World migrations are a common thing and all of us have offered a job to someone in our country or we have gone somewhere else in the world to work for a company or an individual that needed a workforce they couldn’t find domestically.
Every country needs additional workers or workers that are deficient over there. You may need several hundred or several thousand it doesn’t matter what matters are certain regulations and rules you need to honor if you want to sponsor your new workers. What this means is that each country will have specific rules and set of laws that treat this area and that will ease your path toward your new workforce as much as ease those that are being sponsored.
Today we are dealing with the United Kingdom and the requirement each employer over there needs to meet to sponsor a license for someone coming to work for them from outside of the UK. On the subject of that here is what all of you employers need to know, and if you need more info from a legal standpoint you can always go to https://imperiallegal.com/sponsorship-licence/ and see what they can advise you additionally.
1. Not needing a license to sponsor certain groups
This is something we believe that interests all of you employers and this is what will be the first thing to know and exclude when going for sponsoring employees. Some groups do not require you to sponsor them even though they are outside of the UK like Irish citizens and those that have settlement or pre-settlement status under the EU Settlement Scheme and those that fall into a group that has indefinite leave to remain in the UK. Now, this is important and that will take a lot of loads of you so we put it in the first place.
2. Is this thing 100% certain?
Another thing you as an employer that wants to sponsor your workers need to know is the fact that sponsoring someone does not guarantee that they will be allowed to come to or stay in the UK, let alone work there. Both the employer and the employee must meet all of the strict UKVI job suitability requirements and individual immigration history and status. As we already mentioned some strict rules and regulations must be met and any breach or any mismatches may result in the UK government stopping the sponsorship status or attempt of your company.
3. Eligibility to get a license
To get a license, you definitely cannot have these things:
- Unspent criminal convictions for immigration offenses or any other crimes like fraud or money laundering.
- Had a sponsor license been revoked in the last 12 months for any reason at all?
4. UKVI or UK Visas and Immigration
You need to know that UKVI does not play when it comes to these things and that they invest heavily in the control and monitoring of sponsored employees that entered the country. They will thoroughly review all of your application forms and supporting documents and they will also visit your business once or twice just to make sure if you are trustworthy and that there is a business one can come and work at.
5. You also need to fulfill certain requirements
HR systems are the most important thing your business must have to monitor and report back to UKVI about all your sponsored employees. You will need to keep track of your employee’s immigration status, keep copies of relevant documents for each employee, hold on to their passport and right to work info as well as track and record all of your employee’s attendance and contact details up to date.
You must report any significant changes to your business within 20 working days. Some of this info will include you stopping trading or if you become insolvent. If you change the nature of your business substantially if you are involved in a merger or takeover and so on.
6. Know your licenses
The sponsor licenses you need depend on whether the workers you want and need like:
1. Workers with long-term job offers or worker licenses can be split into:
- Skilled workers (the role must meet the job suitability requirement)
- Intra-company visas (intra-company transfers and intra-company graduate trainee)
- Minister of religion (people working for religious organizations)
- Sportspersons (coaches or any other elite sportsperson)
2. Temporary workers (limited working time)
Creative or sporting worker (working as a high-level sportsperson up to 1 year)
Entertainers or artists can stay up to 2 years
Charity workers for up to 1 year
Religious workers up to 2 years government authorized exchange worker with work experience up to 1 year
People on and for research projects or training in medicine or sciences up to 2 years
3. International agreement workers
International agreement workers come to do a job that is covered by international law and an example of that is employees of overseas governments.
4. Seasonal workers to do what the word says
Seasonal work/farm work that lasts up to six months
As you can see these types of programs are excellent especially if you require a certain type of worker that your market can’t offer you or can’t produce in a certain period acceptable to you. There are a lot of regulations and a lot of paperwork that goes into this but it is a neat way of keeping your business going when in need of a good workforce.
The only thing you need to know is that your company or business needs to be of a certain size and have some departments that we already mentioned in the article above, and all of that is a service of tracking your sponsored employees and reporting back to the UKVI.
You need people that will be appointed to manage the sponsorship process when you apply for a license, and their main tool will be SMS or Sponsorship Management System so make sure that they are acquainted with it or at least up to speed so you don’t have many setbacks.