Business bosses face 12-week wait to get visa Moderna chief nets for foreign staff that allows one shift’s work $700k for single day
COMPANIES are facing 12-week delays to get a visa for foreign staff doing just one day’s work, amid calls for ministers to use their post-brexit freedom to slash the red tape governing business travel.
Firms are struggling to bring in overseas staff for short-term projects and training owing to post-brexit backlogs, increased costs and complex rules, Thecityuk warned.
The industry body, which represents financial services, is calling for reforms to Britain’s short-term business travel rules so that businesses can bring overseas employees without a work visa.
This may be needed when international managers want to meet new clients and customers in Britain, or experts in certain subjects are required to travel to teach UK workers how to use a new product or export services to their jurisdiction.
Other examples are technical experts, such as software engineers, visiting Britain for a training course, or providing employees who moved to the European Union with training and support from their UK office.
The volume of visa applications has risen sharply since Brexit because rules agreed with Brussels mean that employees coming from the EU for short UK projects now need to apply. This is bringing higher costs for businesses, as many have hired immigration services providers to manage applications.
Nicola Watkinson, a director at Thecityuk, said: “The country’s current short-term mobility rules make it hard for businesses to draw on the strengths of their global talent for shortterm Uk-based projects.
“Government should seize the opportunity Brexit has provided to make short-term business mobility easier, strengthening the UK’S competitiveness and capacity for innovation.”
Proposed reforms would mean that visitors could be issued with a travel certificate by their UK sponsor lasting up to six months. This would also allow the person to enter the UK without applying for a visa before departure.
Thecityuk stressed that ICT is not an alternative to hiring people in the UK and visiting workers would not compete against local talent.
The current turnaround time for
applications does not match with business needs, according to the group.
Some companies have warned that it takes too long to apply, especially if they need to service clients immediately.
It can take six weeks to process an intra-company visa and before applying, businesses need to do internal checks, resulting in waits of 12 weeks to get a visa that enables one day’s work.
Employees of a Uk-based business cannot get a visa unless they have worked at their company for over one year, or earn over £73,900 annually.
Junior employees on work rotations, interns and employees from lower-cost jurisdictions do not qualify.
Thecityuk said that there is an over reliance on so-called super-priority visa routes across the industry, but these are much more expensive, limited and have been suspended during the Ukraine crisis. It added that there are some distinctions between the activities that are permitted by different visas which confuse firms that are applying.
For instance, a business visitor visa allows the holder to meet clients, but does not let them work with colleagues to prepare for the meeting. Also, managers can come to the UK to train their team by telling them how to book a trade, but they are not allowed to show them how to do it.
A TOP executive at a leading Covid vaccine manufacturer earned $700,000 (£570,000) in just one day after he quit abruptly amid an investigation at his former employer.
Jorge Gomez took over as chief financial officer at Moderna on Monday but stepped down from the post a day later after his previous employer, Dentsply Sirona, announced it had launched an investigation into financial reporting.
Dentsply disclosed that it had been made aware of “allegations regarding certain financial reporting matters” by current and former employees.
As part of the investigation, which kicked off in March, its audit and financial committees are looking into the incentives used to sell products to distributors and how they were disclosed.
It is also scrutinising allegations certain former and current members of senior management directed the use of incentives to achieve executive compensation targets. Mr Gomez was not referred to in the filing and Dentsply had previously said his “decision to resign is not the result of any dispute or disagreement with the company, the company’s management or the board of directors on any matter relating to the company’s operations, policies or practices”.
Following his resignation, which was announced yesterday, Mr Gomez will be entitled to take home one year’s salary, equal to around $700,000.
Moderna said he had forfeited his signing bonus, bonus eligibility and eligibility for new hire equity awards. He had been set to receive a new hire award totalling $4m, a signing bonus of $500,000, as well as share awards worth between $3m and $4m in future years.
The move comes as pharmaceutical companies find themselves at the centre of a row over large pay awards. Last week, almost 40pc of shareholders at Glaxosmithkline’s annual general meeting voted against its pay plans.