Friday 8 March 2024

From today, sponsors will no longer be required to report a worker changing to a hybrid working pattern on their Sponsorship Management System (SMS). Sponsors must still keep records of the worker’s working patterns and report any changes to the worker’s main office work location or any new client sites. Sponsors are not required to report day-to-day changes in work locations, only changes in regular working patterns.

A hybrid working pattern is defined as “where the worker will work remotely on a regular and planned basis from their home or another address, such as a work hub space, that is not a client site or an address listed on your licence, in addition to regularly attending one or more of your offices or branches, or a client site.”

Where a worker will be changing to entirely remote working from home on a permanent or full-time basis (with little or no requirement to physically attend a workplace), this must still be reported on the sponsor’s SMS. The Home Office reserves the right to ask the sponsor to explain why they need to sponsor the worker in the UK if, for example, they could work remotely from their home country.

This comes a year after the Home Office updated its sponsor guidance to require sponsors to report hybrid and remote working from March 2023. The Home Office in its most recent updated guidance acknowledges that many organisations have now adopted hybrid working models on a regular basis and therefore they no longer require sponsors to report a change to hybrid working.

Sponsors should be cautious and ensure they have the correct documents on file should they be subject to a compliance visit, as the Home Office may ask why certain workers have been sponsored for entirely remote work with little or no requirement to attend the premises.