Musings on Offshoring, immigration, visas and attrition
Wall Street Journal had an interesting article “Firms Get Creative To Work Around Visa Bottlenecks” that looks at different aspects of challenges faced by employers planning for foreign-born candidates in America.
As organizations globalize and continue to hire the topic is sure to generate interest among sourcing managers.
The article quotes Leslie Dahan, an immigration lawyer who “counseled Intel's hiring managers on their options for unsuccessful visa candidates, crafting "decision trees" to help managers navigate tricky immigration rules. The next round of visas won't take effect until October 2008, so managers had to find alternatives to cover roughly 18 months.” A decision tree of this kind is something most offshoring managers have to equip themselves with. Case in point: Sometime ago, an architect in my team had to roll out of a critical engagement because the ‘six year’ limit on his H1 work visa was expiring. Our legal advisers counseled that he could not continue to be on the payroll and might even have to leave the country. Fortunately for him, his wife, who was on another H1 visa holder, was able to claim him as a ‘dependent’ and he moved his status to a dependent visa (while going off payroll). A few months after that, his wife was granted a permanent residence (and as a dependent, he too got his status reinstated). This is just a small manifestation of the myriad visa rules that sourcing managers typically have to contend with at a cost to operating business.
Immigration and global mobility is not always beneficial to every firm. If a talent is needed in one part of the world, surely someone else is loosing out on that talent; right? Well, Sometimes we too are at the receiving end. Occasionally employees self-file for immigration to countries where they see themselves migrating to. Countries like Australia, Canada, UK and others have provisions for educated, skilled professionals to self-sponsor their immigration paperwork. On successful processing of such immigration applications they can move to their destined land. Now, what can managers tell employees who walk up and say “I’ve successfully got my immigration to Canada, and need to be there next month to retain my immigrant status.” [Factoid: my employer does have an office in Canada, and occasionally accommodates such requests from employees where there is a mutually beneficial fitment]. Not all requests are successful though. In which case, the employee decides to part ways to pursue his/her goals.
Bottomline: immigration and visa challenges cut both ways.