a Sift Media publication

Ask the expert: vetting employees

Posted by Matthew Whelan, Esther Smith in Employment law on Tue, 05/01/2010 - 17:19

Does rechecking only some of our employees to ensure they are able to work in the UK amount to discrimination? Matthew Whelan and Esther Smith advise.

The question:

In 2007 the company I work for started to vet new employees through a new vetting agency: they check the authenticity of passports and the right to work in the country for employees, whilst liaising with the Home Office on our behalf. This has proved to be very successful.

However, up until then we were using another vetting agency which, I have been told, weren’t as good as the newer one. As a result we would like to check ID documents for all employees who were vetted under the old system. In order not to create unnecessary workload for ourselves we have decided to only ask those who were employed before 2007 and checked by the old agency to re produce their passports and proof of right to work to be checked again. This includes employees from various nationalities.

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Editor's Welcome

Hello! And welcome back as we enter 2012, with a busy year ahead of us all. With talk of double-dip recessions, a possible partial or even full break-up of the Eurozone and unemployment rates set to hit nearly 9%, topics such as organisational streamlining, staff resilience and talent management are likely to be on many an HR professional's lips over the next 12 months.

But to lighten the gloom here in the UK, we also have the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and its attendant public holidays to look forward to at the start of June. Followed by two weeks of Olympic Games from 27 July to 12 August and the Paralympics from 29 August to 9 September, each generating their own excitement, but also issues to work through for hard-pressed HR departments trying to sort out the multifarious staffing issues in advance.

So with an interesting but challenging year to come, HRZone promises to be with you, supporting you all the way and providing our usual insightful blend of news, analysis, community blogs and expert comment to help you sort the wheat from the chaff. As ever, we love to hear from you too so feel free to either post your words of wisdom to our blog section yourself or, in the case of longer, more in-depth ‘expert voice’ articles, drop me a line with any ideas to cath.everett@siftmedia.co.uk.....

Cath Everett

HRZone Editor

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