I’m looking for information or to connect with others who are supporting employees or colleagues on work visas
My organisation focuses on free English classes and community organising with migrants. We have a heirarchical decentralised structure, with a management team rather than a CEO. We have about 11 members or staff.
I’m looking for information about the experience of being on a work Visa in the UK so I can think through, from an HR/whole organisation point of view, how we support anyone on a work visa. For example, I was told recently that those on work visas are supposed to record every time they go to the Doctor or GP. There is understandable concern for them about how any sensitive data they share with their workplace/HR will be secured - and what the impacts would be if it made it back to the Home Office.
There’s also an expectation that as a sponsering organsiation, an organisation reports to the Home Office any extended leave of absence that this employee takes from work. I’ve been looking for critical guides about how to navigate all of this - but not had much luck yet. Wondering if anyone would be willing to have a chat or could signpost me to anything?
Hi Cait - Thanks for sharing this! Some tricky questions in there for sure. I’m also curious about this - and wondering if there’s a legal element that might help frame the rest? Will reach out to someone in our legal pool to see if they have any ideas about the specific requirements of what info an employer is meant to be keeping tabs on, and if there are any grey areas that might help to limit this.
That said, mostly keen to hear how others have responded in practice to this kind of bullshit being imposed by the Home Office!
Definitely would appreciate any information around this – I need to switch to a work visa and since my mid-size organisation hasn’t sponsored one before, I will probably have to write the policy on how they manage it .
Thanks so much Liam! I would LoOOOooVe to speak to someone who understands the legal framwork but also doesn’t want to be propping up any hostile environment shiz
@Kal thanks for the reply… I don’t know a huge amount about the set up process as it was all done before I got involved in HR (and we don’t have a policy on how to manage it, maybe that would be a good idea ).
I know it needs at least one nominated person from the org to be the sponsorship contact, and they ask about that person’s migrant status and criminal record and that kind of thing. In our case we had to provide data showing how the job was advertised and why we offered it to the person we did, but I guess that might depend on what kind of visa you were applying for. Good luck with it anyway and i’ll let you know what I discover…
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