In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic hybrid and remote working has become the norm for many in the UK and the Home Office have now amended Part 3 of the Sponsor Guidance to require sponsors of overseas workers to report their sponsored workers usual working locations.
During the pandemic the Home Office advised that there was no obligation for sponsors to notify them if a sponsored worker was working from home. That exception has now been removed. The new guidance sets out a reporting requirement where a worker has moved, or will be moving to a hybrid working pattern as a more permanent working arrangement. Short changes to work patterns do not need to be reported.
The update can be found from C1.19 onwards:
“You must tell us if a sponsored worker’s normal work location (as recorded
on their CoS) changes. This includes where:
- the worker is, or will be, working at a different site, branch or office of
your organisation, or a different client’s site, not previously declared to us- the worker is, or will be, working remotely from home on a permanent or
full-time basis (with little or no requirement to physically attend a
workplace)- the worker has moved, or will be moving, to a hybrid working pattern
A “hybrid working pattern” is where the worker will work remotely on a
regular and planned basis from their home or another address, such as a
work hub space, that is not a client site or an address listed on your licence,
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in addition to regularly attending one or more of your offices or branches, or
a client site.You do not need to report day-to-day changes in work location (for example,
if a worker occasionally works at a different branch or site, or from home).
You need only tell us about changes to their regular working patterns.”
This is an extra reporting requirement for those sponsoring overseas workers, in addition to obligations to keep the Home Office up-to-date on a sponsored workers regular attendance at one or more office/branch or client site as listed on their certificate of sponsorship. The requirement for sponsors to hold up-to-date details of a sponsored worker’s home address also remains. Any change in address needs to be held ‘on file’ by the sponsor but does not need to be reported to the Home Office as part of the new hybrid working report.
How to report hybrid working arrangements
There are potentially three sets of reports that may need to be made to the Home Office. Historical changes that continued after the pandemic as a permanent working pattern now need to be reported without delay. Those that sponsor overseas workers will need to collate information on all their sponsored workers and/or their various hybrid working policies. But how this data is reported to the Home Office will vary, depending on the number of hybrid working patterns in place, and what these patterns look like.
For example, for a medium to large company, reporting hybrid working patterns individually for each sponsored worker may become an unrealistic task to complete in a relatively short timeframe. If there are standard or general hybrid working policies across the organisation then a report could be made at organisation level, identifying the policy and outlining the class of individual it applies to, confirming any sponsored workers amongst that cohort.
When sponsoring a new worker to join the organisation, a comment on hybrid working arrangements should be added to the certificate of sponsorship before it is assigned to the individual, if it has been confirmed at this stage. This could, for example be added into the work location section in the format:
[company name]/Hybrid Work Location
[company address]
It may be that this general policy can be applied to all certificate of sponsorships for a sponsor if they have one hybrid working policy. Or it may be that a number of variations will be necessary as different workers begin work on different hybrid working policies.
Some individuals work from home, from shared work spaces in city centres, libraries, coffee shops, or when travelling. It is reasonable to expect the remote working location to vary and therefore there is no need to confirm exact locations to the Home Office.
Finally, as with other sponsor reporting obligations, any change in circumstance to the sponsored workers normal working pattern moving forwards needs to be reported to the Home Office within ten days of the change. This could be where workers move from office based to a hybrid pattern, or to a fully remote working pattern for a period of time. Short and temporary changes may not need to be reported.
Any report that confirms that an overseas worker has been sponsored to work in the UK but is working completely or close to completely remotely may need to be reasoned. To avoid questions of why the worker needed to be sponsored to come to the UK if they are working remotely, it may be necessary to confirm in the report why it is they need to be working in the UK – whether that is for tax, regulatory or other purposes.
For completeness, when confirming hybrid working patterns with sponsored workers, it may also be worth confirming that residential address details are updated and reminding employees where they can report a change of address to the Home Office themselves as this is part of their own visa obligations.
Once historical reports on existing workers have been made, this update will prove not to be particularly additionally onerous on sponsors. The update may also provide a useful chance for sponsors to audit and assess their hybrid working policies in general, as most settle into remote working norms post-pandemic.
