Steps You Could Take When You Are Hiring Foreign Employees

Due to their better qualifications or longer experience, you might want to hire some foreign employees in your team. Find out the steps here.

When a company is large enough, people start to expect quality in the work it performs. The only way to achieve that is through hiring people, who are qualified and experienced enough to provide that level of work that is required.

Sometimes the expected level of quality in employees might not be found in domestic employees. The reasons can be many- maybe the other country prioritized that sector, or maybe your country just does not have enough professionals in the sector. Whatever the reason might be, you might reach a point where you would need to hire foreign nationals in your company to deliver that level of expertise.

Now, hiring a foreign employee could be a bit of a hassle. The processes regarding bringing that person into the country, how he or she will integrate into the company, or the community even, figuring all these out could be a bit of hassle. To smooth out the transition, you could follow some simple steps. This article will provide you all the essential information you need before hiring foreign employees.

Judge your options

Hiring any employee could be a hassle, not to mention foreign ones. While bringing an employee to your company, you will be presented with various options that you can take at every step of the way. Firstly, you have to make decisions about the visa of the worker. Here, you will get various options to choose from. You will need to select the perfect one, based on your and the employees’ requirements. Here, the length of the visa and how long you want to keep your employee should be compared before making a decision.

You might want to hold the visa plan if you plan to keep your employee for a long time. In the long term, it is more feasible for a foreigner to take on permanent residence in a country and go for citizenship. Discuss your employee’s future plans with them and help that person make a decision.

If you are confident enough that your employee would stay long enough, you can start setting up a sponsorship process in the country for that person. In the USA, working on a green card is a great option too. It is a faster process, and the cardholder naturally becomes a citizen after some time. You can look into that too.

Next, you need to start figuring out the role of the employee in your company. How fit are they for the responsibilities? Think about the alternatives. Could the job get outsourced? Is it possible to do it using someone local? Is the employee ready to take on long-term responsibilities? You have to ask these questions before you decide on your employee. Not only will it help to understand the position of the person in the company, but it will also help with visa, residency, and other aspects too.

Do not start late

Immigration is a hard process. You have to go through a lot of red-tape on both sides of the fence. Even if you manage to clear out the problems on your side, there’s a good chance the employee could get stuck at his.

If you set a deadline and want your employee to start on that deadline, you must start the process well before that deadline so that you can manage the hiccups along the way.

Start the citizenship process early too. Chances are, any type of citizenship application will take a lot of time to process. So, start with it as soon as the person arrives in the country.

Preparations inside

One thing to consider in the midst of all the visa and residency preparations is how the international employee will fit into your office. Your HR needs to start prepping for the new arrival.

The first thing you will have to decide within your company is where to post the new employee. This process should start even before you start the immigration process for the worker. Usually, the chosen role for the foreign employee is those roles, where there is a shortage of professionals in your country. Carefully pick the person to match his skills with your needs.

Once you have decided on the role of the company, you start the immigration process. Not just preparing a visa and other international processes but also the process within your company. In case of such international employment, usually, the office needs to have proper certificates and preparations too. Once the employee starts working at your company, you should have plans to ensure their compliance with company policy and ethics.

In the U.S., before proceeding for a visa, you will need to get certifications from the Department of Labor or D.o.L. These certificates from D.o.L. ensures various matters, such as you employing a foreign national does not harm the interest of the workers of the U.S. origin, and it does not affect their wage scale or the treatment they get at their workplace. The employer will need some more certifications like the D.o.L. one before they are able to hire a foreign national.

Financial preparations need to be met too. Upon reaching an agreement with the employee, the company should fix a financial policy regarding salary and benefits. Usually, in the case of international hires, there are domestic laws about salary and benefits. You need to make sure your company is compliant with those laws. For bank account setup and management, check out Moneygram near me.

For visa purposes, in the case of the U.S., the employer will have to apply for a visa at the U.S.C.I.S. Getting the D.o.L. certificate does not necessarily mean you will easily get a visa. There have been cases where the visa application got rejected despite having the certificate. As we have mentioned before, you will have multiple choices for visa types; you will need to choose the proper one for you.

From reading our article, you can get an idea about how complicated the process of bringing an international employee to work at your company could be. But with proper preparation, you can easily work it out and bolster the ranks of your company with a foreign expert.