Why do companies need a Skilled Worker Visa Compliance and Monitoring Software?

What is a skilled worker visa?

The Skilled worker visa has replaced the Tier 2 (General) work visa. A skilled worker visa allows individuals to come to or stay in the UK to do an eligible job with a Home Office approved employer (sponsor).

Why would you need a Skilled worker visa compliance and monitoring software?

A company would need a skilled worker visa compliance software as a digital resource which is used to track employees and migrant worker’s activity and is able to flag suspicious activity and indicate any early signs.

• To monitor your employees’ immigration status.
• To maintain copies of relevant documents for each employee, including passport and right to work information.
• To track and record employees’ attendance.
• To keep employee contact details up to date.
• To flag if there is a problem, for example if your employee stops coming to work.

Audit:

External (for UKVI):

• The terms of the sponsor's licence require an employer to notify UKVI of any changes through the sponsor management system (SMS).
• These changes can include a raft of events, including termination or curtailment of employment/sponsorship; changes to the role/hours/place of work/salary; unauthorised absence etc.
• Employers need to keep records to demonstrate that these requirements are being met and can be required by UKVI at any time as part of their compliance process.

Complygate issues prompts/alerts which reminds the employer that UKVI's SMS needs to be updated and ensures that this happens in a way that the date, time, and name of the person updating the record is clearly traceable. A reminder alerts will be issued if that prompt is overlooked.

Internal

• Compliance and monitoring software should have a code of conduct which each member of the staff has to read and sign to confirm that they have understood before they operate the product, and which must be re-signed every now and then (ideally annually). This prevents misunderstandings and makes responsibilities and limits clear.
• The employer needs to be able to record who has authorised a person to access the system, and in what capacity (e.g. you may have standard users and supervisory/administrative roles).
• Functions which record who has accessed a record, even if they make no changes to it.
• Finally, it needs to comply with all relevant legislation.

Management Information (MI)

Skilled worker visa compliance tool should ensure that any reports can be created both for individual employees of a licence holder, and for all their sponsored employees.

Parts of Complygate skilled worker visa compliance and monitoring system is accessible only by nominated members, so that they have confidence in the system.

Penalties

Employers can be sent to jail for 5 years and pay an unlimited fine if they are found guilty of employing someone who they knew or had ‘reasonable cause to believe’ did not have the right to work in the UK. Which includes:

• Employee did not have leave (permission) to enter or remain in the UK.
• Their leave had expired.
• They were not allowed to do certain types of work.
• Their papers were incorrect or false.

Right to work check

Home Office introduced temporary measures on 30 March 2020. These adjusted right to work checks allowed employers to: ask the prospective employees’ to submit a scanned copy or a photo of their original documents via email or using a mobile app (rather than their viewing the physical originals); and on a video call with the candidate or employee, ask them to hold up the original documents to the camera and check them against the digital copy of the documents, record the date on which the check was done.

On 20 April 2021 the Home Office confirmed that these temporary measures will come to an end on 16 May 2021. Therefore, from 17 May 2021, employers must do one of the following to complete a right to work check:

• have sight of and check the individual’s original documents or
• check the individual’s right to work online (if they have provided their share

The Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo) and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) are among the organisations that have been lobbying the government to postpone the requirement for businesses to resume physical Right To Work Check, after the Home Office updated its guidance to say they would need to do so from 17 May 2021.The government is now pushing back the reintroduction of face-to-face Right To Work checks until 21 June 2021.

Complygate is coupled with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) which helps you identify that the Right to work documents are genuine, original, and unchanged and belong to the person who has given them to you. Photos are the same across all documents and look like the applicant or not.

Complygate also offers human-in-the-loop where we provide technology and the people to conduct right to work checks.