How businesses can support their refugee hires

Since the out­break of the war in Ukraine, 4.3 mil­lion peo­ple have fled the coun­try, with the num­ber like­ly to grow as the con­flict esca­lates. The British busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty has mobilised to offer jobs to the refugees.  

To date, some 65,000 Ukraini­ans have applied for visas through the UK Home Office’s Ukraine Fam­i­ly and Ukraine Spon­sor­ship Schemes. But as of 31 March, less than half (29,200) of these visa requests have been issued. 

There has been pres­sure on the British gov­ern­ment to make it eas­i­er to hire refugees, with Marks & Spencer, Asos and recruiter Robert Wal­ters among an ini­tial group of 45 large firms to con­tact the Home Office. 

Offering assistance

A spokesper­son for Asos says the fash­ion brand has already hired sev­er­al refugees and is con­tin­u­ing to offer employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties for Ukraini­ans, par­tic­u­lar­ly in tech and engi­neer­ing roles, due to the country’s high­ly skilled IT work­force. “They have been left with no choice but to leave their coun­try and we stand ready to help,” the spokesper­son says. “We will work with the gov­ern­ment and char­i­ties through any nec­es­sary prac­ti­cal­i­ties.”

Sev­er­al organ­i­sa­tions are help­ing to con­nect refugees with employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties. One such start-up is Jobs for Ukraine, set up by Valeri­ia Voshchevs­ka, Niki­ta Logachev and Sev­er­i­ja Biel­skyte. The job list­ings web­site was cre­at­ed in the space of three days and had 61,000 vis­i­tors in its first week. 

“We saw lots of dif­fer­ent peo­ple on LinkedIn post­ing job oppor­tu­ni­ties for peo­ple flee­ing the war in Ukraine,” Biel­skyte says.  “We thought it would be great to bring all these oppor­tu­ni­ties togeth­er and list them on a sin­gle site, instead of hav­ing to look through var­i­ous dif­fer­ent social media chan­nels.”

The trio have reached out to recruiters and com­pa­nies, encour­ag­ing them to not only adver­tise jobs on the site but to con­sid­er pro­vid­ing assis­tance and sup­port to those flee­ing the war. “That sup­port could come in the form of pro­vid­ing visa spon­sor­ship, accom­mo­da­tion sup­port or even pay­ing for flights,” Biel­skyte says.

Even sim­ple things can make a big dif­fer­ence, such as guar­an­tee­ing a quick turn­around of appli­cants or offer­ing the first month’s salary in advance. “These peo­ple are already in the most uncer­tain and scary sit­u­a­tions of their life,” adds Biel­skyte. Such actions as giv­ing them cer­tain­ty on when they’ll hear back “can real­ly make a big dif­fer­ence”.

Relocation priorities

Assist­ing with relo­ca­tion should also be a pri­or­i­ty for any busi­ness employ­ing refugees. “If you do decide to hire some­one from Ukraine, then you should think about the sup­port your team is going to pro­vide them to relo­cate,” Biel­skyte says. “These peo­ple have left their whole lives behind and I’m sure that for many, mon­ey will be tight at the moment.” 

Clip­per, a logis­tics part­ner of Asos, has pro­vid­ed free accom­mo­da­tion to refugees in Poland. The neigh­bour­ing state has so far tak­en in 2.5 mil­lion refugees, the largest num­ber of any coun­try.

If small­er busi­ness­es can’t afford to offer free accom­mo­da­tion, pro­vid­ing a start­ing bonus or pay­ing for the first few weeks of rent could still be a gen­er­ous and help­ful ges­ture. Even putting peo­ple in touch with estate agents to help them find a home can be use­ful. 

“If busi­ness­es can also help Ukraini­ans find tem­po­rary accom­mo­da­tion, this will make a huge dif­fer­ence,” says Josephine Whitak­er-Yil­maz, pol­i­cy and pub­lic affairs man­ag­er for Prax­is, a human rights char­i­ty sup­port­ing migrants and refugees. “The abil­i­ty to access lots of things peo­ple will need – includ­ing a bank account, Nation­al Insur­ance num­ber and reg­is­tra­tion with a GP – are made eas­i­er if some­one has a proof of address, even if only a tem­po­rary one.”

Not all sup­port has to be finan­cial. “Our advice to busi­ness­es seek­ing to help Ukraini­ans is to refer them to solic­i­tors and immi­gra­tion advis­ers for expert, qual­i­fied legal advice on their immi­gra­tion or asy­lum cas­es,” says Whitak­er-Yil­maz.

Cur­rent immi­gra­tion advice can be extreme­ly com­plex to nav­i­gate, she says. The con­se­quences of poor-qual­i­ty advice can take years and thou­sands of pounds in legal fees to rec­ti­fy.

While the large num­ber of busi­ness­es offer­ing jobs to refugees is pos­i­tive, an inte­grat­ed approach to sup­port will help Ukrain­ian hires to set­tle quick­er. Employ­ers should con­sid­er any help that pro­vides the extra sup­port nec­es­sary for refugees to start rebuild­ing their lives. “Every­one wants to be inde­pen­dent, so the more that we can do to enable peo­ple to do that, the bet­ter,” says Biel­skyte.