Mr X is an NHS Doctor, due to retire from practice.
His vision is to start an online retail business, to which he will dedicate his time, once fully retired. The business will deal in the sale of alcohol-free fragrance and perfume products.
Having established an online presence, the ultimate goal will be to open a physical store.
Notwithstanding his passion for the product, Mr X has very little experience with running a business or with marketing a product; he needs the support of expert professionals to realise his dream.
Mr X has engaged an external IT service provider to help launch and manage his website, but still requires a skilled in-house Marketing Manager to help launch the product and coordinate marketing activities to make a real impact from day one of trading. The Marketing Manager needs intimate knowledge and experience in the fragrance Market, and a credible drive to help grow the business into a successful enterprise.
With an experienced professional already in mind for sponsorship, Mr X contacted A Y & J Solicitors for assistance to obtain the sponsor licence and sponsor his preferred candidate under the skilled worker route.
A Y & J Solicitors held Mr X’s hand throughout the process, providing ongoing reassurance and support, as well as fast and critical answers to his questions on the application.
Mr X’s greatest concern was ensuring that the application was viable. Mr X had no other reason for applying for a sponsor licence, other than to sponsor the Marketing Manager, whom he identified as suitable for the role. Being a new business, Mr X was very budget conscious and did not want to embark on a process that was doomed to fail.
We advised Mr X, that provided he was making a genuine job offer to a candidate suitably qualified for the role, the application was viable. We reassured Mr X that every document to be submitted for the sponsor licence, would be checked thoroughly by an experienced caseworker, and that all advice given was tailored to his unique circumstances.
The second biggest concern for Mr X was to be able to comply with what he understood to be complex sponsor duties. A Y & J made the process simple and straightforward for Mr X to understand. Mr X’s immediate reflex, when hearing about the requirement to implement and maintain “compliant” HR policies, was to seek to engage an HR service provider to support him under a contract for services.
We advised Mr X that whilst this may seem like a fool-safe approach, as a sponsor, ultimate responsibility for knowing and implementing sponsor duties falls to the direct employer – the responsibility cannot be wholesale outsourced. For this reason (and bearing in mind the business would only have two employees in the immediate future, including a part time administrator), we suggested that Mr X complete our comprehensive training package before making this decision.
Having completed our training, and having gained a crystal clear understanding of his “sponsor duties”, Mr X could then make an educated decision about whether to pay an external provider for additional support.
At the end of the training, Mr X had the confidence to start maintaining his own HR compliance systems, thereby saving further on his already tight budget.
The Result
Mr X’s sponsor licence application was approved within the stated service standards and the start-up limited company is now an A-Rated sponsor.
Mr X is now working with A Y & J Solicitors to request and assign a Certificate of Sponsorship and submit his candidate’s visa application (along with three dependants) without delay.
