Want to grow and avoid a crippling fine? Immigration Law has the answers.
All Employers
A question for all employers: when might you need to consider immigration law? The answer is: when recruiting; when employing; and when dismissing. In a nutshell, you need to consider who is eligible to work for you throughout the employment relationship with all of your employees.
There are set procedures for employing foreign nationals and, on getting it right, employers avoid significant penalties. We advise on those procedures, including navigating discrimination on recruitment, and carry out audits of your record keeping and employment documents to ensure compliance. The right contractual terms will get you out of trouble, or better yet keep you out of it in the first place.
There are also benefits to considering a broader workforce. Many of our clients consider immigration in the workplace when their business necessitates a seasonal increase in demand for labour. Rural employers are familiar with much of the legislation affecting their workers and, in our experience, work hard to comply with it. Such businesses have specific needs and we are practised at meeting them in our advice.
Specific Industry Needs
Other clients come to the world of immigration fairly fresh because they are seeking to fill a skills gap. Engineering firms find that there are not enough engineers in the UK. The limited number that are out there are gold, and charge accordingly. There is no question that local companies want them, they just can’t always afford them. It can be much more cost effective to consider employing foreign nationals to grow the business. The skills are the same, the cost is less.
Other industries are suffering a quality challenge. Specialist employers, often in science and technology which we have in abundance in this area, are not convinced by the expertise of some ‘home grown’ graduates. The University of Southampton’s Sir Nigel Shadbolt is conducting a review 1. in response to the Government’s Science and Innovation Strategy 2. to see why UK computer science graduates aren’t cutting the mustard/splicing the cable. In the autumn of this year his report will seek to explain why higher education in this field is currently failing to meet the needs of industry.
Until those proposals are generated and acted upon, industry will look to foreign nationals to meet its needs as The Institute of Directors’ recently released statement 3. shows:
“Allowing businesses to hire from an international pool of mobile, talented workers will help address the UK’s lagging productivity while filling vital skills gaps.”
Sponsor Licence – The Holy Grail
Employers are becoming Employer Sponsors in increasing numbers to bring in and retain foreign talent. We are often instructed at the point that a company’s competitor has obtained its sponsor licence and is swiping all the non-UK graduates from our client’s existing graduate training scheme. Without a licence, post university roles cannot be offered to employees with limited leave. Even if you trained them whilst they were studying and they like working for you, if you don’t have a sponsor licence you’re seeing them leave. Industry is burgeoning, the economy is recovering and more skilled workers are needed. Supply is failing to meet demand and so successful business recruiters have a broader pool to source from – an international pool.
Compliance with the rules on employers in respect of right to work will save you tens of thousands of pounds. Errors in this field are costly and employers that err are shamed on published lists. It would not seem to be worth taking a punt on an employee who just seems to be English without advice on proper due diligence and clear HR policies. That was the stick part – the carrot part is that international recruitment can be the key to developing your business. We are specialists in advising employers on this area of law and compliance. Enquiries at any time are more than welcome.
- http://blog.hefce.ac.uk/2015/07/08/unemployment-among-computer-science-graduates-what-does-the-data-say/
- https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/387780/PU1719_HMT_Science_.pdf
- Simon Walker, Director General of the IoD supporting the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
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