How can I create an effective immigration workgroup?
One of the most important ways that US employers can prepare for immigration decision-making during the second Trump Administration and beyond is to build the infrastructure necessary to meet whatever changes come quickly and effectively.
In periods of regulatory stability, there is time to assess your immigration policy and make changes more slowly. It is more common to spend weeks or months discussing policy or process changes and then prior to implementation identify other stakeholders that may need to weigh in. There is more time to go back and amend or restrategize if a new stakeholder enters the picture and raises a competing priority or unanticipated nuance to the decision-making process. This is not the environment we are entering now. During times of regulatory turbulence, there is no time to query one stakeholder at a time, to loop someone new in at the last-minute, or to provide all necessary training or context to a key decision-maker in real time.
What follows are some key questions to ask to determine if you have the necessary infrastructure in place to be fully agile.
Who are your stakeholders and decision-makers?
Talent Agenda: There is a difference between talent you need and talent you want. Talent you need is talent your business cannot function without. Your HRBPs and business leaders are the stakeholders who can best decide what talent is fundamental to your overall business goals and requirements. Talent you want is talent that helps your business uphold its values. This talent is often defined by ESG, DEI, HR and other strategic groups within your organization and is part of a broader agenda. The decision-making for talent you need is likely to be clearer and less complex than decision-making for talent you want. The cost ceiling for necessary talent is higher and there is typically less pressure to compromise concrete financial or market goals than there is to compromise on vision or values.
Compliance Oversight: There are many experts tasked with providing counsel to the organization about compliance gaps, probabilities of risks, and mitigation strategies. Some may sit inside your company and some outside, but these experts will be even more necessary during turbulent regulatory changes. Ultimately, however, these experts are rarely the compliance decision-makers. It is important to know who within your executive group, legal department, business leadership, must sign off on risks associated with new strategies and policy changes and ensure they are well-connected to the experts.
Cost Control: Every talent and compliance decision bears a related financial impact. That impact might be a cost, a savings, or an estimate of potential damages. Your CFO, Controller, Head of Procurement, Line of Business Leaders, will likely need to be involved in whatever immigration decisions get made. They will need to understand dollar impacts and sign off on those or seek exceptions from executive leadership.
How are your stakeholders and decision-makers connected?
Once you have identified the key stakeholders and ultimate decision-makers for Talent, Compliance and Cost in your organization, you must connect them. Name a workgroup or taskforce that includes all relevant parties and decide if they will be connected via a social media channel, email listserve, intranet site, text chain, phone tree, etc. Set a method and cadence for communication and get buy-in from this group. Create communication templates that will be easy to edit and customize for the impact analysis being raised (whatever it may be).
How are your stakeholders and decision-makers informed?
Most of the stakeholders and decision-makers identified above, relating to Talent, Compliance and Cost, do not engage routinely with US immigration. They may have never been called upon to weigh in on immigration policy previously, or they may have only done so sporadically, a handful of times over multiple years. This workgroup or taskforce will likely need some training and context for what lies ahead. Do they have access to your immigration experts? Do they have a place to go when questions arise? Have you given them fair warning of the type and frequency of decisions that may be awaiting them during this second Trump term? It is time to ensure resources are clearly marked and proactive engagement has begun.
There is rampant and ongoing public discourse regarding the immigration policy agenda for this next Administration, with several developing economic and geopolitical factors that could contribute to or detract from that agenda. While it is important to follow the immigration news cycle to remain alert, we also know that pure speculation can be a drain on resources. To be proactive, it is important to focus on what is predictable:
Changes to US immigration are coming;
Whatever changes come, US employers will need to make tough calls in balancing Talent, Compliance and Cost;
These changes are likely to occur in higher frequency – at least once per quarter if not once per week or month; and
These changes are likely to be made without notice, to take immediate effect.
If you feel you could use any help with the planning exercises above, please reach out to me. Day 1, I am ready. Are you?