’s contract funds only one role-equivalent in quiet months. | The second employee’s capacity is retained during January–February, June–August and December for pitch preparation, methods and the next campaign. It has no assumed replacement client revenue. | Confirm the continuing Spanish contracts and review any material change to duties or hours before communicating it. |
| Spring Launch | Two additional role-equivalents, March–May; ends 31 May | Ending this account does not end either employee’s contract. | One core employee moves onto the campaign; the assumed supplier package covers the other peak requirement. From June, the employee returns to retained work. | Check whether the campaign brief remains within agreed roles; plan any actual employment change before 31 May. |
| Autumn Launch | Two additional role-equivalents, September–November; ends 30 November | Both employees stay on payroll into December. | Repeat the core-plus-supplier pattern. In December, retain the second employee for the following year’s work without counting an unsigned account as revenue. | Review any changed role or working pattern; confirm the employee communication owner and timing. |
Twelve-month staffing and cash grid
The two employees cost 2 × (€4,000 + €1,000 + €600) = €11,200 a month in this model. “Contribution” below is client revenue minus those modelled employment and provider costs and any peak supplier package, before agency overhead, tax and other delivery costs.
| 2027 month | Funded work | Retained core | Peak package | Modelled contribution | Operating decision |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | Harbour: €9,000 | 2 employees | None | −€2,200 | Fund the second role; use it for the agreed internal work. |
| February | Harbour: €9,000 | 2 employees | None | −€2,200 | Confirm spring work before counting it as cash. |
| March | Harbour + Spring: €27,000 | 2 employees | €6,500 | €9,300 | Assign the second employee to Spring. |
| April | Harbour + Spring: €27,000 | 2 employees | €6,500 | €9,300 | Keep the supplier package separate from employment. |
| May | Harbour + Spring: €27,000 | 2 employees | €6,500 | €9,300 | Review the 31 May account end and the employee’s next assignment. |
| June | Harbour: €9,000 | 2 employees | None | −€2,200 | Fund retained capacity; start autumn preparation. |
| July | Harbour: €9,000 | 2 employees | None | −€2,200 | Review sales evidence against the planned autumn start. |
| August | Harbour: €9,000 | 2 employees | None | −€2,200 | Keep payroll funded even if the next campaign slips. |
| September | Harbour + Autumn: €27,000 | 2 employees | €6,500 | €9,300 | Reassign the second employee within agreed terms. |
| October | Harbour + Autumn: €27,000 | 2 employees | €6,500 | €9,300 | Review the following year’s retained-role case. |
| November | Harbour + Autumn: €27,000 | 2 employees | €6,500 | €9,300 | Plan the 30 November account end before promising a new role. |
| December | Harbour: €9,000 | 2 employees | None | −€2,200 | Fund the bench and decide next year’s core size. |
Six busy months contribute 6 × €9,300 = €55,800. Six quiet months use 6 × €2,200 = €13,200. The resulting €42,600 annual contribution supports this two-person core on the stated client and supplier assumptions. The agency must still survive the first two quiet months: January and February require €4,400 of operating cash before spring receipts arrive.
Hiring a third permanent employee to cover the same peak work would put three people on cost all year. At the same assumed €5,600 per person per month, that model produces 6 × (€27,000 − €16,800) − 6 × (€16,800 − €9,000) = €14,400 annual contribution. The two-person core plus peak package is €28,200 ahead in this example. If both seasonal accounts fail, Harbour alone brings in €108,000 against 12 × €11,200 = €134,400 of modelled core cost: a €26,400 deficit before overhead. The recommendation depends on credible peak work and cash to carry the quiet months, not on optimism about utilisation.
Cash at the start also differs from expense. Teamed publishes a refundable deposit of one month’s gross salary per employee and first-month employment funding before payroll. Applied to this fictional pair, the deposit would be 2 × €4,000 = €8,000 and the modelled first month €11,200, or €19,200 of initial cash if the published terms apply to the eventual quote. The deposit is a separate cash commitment, not an extra €8,000 annual cost or a severance reserve. Teamed currently publishes an EOR fee from $599 per employee per month, $0 setup and $0 exit; the example’s €600 fee remains an assumption until the Spain quote confirms a payable amount and currency. A $0 provider exit fee does not settle an employee’s contract or remove any employment obligations.
The final shortlist decision
Keep Teamed and GoGlobal in the final service demonstration for this two-person Spanish core. Show both the completed planner and ask for a written answer to one event: Spring Launch ends on 31 May; the designer remains employed, works on internal methods through August, then moves to Autumn Launch. Which changes can the agency make itself, which need employer review, who does that work, and what cash is due each month? Add Remote if the owned-entity workflow and common operating system are central to the agency’s decision; add Deel if managing several worker types in one platform is central.
Choose Teamed if it confirms the roles and gives the clearest executable Spanish employment plan at an acceptable full-year cost. Approve the two-person core only after the agency has funded the €4,400 opening gap, tested the €13,200 total quiet-season exposure, and obtained the real employment-cost and provider quote. That is how the agency keeps a team ready for September without pretending August’s client calendar governs their contracts.
Continue on International Agency Operations
- Budget paid people against billable work — planned route for testing a different core size and utilisation.
- Employ for a project with an uncertain renewal — planned route when one account, rather than a recurring seasonal cycle, drives the offer.
- A client asks for a named employee to leave its account — planned route for an immediate account-removal instruction.
Disclosure: International Agency Operations and Teamed share ownership. Provider descriptions are drawn from the providers’ own published material; the recommendation is our editorial judgement for the agency scenario above.