When you post a job, the job advert must comply to the Equality act 2010 guidelines.

Job adverts cannot discriminate any person so be careful when using words such as:

•  Age | Race | Sex | Disability | Pregnancy | Maternity | Religion or Belief

When posting a job, the organisation should reframe from using words such as:

• Recent Graduate | High Experienced* | Bar Maid | Handyman | Advertise to a specific group

* You can use highly experienced if the job vacancy was key specific such as highly skilled position. Some business advertise I need person with x years of experience, but this could be classed as discrimination so you need to be careful how you describe a person skill sets for the job role.

If employing an overseas national where a Home Office Resident Labour Market Test (RLMT) is required, this must be advertised in the Jobcentre and other places such as Internet, social media site or newspaper article unless exempt. Note: Even if a RLMT is not required, the organisation may be asked by the Home Office compliance officer, have you tried first to engage a UK settled person before hiring an overseas national.

Whether the job vacancy needs to comply to the RLMT or not, the organisation should acknowledge any applicant that applies to the job advertisement regardless of the applicant is suitable or not.

Applicants that seem suitable for the job vacancy, should be informed of this.

When an ‘applicant' or ‘internal member of staff’ applies to the job vacancy, they should follow a certain process to avoid issues which could lead to discrimination (Equality Act 2010) and Home Office non-compliance if the job advertisement is related to a sponsored worker visa application.

Regardless of who applies to the job advert, the organisation should send the applicant a notification (email or SMS) to acknowledge their interest to the job vacancy.

When the organisation has decided which applicants they want to interview, some organisations will invite the applicants to their office. Doing this initial process can be very time-consuming, costly in time and from our research, many people interviewed failed to match up to their CV. Regardless which option the organisation takes to do their interviewing, the same process should follow on how they capture and log people ‘personal information’.

Interview Formats:

Online | Telephone | Webcam | Face-to-Face

Online interview is becoming more of a trend as organisations are looking at ways to reduce the hiring costs plus working from home due to the pandemic. The organisation might prefer to carry out a telephone or webcam interview. Some organisations just skip this and invite the applicant in for a face-to-face interview. The organisation must record how the interview went, discussion points, what was promised and action points.

You might be thinking why should I log this?

Did you know, if an applicant felt they were being discriminated against, they can go to ACAS and put in a discrimination complaint against your organisation; you could end up in an employment tribunal.

See Shortlisting section process for Face-to-Face interviewing.

Before any person can be offered a job, the organisation must carry out a ‘Right to Work’ check first.

If the organisation is thinking of hiring an applicant, they must first verify if that applicant needs permission to work in the UK. If the applicant already holds a UK visa, is it:

• Valid visa and leave still remaining.
• Visa permits work with the new organisation without Home Office permission.
• If Home Office permission is permitted, can the applicant visa permit UK switching.
• If the applicant is in the UK and cannot switch whilst in the UK or change employers from their sponsored visa to another organisation, they must leave the UK to apply for an entry visa under Covid-19 concession rules apply.

Employment cannot commence until a Right to work is verified first to prevent non-compliance.

TIP

The organisation should never guarantee or promise an applicant a job until a full right to work check has been carried out. If the organisation wants to offer a job to an applicant to secure their services but have yet done a right to work check, they should provide the applicant a ‘Letter of intent’, add a clause to say, a right to work check must be first carried out and only then can we provide you a formal ‘offer of employment’. This will protect your business.

Right to work falls under various categories, they can include:

• Immigration status
• Licences
• Accreditation
• Insurance.

Once the organisation has clarified the right to work status, the applicant can be shortlisted.

Once an applicant is shortlisted, interview notes should be logged, and notes added to why shortlisted.

What is deemed as being shortlisted?

Shortlisting an applicant comes in different grades, we have:

• Not suitable
• Might be suitable
• Very suitable
• then we have 2nd and possibly a 3rd interview.

When the organisation shortlists an applicant for a job role, it is no different to the initial telephone or webcam interview, the organisation must log what was discussed and promised.

When an applicant attends an interview, ask them to demonstrate their ability to do the role advertised. This could be presenting a PowerPoint to you or, presenting a business plan or, demonstrating at the interview they can do a task like create a web page (IT) or cook a dish (chef) or take a test on areas of manual handling (healthcare professional).

If the organisation is ever challenged over why they selected a person over another, this will help demonstrate how each applicant was treated equally.

When the organisation invites a applicant to a face-to-face interview, ask the applicant to bring in their original right to work evidence to the interview. Right to work evidence will depend on their job role, but certain documents must be provided such as travel ID or similar document.

Some interviews are done in one or multiple stages, this all depends on the type of role.

Tip

When the organisation takes copies of right to work evidence, they must do the following:

• Write the applicant's full name as shown in the travel ID
• Add the days date
• Add the organisation person job title
• Sign the photocopy and state you have seen the original.

Now file the evidence whether as a hard copy or electronic file.

Prior to offering the applicant an offer of employment, has the organisation done the following checks:

• Compiled a list of every applicant that applied to the job vacancy?
• Logged all CVs, covering letters and applicant other evidence?
• Added notes who shortlisted and not shortlisted?
• Added interview notes for all applicants spoken to who applied to the job?

Only offer a 'Contract of Service' (employment) if the applicant can work for your organisation.

The employment law states employees are entitled to receive several documents that outlines their employment conditions.

It is essential any documents an organisation has on an employee is filed correctly. Documents filed should include:

• CV and if applicable CV covering letter
• References
• Qualifications
• Immigration status
• Licences if applicable
• Accreditations if applicable
• Interview notes
• Other evidence to demonstrate ability to do the job.
• Employment related documents not listed above relating to employment.

An employee has the right to know what documents/data the organisation holds on them. Data is normally stored manually or electronically.  Employees’ personal data should be kept safe, secure and up to date by the organisation at all times.

Other details that should keep kept include:

• Employment history with the organisation
• Employment terms and conditions (e.g. pay, hours of work, holidays, benefits, absence)
• Any accidents connected with work
• Any training taken
• Any disciplinary action.

What the organisation should tell their employee and their rights:

• What records are kept and how they’re used 
• The confidentiality of the records
• How these records can help with their training and development at work
• If an employee asks to find out what data is kept on them; the organisation will have 40 days to provide a copy of the information.

It is essential the organisation tracks all essential data/documents held on an employee. Depending on the employee, if under immigration control, the following could be filed and where documents have expiry dates, these are tracked.

Any document required to say the worker is permitted to do that type of work must be logged and tracked if it has an expiry or renewal date.

When a member of staff leaves their employment, employees are either:

• Dismissed
• Resigned
• Made redundant
• Retired

Dismissing Staff

Dismissal is when you end an employee’s contract. When dismissing staff, you must do it fairly and log all information. If the UK organisation dismiss a Tier 2 or Tier 5 worker, they have 10 working days to login to their SMS and report it to the Home Office.

There are several types of dismissal:

• Fair dismissal
• Unfair dismissal
• Constructive dismissal
• Wrongful dismissal.

Resigned

A UK organisation cannot refuse to accept an employee resignation. They must follow certain procedures. When a member of staff resigns the UK organisation must:

• get them to confirm their resignation in writing.
• tell them what their notice period is.
• agree when their last day at work will be.
• confirm whether they should work all or part of their notice period.
• Update the UK organisation SMS within 10 working days if the worker is on a Tier 2 or Tier 5 CoS.

Important Message

Verbal resignations given in the heat of the moment could lead to claims of unfair dismissal - always ask for resignations to be given in writing.

Redundancy

Redundancy is when the UK organisation dismisses an employee because they no longer need anyone to do their job. This might be because the business is:

• changing what it does, doing things in a different way, for example using new machinery.
• changing location or closing down.

Note: For a redundancy to be genuine, the UK organisation must demonstrate that the employee’s job will no longer exist.

Redundancies can be compulsory or non-compulsory. If the UK organisation does have to make redundancies, they can get help from Jobcentre Plus.

Employee rights - Employees have certain rights and may be entitled to redundancy pay if they’re made redundant.

TIP

Regardless how the employee leaves their job, log as much information as possible. Information should be how they left their employment, hand over has been correctly done, left on good note, reasons for leaving, log performance for future references and finally, log if any holiday pay and other benefits should be paid to the employee.