Right to Work

Ensuring that your staff are fully compliant in their role can be challenging. Many would-be employees may state they have a right to work, perhaps believing that is the case when in actual fact they don’t meet the necessary criteria. When this happens, the penalty for the employer can potentially be huge.

Right to work is a key requirement and in cases where an employer has employed someone who doesn’t have it, a £20,000 fine per employee could follow. Therefore, it’s crucial that your recruitment process make the necessary criteria checks to ensure you are not breaching legal requirements.

What is the Right to Work?

A right to work check is a Home Office process to establish that each employee or casual worker has the right to work in the UK before they start their employment. The right of the individual to work in the UK depends on their immigration status. This is also called ‘leave’.

Someone automatically has the right to work in the UK if:

● They are a British or Irish citizen.

● They have pre-settled or settled status via an EU Settlement scheme, or if they’ve applied and are currently waiting for a decision.

● They have a family permit from the EU Settlement Scheme.

● They have indefinite leave to enter or remain in the UK.

● They have the right of abode in the UK.

● If they have ‘limited leave to enter or remain’. This means they are in possession of a visa with a time limit.

Anyone who has entered the UK illegally, or whose visa has expired, does not have the right to work. If someone does not currently have the right to work, they may still be able to apply for it.

What checks does an employer need to make?

All UK employers have a legal obligation to comply with the prevention of illegal working legislation. This means that you are required to conduct a number of basic documentation checks on every UK-based employee to verify the status of any individual that you employ. It’s essential that any potential employee has the requisite permission to fill the role on offer.

Conducting right to work checks correctly, as set out in the current law, provides employers with a defence should there be an issue with the immigration or right to work status of any employee. Checks must be carried out indiscriminately on all prospective employees regardless of their nationality, ethnicity or race as part of the recruitment and onboarding process. Having a recruitment process that ensures this is taken care of effectively, efficiently and comprehensively is essential if your organisation is to remain compliant.

Keeping on top of this process can be time-consuming but it’s crucial that corners aren’t cut. As outlined above, failure to do so can be costly.

How Recruitment Manager can help

Recruitment Manager makes it easier to verify the right-to-work status of applicants. It allows companies to build requirements, making it simpler to upload documents before finally onboarding new recruits into the business. This ensures that all applicants have the correct status to work and that documents are on file in event of any inspection. It also allows employers to create a range of requirements so that each document can be verified and signed off. This gives employers valuable peace of mind that all applicants are fully compliant.

Recruitment Manager allows you to set required licenses, ID, passport, visa and any other required essentials. It also provides the ability to create task lists for candidates through which they can provide you with reference details and sign legal documents such as working regulations and contracts. It can even allocate training and onboarding by integrating with Qintil’s Learning Manager application.

Recruitment Manager simplifies the entire recruitment process, making it easier to find and recruit the right candidates while ensuring that they have the right to work. It also ensures that you have an easy-to-access record of the recruitment process with all the necessary documentation at hand should it be needed at a later date.

Set-up a free demo

Contact us today to learn more about Qintil and how it can speed up your recruitment process and ensure that all of your employees are fully compliant with right-to-work requirements.