• Nominate key personnel whose role it is to check on the visa status of sponsored workers – this should ensure that if one person is sick or on holiday, another person is available to take over this role. • Put in place a diary system to remind your key personnel to follow up with any sponsored workers whose visa is due to expire. We recommend having a diary entry reminder set up for six months, three months, one month, and one week prior to expiry. Alternatively, you may have a task list system within your organisation that can be set up to automatically remind or alert key personnel to make enquiries at set intervals. Two of these follow-ups should be in the form of a face-to-face meeting to allow you to speak to the individual directly and to see their original documents. At each interval, you should ascertain the intentions of the worker – i.e. whether they intend to extend their visa, switch to another visa, move to another employer, or leave the country. Notes should be kept centrally to ensure that these intentions are visible to all relevant staff. At later intervals, checks should be carried out to ensure that the original intention is still valid and whether they have put in place the necessary action • Where a sponsored member of staff intends to extend their visa, ask them for confirmation that the Home Office has received their application. • Where sponsored staff intend to leave your employment at the end of their visa, they should be formally notified that you will no longer employ them after this date. • If the member of staff leaves before their certificate of sponsorship expires, update the Home Office Sponsor Management System (SMS) advising them that the member of staff has left your employment early – this needs to be done within 20 days.
The Home Office’s Employer Checking Service
The Home Office provides an employer checking service that employers can use to verify the immigration status of a new or existing member of staff. This can only be used, however, if the member of staff is unable to provide the necessary right to work documents, and/or including where: • they cannot show you their documents because of an outstanding appeal, review or application with the Home Office
• they have an Application Registration Card
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