I'm keen to understand if there will be any obligation on employers to check if their existing EU employees have applied to EUSS and how we might do this.

In reply to Laurane Rhind:

Hi Laurane
I'm also concerned about that.
I sent out some of the Government information to our units when the EU Settlement Scheme opened but I haven't followed up on specific individuals and am not sure if and how I should!

Hi Steve - excellent idea to post this thread.

Some international points from me :

• Urgent to understand the intended treatment of social security posted workers (UK to Europe and Europe to UK) in terms of social security registration, payment and cover. Whilst the UK is part of the EU, this is simple, the EU rules apply. However, as of today nobody knows on what basis newly posted people will work from 1 january 2021- or even the status of people who are currently under social security secondment UK to Europe or Europe to UK. The situation is particulary complex fand potentially messy or "multi-state" workers who regularly work in several countries (people like sales staff and technical support engineers who have to regularly go to clients' premises abroad to troubleshoot....)
• For those companies with staff who regularly travel abroad, what procedures will apply if they are ill in another country? Will they have access to the local social security system (as today) or will the employer have to put in place private medical insurance for this eventuality?
• Some UK banks (Lloyds, Barclays and Coutts) have informed UK residents in Europe that they must close their UK bank accounts before 1 January 2021.... This will affect not just expatriates who need money intheir country of secondment but also pensioners who have chosen to keep a UK bank account for UK expenditure during regular UK trips (lilke myself), as opposed to changing money on every trip. To date Natwest (my bank for the past 30 years) has indicated it will maintain UK accounts for non-residents but that the situation could change. Important to sensitize employers and pension fund administrators to this problem....

Hi Steve

1. Some questions are still around work travel from EU to the UK and visa versa. Requirements in terms of visas or the like are still in question. Currently we only know that employees from EU, travelling to the UK will need to comply with the new business visitor rules from 1 January 2021 and that the UK will no longer accept national ID cards for entry to the UK for EU/EEA/Swiss citizens from this date. We have no further guidance on this.
2. Similarly, if EU citizens travel to the UK for business purposes, it states that they need to being their European Health Insurance Cards (EHIC) with them and have travel insurance, but again only refers to the end of 2020.

Thank you

I've oddly kind of missed talking and worrying about Brexit. Obviously it's not, but it's seemed like such a minor thing in comparison to whats gone on this year. But to answer your question Steve, my concerns are very much the same/similar as others who have already posted -
1) At what point do we need to start politely asking (read nagging) our EU employees about whether they have applied for (or indeed intend to apply for) settled or pre-settled status and to provide us with their new proof of right to work
2) If they don't provide this at what point do we have to be having a more serious talk with them about the fact that if don't/can't provide this then we can no longer continue their employment after X date.

Those of you feeling unprepared for the introduction of the new post-Brexit immigration system should find the latest CIPD podcast helpful.

CIPD Podcast: The true cost of post-Brexit recruitment

In reply to Gemma:

Hi Gemma- if it helps you, I have shared a Company- wide comms around Brexit and I have said that HR is doing a Nationality Audit and that we will contact individuals to assist and support them through the process (I also noted the deadline dates etc). We reiterated that we employ many EEA nationals and that they are valuable part of our workforce. We acknowledged that it may be an unsettling time for them but we will support them to complete their applications. I then contacted each separately and discussed it with them. Many had already applied and others were in the process or were going to and I just said that they need to reach out. Everyone was very open to it and it really drove the close out of the gaps that we were looking for. Everyone sent me a letter confirming their status and I have placed on their files. It was a good approach and landed well with the team.

In reply to Bev:

Hi Bev
Thanks for sharing this - I've printed it off to crib later - and I have also just revisited the gov.uk website and specifically the employer toolkit which has been updated since it was first launched. There's a draft letter for employers to send to employees which, whilst fairly formal, is a good starting point to reach out to those staff affected. Interestingly, the letter says "we do not require proof that you have applied..." so I guess we just have to wait until they get their settled status confirmation?

In reply to Nikki Baines:

Hi Nikki- yes they make it clear that the letter is not proof, and that you need to go onto the system to actually prove it, which we have asked managers to do, although we keep the copy of their confirmation letters in any event. Bear in the mind that pre- settled status expires and hence we just needed to know who has what status. As I say, the transparency and support offered landed very well and there were no challenges or concerns with my teams. (even just having a one- on- one showed them support in the process and willingness to close things out)

In reply to Bev:

Somewhere in the toolkit there is a line saying that employers do not need to retroactively check their employees' status, I am entirely unclear what this means for employers in checking from 1st January - it sounds as though existing employees do not need to be checked by us? Can anyone clarify?

In reply to Anka:

As I understand it there is no obligation to check existing employees as they have already proved their right to work. We have suggested that our EU nationals apply for settled / pre-settled status but this is for their own benefit going forward. Gov.uk also states that we can continue to rely on a passport up to 30/6/2021.

In reply to Helen:

Thanks, Helen! Much appreciated.

My question would be, from 2021 can a director of a UK Ltd company be here on a visa?

In reply to Emily:

Hi Emily
I suspect the answer will be “yes”
After all, today many board members of FTSE100 companies are neither UK nor EU residents.
If the question concerns executive directors, them once again quite a few large organisations have executive directors who are in the UK on a visa.

Hello,

We have an EU national employee on a UK contract who moved back to Slovakia couple years ago but still works for us remotely. We have been paying him through our payroll is there anything we need to change ?
We also have a Swedish contractor who resides in Sweden and invoices us directly.
Are there any changes required. Any advice would be great thanks as not sure where to start.