Any UK employer wishing to hire a non-settled overseas worker must apply for a UK sponsor licence from UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI), a division of the Home Office. To apply for a UK sponsor licence, an employer must complete an online application via the UKVI portal, pay the required fee, and submit a minimum of four supporting documents (including any that are mandatory for your type of organisation) within five working days. Legally governed by Section 3 of the Immigration Act 1971 and the UK Immigration Rules, this process is strictly managed under the Home Office’s Sponsor Guidance Part 1 (Version 08/26, valid from 28 August 2026). (Herein after referred to as ‘Guidance’). To secure approval, a business must demonstrate that it is offering a genuine, commercially viable “Eligible Role,” actively educate sponsored staff on their UK employment rights, and maintain flawless HR tracking systems to meet strict compliance standards. Without a valid licence, an employer cannot issue a Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) and therefore cannot lawfully employ a non-settled worker.
Applying for a UK sponsor licence is a legal requirement for any employer wishing to hire workers from outside the United Kingdom and Ireland, and getting it wrong carries real consequences including refusal, financial loss, and a cooling-off period of at least six months before reapplying, as set out in Paragraph L9 of the Guidance. Many employers underestimate the process and submit applications without adequate preparation, which is the most common reason UKVI refuses or delays a decision. Under Paragraph L1.1 of the Guidance, a sponsor licence is the authorisation granted by the Home Office to employers who wish to employ or engage a person who is not a settled worker or does not otherwise have immigration permission to work for them in the UK. This article gives employers a clear step-by-step guide covering eligibility checks, choosing the right licence type, appointing key personnel, preparing supporting documents, submitting through the UKVI online portal, and understanding what happens after submission including the Home Office assessment. It does not cover the student sponsor licence route.
KeyTakeaways
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A sponsor licence is official Home Office permission allowing a UK employer to issue Certificates of Sponsorship to overseas workers so they can apply for a work visa.
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Certificate of Sponsorship is a digital database record with a unique reference number issued by an approved employer to a foreign worker, serving as the mandatory legal link and evidential foundation required for that worker to apply for a UK visa.
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Eligibility and Route: Verify your UK business is fully legitimate and select the appropriate visa route (e.g., Skilled Worker) for your hiring needs.
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Key Personnel: Appoint a responsible internal staff member to manage the licence and oversee strict Home Office compliance duties.
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Document Readiness: Gather a minimum of four supporting documents (including any mandatory for your organisation type) to submit within five working days of applying.
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Online Submission: Complete the application via the UKVI portal and pay the required fee based on your company size.
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UKVI Assessment: Prepare for a forensic review of your HR systems by the Home Office before your licence is approved.
Who is eligible to apply for a Sponsor Licence?
Before you apply, your organisation needs to satisfy two separate tests that UKVI applies to every application. The first is eligibility, which asks whether your organisation is the right type of entity to hold a licence. The second is suitability, which asks whether your organisation and its key personnel are trustworthy enough to be given the responsibility that comes with holding one.
- You must be a genuine organisation operating or trading lawfully in the UK, and prove it with the documents listed in Appendix A (Paragraphs L3.3 and L8.2 of the Guidance).
- If you must be registered with, inspected by or licensed by a regulator to operate legally, you must hold that registration when you apply (Paragraph L3.3).
- You must be able to carry out your sponsor duties, with human resources systems and processes to match, and you must be able and intend to offer work that meets the definition of an “eligible role” (Paragraphs L3.3, L8.7 and L8.10).
- You and your Key Personnel must be suitable: no unspent convictions for an offence listed in Annex L4, no unpaid relevant civil penalties, and no behaviour that is not conducive to the public good (Paragraphs L4.25, L4.26 and L8.13 to L8.17).
- You must meet any requirements specific to the route or routes you are applying for, set out in the route-specific guidance. The granting of a licence is at the discretion of the Home Office and creates no enforceable right (Paragraph L2.2).
This page covers the application process only. For the full eligibility and suitability tests, read our guide to sponsor licence requirements and the GOV.UK eligibility page.
Which Licence type should you choose?
To choose the right sponsor licence for your business, start by matching your hiring needs to the two main Home Office categories: the Worker Licence, which covers long-term skilled roles, and the Temporary Worker Licence, which is for short-term or project-based positions.
You can apply for either one or both types of licences at the same time, depending on what your business needs.
1. Choose a "Worker Licence" for Long-Term Careers
Choose this license if you want to sponsor permanent employees or bring senior staff into the UK.
- Skilled Worker: This is the main option for most company hires. The role must meet the job suitability requirements.
- Senior or Specialist Worker (Global Business Mobility): This is for multinational companies that need to move experienced, high-earning managers or specialists to their UK office.
- Minister of Religion: For people taking on long-term roles in a registered religious organization.
- International Sportsperson: For top-level athletes and coaches who will be living and working in the UK sports sector for the long term.
2. Choose a "Temporary Worker Licence" for Short-Term Roles
Choose this licence if your business needs flexible workers for volunteering and job-shadowing for short-term. The license is split into:
Before you apply: a readiness checklist
Most refused or delayed applications fail on preparation, not paperwork. Before you start the online form, check that you can answer yes to each of the following:
- Do you have genuine trading activity in the UK? The Home Office is unlikely to be satisfied where income comes only from related companies or private investors, or from circular trading between linked entities (Paragraph L8.4).
- Are you registered with any regulator your sector requires, and do you have a real place of business? If you operate a virtual business model, expect a compliance check before a decision (Paragraphs L8.11 and L8.20).
- Can you send a minimum of four supporting documents, including any mandatory for your organisation type, within 5 working days of applying? See Appendix A for the lists, and make sure your Authorising Officer and Key Contact can respond within 5 working days to any request for more information (Paragraphs L6.29, L6.31 and L6.32).
- Have you named your Key Personnel: an Authorising Officer, a Key Contact and at least one eligible Level 1 User, each UK-based, with a valid National Insurance number and no disqualifying conviction or civil penalty (Paragraphs L4.8 and L4.25)?
- Do your human resources systems let you know when a sponsored worker does not turn up for work or when their permission is about to end, and can you keep the records required by Appendix D and show that you give sponsored workers information about their employment rights (Paragraphs L2.7 and L8.23)?
- Are the roles you intend to sponsor genuine, necessary for your business, and able to meet the skill and salary requirements of the route? The Home Office may not be satisfied by a role that does not appear credible for your business (Paragraphs L8.10 to L8.12).
- Have you worked out how many Certificates of Sponsorship you need in your first year on each route, with detailed reasons? For Skilled Worker, you must request “Undefined” CoS for workers applying from inside the UK (Paragraphs L6.23 to L6.26).
- Will you complete the application yourself? A representative can help with the form but must not send it for you, or the application will be refused and the fee not refunded (Paragraph L6.4).
Have you budgeted for the licence fee, any priority fee, the CoS fee and, for Skilled Worker, the Immigration Skills Charge? You cannot recoup these costs from sponsored workers (Paragraphs L6.12 and L6.17). See our guide to the cost of sponsoring an employee.
How do you appoint the Right Key Personnel?
You must name specific people within your business to manage the license. If they do not meet the criteria, your application is likely to be refused (Paragraph L4.9). L4.2, L4.4 of Workers and Temporary Workers: Guidance for sponsors part 1: apply for a licence has legal basis for key personnel as:
The 3 Key Personnel Roles You Must Appoint (and the Level 2 User Phase-Out)
- Authorising Officer (Mandatory)
The Authorising Officer must be a paid member of staff or an office holder within your organisation, and the most senior person responsible for recruiting sponsored workers and for making sure you meet your sponsor duties. You cannot appoint a representative to this role, and you can have only one Authorising Officer (Paragraphs L4.32 to L4.34). There is no requirement in the Guidance for the Authorising Officer to be a British citizen, a settled worker, or a person holding indefinite leave to remain. They take ultimate legal responsibility for compliance but do not get automatic system access.
- Key Contact (Mandatory)
The main person UKVI will contact for questions or audits. (Can be the same person as the AO). There is no nationality, immigration status, or settlement requirement for this role in the Guidance. The Key Contact must be a paid member of staff, an office holder or a UK-based representative, and you can have only one (Paragraphs L4.40 and L4.41).
- Level 1 User (Mandatory)
The person running the online system day-to-day (assigning certificates, reporting changes). Your primary Level 1 User must be an employee, director or partner within your organisation and a settled worker as defined in section S1 of Part 2 of the Guidance, unless an exception applies (Paragraphs L4.45 to L4.53). Sponsors licensed before 1 January 2025 can meet these two requirements through separate Level 1 Users (Paragraphs L4.54 and L4.55). You must have an eligible Level 1 User throughout the life of your licence or the Home Office will revoke it (Paragraph L4.47).
- Level 2 User (Being Phased Out)
From 9 September 2026 you can no longer appoint any Level 2 Users. Existing Level 2 Users must be converted to Level 1 Users (if eligible) or deactivated by 8 March 2027, after which the Home Office will deactivate any that remain (Paragraphs L4.4, L4.58 and L4.59).
Multi-Factor Authentication and Inactive SMS Accounts
Mandatory multi-factor authentication (MFA) for users of the Sponsorship Management System (SMS) is being phased in from 3 September 2026 and is expected to be in place for all sponsors by November 2026. It is enabled from the start for any organisation granted a licence on or after 9 September 2026. You must keep an up-to-date email address, mobile number and date of birth for each Level 1 User so they can log in (Paragraphs L4.67 to L4.70 and L4.84).
An SMS user account that has not been used for 12 months can be deactivated. If you are contacted, your Level 1 Users must log in and check their details within 3 months. If you end up with no active Level 1 User, the Home Office will suspend your licence and give you 28 days to nominate an eligible one, and will normally revoke it if you do not (Paragraphs L4.72 to L4.78).
For more detail, see our guide to sponsor licence key personnel.
How much does a sponsor licence cost?
The fees below were current at the date of checking (23 October 2026), based on the Home Office fee table in force from 8 April 2026. The licence fee is not refunded if your application is refused or you withdraw it after consideration has begun (Paragraph L6.15).
If the Home Office finds you have recouped these fees from a sponsored worker, it will normally revoke your licence (Paragraph L6.17). For a full breakdown, see our guide to the cost of sponsoring an employee and our guide to the Immigration Skills Charge.
How to apply for a UK Sponsor Licence through the UKVI Portal?
Submit your application online using the official UKVI Sponsorship Management portal on GOV.UK. Paper submissions are not accepted. Ensure your information is accurate and matches your supporting documents before starting. Following are the ways to apply for a UK Sponsor Licence through the UKVI Portal:
Portal Registration and Account Setup
You must first register your organizations baseline operational details on the UKVI online sponsor application registration portal. After you register, you will be able to log into the UKVI ‘Sponsor application login page. Next, complete the online application form and submit the required documents to show you are eligible and suitable which are listed in Appendix A under Paragraph L6.19 of the Guidance.
Choose Licence Types and Complete the form
Firstly, select the specific immigration routes your business needs. If successful, you are legally restricted to sponsoring workers only on the exact routes approved during this step. You can select multiple routes simultaneously if eligible a confirmed under Paragraph L6.22 of the Guidance.
Input your organization’s trading history, and registration details such as Companies House records or regulatory tracking. You must input the names of your key personnel, contact addresses, and National Insurance numbers for your mandatory internal management team.
The online form requires a first-year estimate of Certificates of Sponsorship (CoS) for each route, backed by detailed business reasons, or UKVI may lower your allocation or set it to zero. If applying under the Skilled Worker route, you must specifically request “Undefined” CoS for candidates applying from within the UK. For the UK Expansion Worker route, your maximum allocation is strictly limited to between 1 and 10 certificates depending on your circumstances. Ultimately, you must calculate how many workers you expect to hire and why, as these precise reasons dictate your annual CoS allocation as set out in Paragraph L6.23-26.
Paying the Application Fee Online
The application fee must be paid online via credit or debit card through the portal at the immediate point of submission. The fee is fully based on the size or status of the organization.
Eligible to pay Small or Charitable fee: If you are applying for Temporary Worker routes only, hold recognized charitable status or qualify under the small company’s regime as defined by section 381 of the Companies Act 2006 (or employ 50 or fewer people if your organization is not a company) under Paragraph L6.13 of the Guidance. To qualify under the small company’s regime, your business must meet at least two of the following three criteria:
- An annual turnover of £15 million or less,
- A balance sheet total of £7.5 million or less, or
- 50 or fewer employees.
If your business goes over the small company limits or belongs to a corporate group that exceeds them globally, you must pay the larger fee. If you don’t pay this full amount, the Home Office will declare your application invalid and reject it immediately under Paragraph L6.14.
What Supporting Documents Do You Need?
Appendix A of the Sponsor Guidance outlines required evidence. The requirement to provide supporting documents arises immediately after you submit and pay for your online application, giving you a strict 5-working-day window to send your evidence to the Home Office along with your signed submission sheet. These documents act as mandatory legal proof for UKVI to verify that your business is a genuine, operating UK entity with the necessary HR infrastructure to handle strict sponsorship and compliance duties. Most organisations must submit a minimum of four documents, including any that Appendix A specifies as mandatory for their type of organisation or route (see the full list in Appendix A). Examples of documents the Home Office accepts include the following, but you must check which are mandatory for you:
- Business bank statements (recent)
- VAT registration certificate (if applicable)
- Employer’s liability insurance (minimum £5 million cover from an FCA-authorised insurer)
- Certificate of incorporation (for limited companies)
- Latest audited or unaudited accounts
- HMRC registration (PAYE and Accounts Office reference)
- Evidence of business premises (lease, ownership, or utility bills)
- Professional indemnity insurance (if applicable)
- Company hierarchy or organisational chart
- Signed and dated submission sheet (from online application)
- HR policy and procedure documents
- HR system to track sponsored workers’ right to work and absences.
Submission and Submission Sheet Generation
Once you submit, the portal generates a downloadable official submission sheet. Under Paragraph L6.27 of the Guidance, the Authorising Officer must sign and date the declaration on the submission sheet. Scan or take legible digital photographs of all pages of your signed and dated submission sheet alongside your mandatory supporting documents from Appendix A. Send the complete package via email to the submission mailbox address printed on the submission sheet. You must send all documents within 5 working days of the date you submitted your online application, or your application will be invalid under Paragraphs L6.29 and L6.30 of the Guidance. Invalid applications are rejected, returned without further consideration and the application fee is refunded.
You must also tell the Home Office, in a covering email or letter with your submission sheet, if you or anyone falling under the definition of “you or your” have been suspended or removed from any sponsor register in the last 5 years, have any criminal prosecutions pending, or know that an organisation you have been involved with in a similar role has failed to pay VAT or another excise duty (Paragraph L6.28).
Error Correction Requests After a Refusal
If your application is refused, there is no right of appeal (Paragraph L9.8). If you believe the refusal resulted from a caseworker error, or from evidence you sent not being considered, you can send an error correction request form within 14 calendar days of the date of the refusal decision letter. The Home Office aims to reply within 28 working days and will not consider evidence that was not available at the time of your application (Paragraphs L9.8 to L9.10).
What Happens After You Submit the Application?
How Long Does UKVI Take to Decide?
After you submit your sponsor license application, UKVI aims to make decision within 8 weeks, as set out in GOV.UK guidance. It can take longer if your application is complicated or if UKVI is busy. During this time, UKVI looks over everything you’ve given them, like information about your business, your key staff (Paragraph L4), and the jobs you’re hoping to fill (Paragraphs L8.10 to L8.12). They check all of this to see if you meet the eligibility and suitability rules in Paragraph L8 of the Guidance.
If waiting eight weeks is too long for your business, UKVI offers a faster service for an extra £750 which aims to deliver a decision within 10 working days. Spaces for this service are limited, so make sure to carefully follow the Home Office instructions once you send your application. Keep in mind, though, that paying for priority doesn’t always guarantee a ten-day answer. The Home Office will pause your application and step in with an extra document request or a surprise inspection if they spot inconsistencies in your paperwork, doubt your office setup, or want to double-check your HR tracking systems. When this happens, the standard 8-week processing time is put on hold until they finish checking your business. The priority service is available for certain routes only (Paragraph L6.16). For a fuller comparison, see our guide to sponsor licence processing times.
Pre-Licence Home Office Compliance Visits
Under Paragraph L8 of the Guidance, the Home Office uses risk-based pre-licence compliance assessments to target high-risk or unfamiliar applicants. A designated UKVI officer can conduct an unannounced physical site visit or a remote digital video audit to thoroughly interview your Key Personnel and inspect your premises. This formal check evaluates whether your HR systems and recruitment processes possess the practical capability to fulfil the strict reporting, tracking, and document retention requirement mandated by law.
According to the statutory criteria, you must satisfy the department that you can actively monitor sponsored workers, log reportable changes on the Sponsorship Management System (SMS) within mandatory deadlines, and retain correct records like right-to-work checks and contact histories. These rules act as a compliance check to make sure your business is organized and responsible enough to handle the government’s trust, which is the main factor the Home Office uses to decide if you are suitable for a licence. If the inspector identifies significant contradictions between your application claims and their actual operational findings, or harbors substantial doubts about your infrastructure, the Home Office is legally entitled to refuse your licence application outright.
Approval of Application
Under Sections L3 and L9 of the Guidance, approval gives your business an active A-rating and adds you to the public GOV.UK Register of Licensed Sponsors. This opens access to the online Sponsorship Management System (SMS) portal. Through this system, you can update company details, report worker updates, and create electronic Certificates of Sponsorship (CoS), which give candidates the unique reference numbers needed for their visa applications. Your decision letter will tell you your sponsor licence number and the maximum number of Certificates of Sponsorship you can assign, which will be zero if you said you were unsure whether you would recruit overseas workers (Paragraph L9.3).
To keep your licence, you must properly maintain your everyday HR systems. Under Home Office rules, officials can conduct surprise physical site visits or digital video checks to audit your business at any time. To pass these checks, you must follow the strict record-keeping rules in Appendix D, which include tracking worker attendance and reporting any employment changes on the online portal within 10 working days. If the Home Office finds poor record-keeping, underpayment of sponsored workers, or that you have recouped sponsorship costs from workers, it can downgrade, suspend or revoke your licence (Paragraphs L3.12 and L6.17 and Part 3 of the Guidance).
Refusal of Application
Under Paragraph L9, a refusal means your business failed to meet core eligibility or suitability metrics. UKVI will email the decision to your Authorizing Officer and return any original documents by Royal Mail Signed For delivery. While there is no statutory right of appeal, under Paragraph L6 and L9, you can submit an Error Correction Request within 14 calendar days if a caseworker error occurred or original evidence was ignored. This review completely excludes new evidence; if successful, you must reapply with a temporary fee that will be fully refunded.
If your application is refused under Paragraph L9, you must wait before reapplying. These mandatory waiting periods are legally called cooling-off periods. The cooling-off period is normally 6 months from the date of the refusal (or of the withdrawal, if you withdrew while checks were under way). It is 12 months from a first revocation or surrender, and 24 months if your licence has been revoked more than once. It is 12 months from the date you pay in full a civil penalty for employing an illegal worker, and 5 years from the date you pay certain other penalties or charges, such as for carrying clandestine entrants or passengers without proper documents (Paragraph L9.17).
There is no cooling-off period in some cases, for example where your application was sent by a representative, where you did not provide requested documents for reasons outside your control, or where your licence was revoked only because you had no active Level 1 User after the inactive-account process. If you apply while still in a cooling-off period, the Home Office will automatically refuse your application (Paragraph L9.16). It will also refuse it if a relevant civil penalty has not been paid in full, or if anyone falling under the definition of “you or your” has an unspent conviction for a relevant offence listed in Annex L4 (Paragraphs L8.13 and L8.17). Once the conviction becomes spent, you can apply again, but if an earlier application was refused because of it, a cooling-off period may still apply (Paragraph L8.14).
Why sponsor licence applications are refused
Once your licence is granted, the work shifts from applying to complying. In the first week:
- Read your decision letter and note your sponsor licence number and your maximum Certificate of Sponsorship allocation. If it is zero or too low, you can ask for an increase through the SMS, giving detailed reasons (Paragraphs L9.3 and L6.26).
- Check that your organisation appears on the register of Worker and Temporary Worker sponsors with an A-rating (Paragraphs L3.7 and L8.27).
- Log in to the SMS and check the details of your Key Personnel. Mandatory multi-factor authentication is enabled from the start for licences granted on or after 9 September 2026, so make sure each Level 1 User’s email address, mobile number and date of birth are correct (Paragraphs L4.67 to L4.70).
- Have your Authorising Officer put checks in place on the Certificates of Sponsorship your SMS users assign. The Guidance recommends checking them at least once a month (Paragraph L4.37).
- Set up your HR processes for attendance, right-to-work evidence and record-keeping, and learn which changes you must report within 10 working days. Read Part 2: Sponsor a worker and Part 3: Sponsor duties and compliance, and keep up to date with changes (Paragraph L2.5).
Do not charge sponsored workers for the licence fee, the CoS fee or the Immigration Skills Charge (Paragraph L6.17). See our guides to sponsorship duties for employers and applying for a Certificate of Sponsorship for the next steps.
Tendercare v Secretary of State for the Home Department: What the Case Tells Sponsors
In R (Tendercare Management Ltd) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2024] EWHC 2154 (Admin), the High Court upheld the Home Office’s decision to revoke a care home operator’s sponsor license after a compliance visit revealed that sponsored workers were being supplied to third-party care providers to cover staff shortages, and that employee absences were not being properly recorded. The court ruled that the supply arrangements amounted to the operator acting as an employment agency, which is prohibited under Sponsor Guidance Part 3, and that the failure to maintain adequate absence records breached the record-keeping duties prescribed in Appendix D of that guidance. The court confirmed that breaches of mandatory sponsor duties will almost certainly result in revocation, and that the Home Office’s discretion to take a lesser course of action applies only in compelling or exceptional circumstances. Any sponsor operating in the care sector, or any other regulated sector where staff sharing arrangements are common, should treat this decision as a direct warning that such arrangements will not survive a compliance visit.
Conclusion
Preparation should begin well before a job offer is made to an overseas worker, because the timeline from deciding to apply to receiving a decision runs to at least eight to twelve weeks on the standard service, and that window does not account for the time needed to audit HR systems, appoint the right key personnel, and gather the Appendix A documents required by UKVI. Before anything else, check the current version of the Sponsor Guidance Part 1 on GOV.UK, as the guidance changes frequently and the current operative version is Version 08/26, valid from 28 August 2026, for businesses that are new, operate in a regulated sector such as healthcare or social care, or have any history of previous licence refusals or revocations, immigration advice should be taken before submitting, because the application fee is non-refundable in almost all cases and a refusal triggers a six-month bar on reapplying under Paragraph L9 of the Guidance. Getting the application right the first-time matters, because the cost of getting it wrong goes well beyond the fee.
Frequently Asked Questions
A Sponsorship License is an official permission granted by the UK government that allows a UK-based organization to legally employ foreign nationals who do not otherwise have the right to work in the country. To maintain this license, the business must issue digital Certificates of Sponsorship to eligible workers and strictly adhere to ongoing compliance, record-keeping, and reporting duties set by UK Visas and Immigration.
No, as an individual worker, you do not need a sponsor licence. Instead, the UK employer who wants to hire you must hold the licence so they can sponsor your work visa.
To get a UK Sponsor Licence, a business must check its eligibility, choose the specific visa route it needs, and nominate internal staff to manage the licence. The company must then complete an online application via GOV.UK, pay the required fee, and submit a minimum of four supporting documents (including any mandatory for your organisation type) within 5 working days.
The standard processing time is up to 8 weeks, but you can pay an additional £750 for the fast-track Priority Service to get a decision within 10 working days.
The application fee is £611 for small or charitable sponsors and £1,682 for medium or large sponsors, plus an optional £750 for the pre-licence priority service. After the licence is granted, each Certificate of Sponsorship costs £525, and the Immigration Skills Charge applies to Skilled Worker and Senior or Specialist Worker sponsorship unless an exemption applies. See our guide to the cost of sponsoring an employee.
When a sponsor licence is granted, your business is added to the official Home Office register, giving you access to the online portal to issue Certificates of Sponsorship while immediately binding your company to strict, ongoing HR compliance and reporting duties.
