In today’s market, foreign staff play a vital role.
If you’ve hired your own staff from abroad in the past, you’ll know this better than most.
In the UK, nearly 17% of all employees are foreign – they really do form a key part of the UK economy, and it’s not clear what we’d do without them.
But don’t worry, this isn’t another article about Brexit.
It’s about employing migrant workers as effectively as possible, and about ensuring that once you’ve employed them, they’re given everything they need to thrive.
At VICI Language Dynamics, we help companies like National Grid to hire effectively from abroad, and we’ve used that experience to compile the five most important things to consider when hiring foreign workers. Here goes:
1. Make sure your HR teams are familiar with the right protocol and have the correct documents in place. It is the company’s responsibility to know the laws surrounding working eligibility when recruiting abroad.
2. Make a thorough assessment of the candidate’s language skills; not just their social English. When recruiting specialist staff in a particular field it is important their language skills are not just for casual business but specific to the job or industry they will be operating in.
3. Consider how you are going to overcome any cultural differences and get your team working together.
4. Will you be expected to support new staff through a relocation? If they are working from home how are you going to facilitate good communication?
5. Do you have an office base in the country you are recruiting from? If not how are you going to make the best use of technology? Have you budgeted for a face to face meeting before the final decision is made?
Taking all of these elements into account will help you hire as smoothly as possible, as well as helping you ensure that anyone you take on is right for the job.
Vici Language Dynamics have been supporting businesses with language needs since 2008. For more information on our services contact Nathalie on ndanon@thevici.com or 07976 243529.