If you are recruiting talent outside of Sweden, you may have worries about the reliability of the timelines posted on the Migration Agency’s website as they don’t always coincide with your experience. And you know that a delay in bringing new talent in to ease the burden on your local team only adds to their stress. Let’s look at the reasons why — and what HR can do.
The Problem
HR, together with the Account Executive for project, has the ultimate responsibility for the success of the project and the wellbeing of those working on the account. That means a portion of HR’s success is in the hands of the Swedish Migration Agency. Having the timing of your whole project set by an outside source makes your job coordinating the timeline of all components, including staffing and employee administration volatile to say the least.
While the timelines to get work permits cleared in and of itself isn’t a problem, not knowing when new resources will be able to join your team most certainly is.
For a team to work together they need to feel good together and have a reasonable stress level. If communal stress due to lack of talent continues for a long time, there will not be a good outcome. Ultimately, leadership has to take responsibility for making sure that the company is fully and appropriately staffed. The skills gaps in Sweden and a labor shortage (along with labor laws hindering growth) sure gives HR a challenge to fill positions to keep deadlines. HR needs to do whatever they can to accomplish their goals. Also, they need to think about sales and project timelines already set that they need to integrate with. Failing to schedule a project with a realistic timeline will not be a winning formula.
Avoiding Bottlenecks
Finding and recruiting top talent globally is not accomplished without hurdles, but there is more to think about. The next question is how can HR work around the bottlenecks in the Swedish infrastructure, both with government agencies, school availability and housing?
Realistic Schedules
While the first obvious suggestion is to have a recruitment schedule and rotating plan of employees with a heads up of 6 months. BUT, we all know that it can only happen in a perfect world and most of us live in a less flawless, yet more interesting space.
Salary Levels
Perhaps you can be more generous with submitting applications and do it with candidates that you are hoping to sign; however, if you are doing it before all components are in place, a clever objection would be “well, we haven’t agreed on a salary yet and thus we would risk the renewal”. This is actually a very valid point, the good news is that you can always give a higher salary so just present the base line and as long as you never go below that threshold you will be fine as paying someone more isn’t a problem at all.
Working Remotely
Another option is to ask the person to start before arrival. This year, we have seen HRs begging new team members to work remotely, and continue this way while an application is pending or while they are looking to find suitable housing with a limited budget.
Working remotely brings us to a completely different kind of animal… How is a person paid for remote work? And, how would it actually work? We have suggested that companies to use the freelance platforms available to start while waiting for the permits. Given that globally sought-after talent have many opportunities and don’t have to wait to move somewhere and start getting a salary, HR may want to review how they can onboard people while they are still waiting for permits to entry in oder not to lose these new hires to companies that operate in countries with faster admittance to enter the country.
Reach out to us if you would like a free immigration consultation to discuss any of these issues
