Jewellery Focus February 2018 | Page 63

ADVICE This is largely due to the fact that the dynamics are changing for how the UK workforce operates. Nowadays a lot of businesses choose to combine a variety of different contracts from flexible working to part-time, home- working to full-time, contractors to temporary staff. This enables a business to have a flexible approach to their staffing, which helps with changing business needs. It can make it difficult when hiring though. Why it is becoming harder to comply with Right to Work? HR teams are under growing pressure to hire the right people, make all the necessary checks and to ensure employees have the legal right to work in the UK. Legislation is regularly changing, and therefore staying abreast of all the developments can be demanding. Although HR professionals are well-trained, they are increasingly facing the growing trend for fake identity documents being used in job February 2018 | jewelleryfocus.co.uk applications. This makes their job even harder and means trying to spot identity fraud while dealing with hundreds of applications is challenging. As these forgeries become more sophisticated it can be hard to spot fraudulent documents. Additionally, with a rise in transient workers, plus the growing ‘gig’ economy, there’s also the increased risk of unwittingly employing illegal workers on a short-term, but equally unlawful, basis. Moreover, throughout sectors such as hospitality, leisure, warehouses and retail, many HR functions are de- centralised. This means that on-site managers are often responsible for making hiring decisions. Here the risks are even greater as they often don’t have the same training as HR professionals and are not abreast of the legislation. However, this context will hold little sway with the government who are keen to crack down on non compliant workers. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Contego performs detailed checks on people, companies and ID documents, helping clients optimise their business processes, reduce risk, and help ensure compliance. If you would like to see how a technology solution can help you improve processes for Right to Work checks, book a demo today with Contego Right to Work checks can save time and reduce human error Undertaking Right to Work checks doesn’t have to be complex though, as the process can be handled very easily thanks to technological solutions. With robust, automated processes occurring through a comprehensive solution, the risks are minimised and you don’t need a HR team that constantly stays ahead of legislation. They can also be confident that the Right to Work checks are meeting all current and future legislative requirements. These systems help to reduce the burden of the manual approach. Document checking is automated, meaning businesses can quickly check, authenticate and retain ID documents in line with the latest immigration legislation. Electronic scanning provides your team with a consistent, reliable and straightforward way of performing checks without having to be ‘document experts’. JEWELLERY FOCUS 63