Post-Recruitment
One advantage of hiring migrants and refugees is their typically higher retention rates, compared to non-migrant employees.
It is important that employers develop appropriate post recruitment policies to improve employee skills, while reducing turnover.
In this section
This section below provides guidance on how to effectively manage your migrant and refugee workforce once hired, from effective onboarding to offering suitable training and English language support.
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Language and Communication
Good communication benefits everyone. These actions can help employers to improve workplace communication and also help migrant and refugee employees to develop their English language skills:
Key points to remember
Use plain English and avoid unnecessary jargon
Using inclusive language can help migrant employees at the start of a new role. It is important that written information sources, such as policies and email communications with new migrant employees, use English in an accessible way.
Provide visual instructions where appropriate
Employers could also consider the usefulness of visual instructions, such as video resources. For communicating issues around health and safety, using internationally recognised symbols and hand signals could also benefit new migrant employees.
Offer workplace ESOL opportunities
Employers could help migrant employees to make use of ESOL classes, by signposting them to local providers. MESH can help you find ESOL providers near your business location.
Allow time for language development
Allowing time for language development is important for new migrant employees to learn and use ‘workplace English’. Research shows that measures, such as offering employees paid time off to attend ESOL classes, or providing English classes within the workplace, can be beneficial.
Encourage peer support
Employers could also consider partnering the new migrant employee with a mentor. Bilingual mentors who can provide peer support can help new employees quickly understand workplace policies and procedures.
Induction and onboarding
A positive onboarding experience improves employee retention, wellbeing, and productivity.
Before the first day:
Prepare an induction programme
An induction programme should be tailored to the individual needs of new employees. For new migrant and refugee employees, this could include sharing induction materials in both English and in the new employee’s own language. Make sure that induction materials are sensitive to people’s religious and/or cultural identities.
A typical induction should cover:
Workplace Policies
Health and Safety
Organisational Values
Working Hours and Breaks
Payroll and Pensions
Annual Leave
Reporting Absence
Do not take for granted that employees know how things work in the UK. Many countries do not have the same level of employment rights. Make sure new employees take the holidays and breaks they are entitled to, and know about sick pay.
A word on trade unions
New migrant and refugee employees may come from countries where trade union activity is actively discouraged or restricted. Even if new migrant and refugee employees want to join a trade union they may not know which union to join and how to do it. The TUC provides information you can signpost employees to.
Many migrant employees may be adapting to a new country as well as a new job.
Employers can support successful integration by:
- Using clear communication
- Explaining workplace culture and expectations
- Providing translated information where appropriate
- Allowing time to settle into new systems
Employees may need support understanding:
Workplace terminology
Providing training that advances migrant and refugee employees’ understanding and confidence of technical language specific to the workplace could be useful. Issuing a glossary of technical terms in advance could also complement this process.
UK Employment Practices
Migrant and refugee employees may come from countries where certain workplace actions, such as asking for help, are discouraged or frowned upon. Peer support from the start and regular supervision can help to familiarise new employees with different aspects of UK employment culture.
Banking
It can be difficult for new migrant employees, particularly recent arrivals, to register an account with a traditional bank. This is because they require documentation of three months of residence and evidence of utility bills.
Transport
In addition to providing information about local public transport options, employers could also help arrange shared transport between employees. For example, if there is shift work, could other employees share transport with new migrant employees who live in the same area?
Housing
Referring migrant and refugee employees to private housing providers is one option for employers. It is important to account for the immigration status of the individual employee: if they are a refugee, it may be appropriate to refer them to options such as the Government’s Refugee Integration Loan. This can help refugees to put a deposit down on a new home and cover household utility costs.
Childcare
Employers could signpost new migrant and refugee employees to government-funded childcare options. However, it is important to be transparent about eligibility, as certain schemes cannot be accessed by those with No Recourse to Public Funds.
It could also be useful to connect with local organisations that support migrants and refugees in other spheres beyond employment, and signpost them to your employees. See, for instance, this list of partners in the Yorkshire and Humber region and the IESF case study.
Wellbeing and inclusion
Employers can facilitate an inclusive workplace by developing:
An inclusive workplace helps improve staff satisfaction and retention.
Diverse Teams
Employers could further develop team diversity by examining existing systems to see whether migrant and refugee employees have fair access to training, mentoring, and promotion opportunities.
Staff Networks
Research highlights the importance of staff networks on giving collective voice to potentially marginalised employees. For new migrant and refugee employees, who may have little experience of working in the UK, it could provide a useful avenue to voice concerns and seek support.
Cultural Awareness Activities
These can be particularly useful for increasing respect and understanding among employees. As one case study from a care provider shows, activities such as international days and cultural events can help encourage open conversations and open respect among employees. For new migrant and refugee employees, it would give them an opportunity to share their backgrounds and feel valued by other colleagues.
Celebration of Diversity
This could include, for example, celebrating international holidays. This could be done internally or through external channels, such as social media. Employers could also consider offering flexible holidays that are celebrated in the home countries of migrant and refugee employees.
Inclusive leadership
Inclusive leadership could mean taking positive steps to include new migrant and refugee employees in meetings and projects, to give them further opportunities to contribute. It could also involve actively listening to new migrant and refugee employees, to ensure any ongoing concerns and needs are adequately addressed.
Regularly review:
- Equality, Diversity and Inclusion policies: this could involve, for example, consulting internal staff networks comprised of migrant and refugee employees.
- Staff wellbeing initiatives: it could be useful for employers to consider the individual circumstances and backgrounds of new migrant and refugee employees. Research indicates that personal wellbeing of refugee employees, for example, can be influenced by displacement-related trauma and potential ongoing challenges related to their immigration status.
- Channels for employee voice: establishing internal networks, consisting of migrant and refugee employees, could be a useful avenue for raising key issues and concerns.
- Reporting procedures for discrimination and harassment: for example, employers could explore whether migrant and refugee employees are aware of reporting procedures, and ask whether they face obstacles in reporting discrimination and harassment.
Some migrant employees may have experienced significant life changes before arriving in the UK.
Employers can promote wellbeing by:
- Holding regular wellbeing conversations: employers could help migrant and refugee employees by giving them opportunities to discuss both workplace and personal issues. Consider also whether language barriers may make it difficult for the employee to fully express their feelings during these sessions.
- Supporting work-life balance: employers could help migrant and refugee employees by providing more consistent or flexible schedules where possible. This could help employees to better plan childcare, transport, and family arrangements.
- Providing access to Employee Assistance Programmes: employers could help new migrant and refugee employees navigate potential issues that can arise from moving to a new country, such as around budgeting, housing, and other forms of financial support.
- Signposting mental health support: these could be internal or external sources of support. Consider potential cultural differences and the individual circumstances of migrant and refugee employees when signposting them to appropriate services.
- Recognising signs of stress: employers may recognise stress in the form of higher work absences and arriving late for work, and motivational issues. Consider, when seeking to address these issues, how the stress of migrant and refugee employees may relate to their migration journeys, for example if family and support networks are left behind.
Career development, retention and progression
Many migrant employees possess significant skills and overseas qualifications that may initially be underused.
To support the long-term professional development of migrant employees, employers could support them:
- To gain UK professional recognition: UK ENIC is the official UK service who can recognise the international qualifications and skills of migrant employees.
- To develop English language skills where needed: this could be achieved, for example, by arranging for a private tutor, or providing access to online English language training.
- To access mentoring: insights from refugees underscore the value of being able to access mentors to support their career progression. Case studies such as Pret’s Rising Stars Programme demonstrate that successful mentoring can contribute to improved staff retention and career progression, highlighting the mutual benefits of mentoring for both employers and migrant employees.
- To build confidence: employers could facilitate increased confidence among migrant and refugee employers through providing them with mentors, who can help increase their professional connections, and through regular support and feedback.
Collect feedback to improve recruitment, induction and workplace practices. This could be done through:
- Probation reviews: this could involve asking migrant and refugee employees questions about the induction procedure, whether they are satisfied about the training they have received, and what further guidance they may require.
- One-to-one meetings: this gives employees an informal space to discuss any potential concerns. Consider how the opinions expressed by migrant and refugee employees can be used to improve work practices.
- Employee surveys: these can be used to collect information and identify potentially useful trends between workers. It could be used to identify issues that have been experienced collectively by migrant and refugee employees.
- Exit interviews: these are useful for understanding the experiences of migrant and refugees who are about to leave. Employers could ask about what worked well and what did not. This may help to improve induction procedures and workplace practices when hiring other migrant and refugee workers in future.
Monitor
- Retention: employers could collect data that combines workers’ immigration status, their length of employment, and reasons for leaving. This could help to understand how migrant and refugees, relative to the wider workforce, may be better supported to stay.
- Staff satisfaction: employers could gather this information through regular, confidential staff surveys. These surveys could ask questions around employee’s workload, whether they feel satisfactorily included and respected at work, and their satisfaction with the training and support provided.
- Promotion rates: employers could adapt human resources to monitor rates of promotion among migrant and refugee employees. It could also survey these employees to ask about their awareness of new opportunities for promotion, and to ask if any barriers exist to applying.
- Training participation: employers could monitor different rates of training participation among migrant and refugee employees. To improve training participation, employers could ask migrant and refugee employers if certain obstacles exist to participation. These could be around language issues or inability to fit training around shifts.
- Diversity data: see the Leeds University Business School Inclusion Guide for further details.
Post-recruitment checklist
- New employee has completed induction
- Line manager has held regular check-ins
- Workplace buddy or mentor identified
- Employee understands workplace policies
- Training and development plan agreed
- Wellbeing support discussed
- Career progression opportunities explored
- Feedback collected and acted upon
- Organisation continues to improve inclusive employment practices
Awareness of visa expiry dates
It is important that employers check that migrant employees continue to have the right to work. For employers who wish to continue employing migrants with time-limited stay in the UK, they must check on or before their permission to stay expires. If the initial right to work check shows that the migrant employee has settled status, or settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme, employers are not required to recheck their status.
Employers need to be aware of upcoming rules changes by the Home Office, which come into force on 1st October. This broadens right to work checks beyond direct employees, to cover workers who may not be directly employed (such as individual subcontracted workers). Employers who rely on the services of any indirect workers may have to pursue follow-up checks to ensure their continued right to work.