Fourteen zeros in the contribution column: how a monthly check saved a group's permits

01 / Monthly check

Fourteen rows and fourteen zeros

Thursday, 8:40, WORKIN's Kyiv office. Andrii Savchuk, Deputy Director, opens an email the accounts department of a technical company in the Vinnytsia region sent late the previous evening: a payroll extract for the first month covering only the group from Kyrgyzstan, and the payment order for the unified social contribution. He is not interested in the salary figures and goes straight to one column. Fourteen rows, fourteen surnames he has known since the selection in Bishkek. And fourteen zeros in the social contribution column.

The payment order, stamped by the bank, was attached as well, and at first glance everything looked fine: the company had paid its contribution. But it was a single payment for the whole workforce, and for the fourteen new workers no contribution had been calculated at all. To the accounts department it looked like an ordinary closed month. For the work permits, a clock was running.

Andrii opened the control-date register. The employment contracts with the whole group had been signed on the same day, thirty-eight days earlier. The employment law names non-payment of the unified social contribution for a foreign worker within two months of the employment contract date as a ground on which the employment centre revokes the permit. Twenty-three days of those two months were left. That was enough time, provided the work started that morning.

The monthly check exists for mornings exactly like this one: when the deadline is still twenty-three days away, not three.

02 / Request

A large contract and eight weeks to build a team

Three months before that Thursday, WORKIN was approached by a company that makes ventilation equipment for grain elevators and food plants. It had won a contract to supply units for a new plant and was fourteen assembly fitters short. At the first meeting with Olena Lytvynenko, who runs client projects at WORKIN, the chief engineer described the people he needed: able to read drawings, experienced with sheet metal and confident with measuring tools. The team was needed within eight weeks.

The company did not name a country; the task was simply fourteen fitters by a certain date. Kemal Aslan, our Head of Recruitment, broke it down against the criteria we check on every project. First, language: the chief engineer and supervisors explain the work in Ukrainian and Russian, so people need to follow them without an interpreter. Second, the route: eight weeks to the start cannot accommodate a D visa, which takes eight to twelve weeks. Third, experience and a reserve that partners have right now, not at some point in the past.

On those criteria we proposed Kyrgyzstan. Citizens of Kyrgyzstan enter Ukraine without a visa, and the route takes four to seven weeks. Russian has official status there and many people received their technical training in it, so the technical terms and markings on drawings are familiar to candidates. Our licensed partner in Bishkek had several dozen people on file with experience in steel fabrication workshops and ventilation installation, including on industrial sites in Kazakhstan. Turkey is also visa-free and strong in these trades, but without a shared language with the supervisors every explanation would have gone through an interpreter.

The company agreed with the proposal and asked for one thing: the group should come from a single country, so that people could live together in the company's hostel and speak the same language. That matched our plan, and recruitment started the following week.

Who is needed

14 assembly fitters

What to check

Reading drawings, sheet metal experience, measuring tools

Timing

Eight weeks until the contract starts

Country

Kyrgyzstan, visa-free route

Company's condition

One country and one hostel for the whole group

03 / Selection

A drawing on the table in Bishkek

Selection was led by Azamat Toktogulov, our Worker Relations Manager for Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. Within a week the partner in Bishkek gathered thirty-one candidates at its office, some of them travelling in from Tokmok, Kara-Balta and Karakol. Azamat held the interviews in Russian and Kyrgyz, and the partner had already reviewed the candidates' employment record books and photos of their previous work.

The practical part was the chief engineer's idea. Each candidate was handed a printed drawing of a simple ventilation unit housing and, over a video call, explained to the engineer which dimensions mattered most, where he would start the assembly and how he would check the geometry. The engineer asked two or three follow-up questions and told Azamat yes or no on the spot. Some candidates got lost at the markings; others picked up a pencil and wrote the missing dimensions in the margin themselves.

That is how Talant came onto the list: forty-one, from Kara-Balta, fourteen years in a steel fabrication workshop, two daughters studying in Bishkek, and later the group's senior. Ermek, twenty-six, from Tokmok, spent three years after technical college assembling ductwork on shopping centre sites in Almaty and is now saving for a home of his own. The chief engineer approved fourteen people, and three more stayed in reserve, knowing they could travel if someone's plans changed.

1. 01

   31 candidates

   Interviews at the partner's office in Bishkek, with people from Tokmok, Kara-Balta and Karakol.

2. 02

   Drawing and video call

   The candidate talks the chief engineer through a unit housing: dimensions, assembly sequence, tools.

3. 03

   14 approved

   Assembly fitters with experience in steel fabrication workshops and ventilation installation.

4. 04

   3 in reserve

   Candidates from the same selection, ready to travel with the group or later.

Before signing an agreement with us, every candidate received a vacancy information sheet in Russian and Kyrgyz. It set out the job title and workplace, the hostel address, the one-year term of the employment contract, the pay terms from the draft contract, the list of documents and Azamat's contact details. A separate section covered the border: state the real purpose of the trip, which is work under an issued permit, and keep a copy of the permit, proof of housing and a return ticket in hand, not just on a phone. Each candidate signed to confirm that neither the partner nor WORKIN had charged any fee for the job: that is a rule of our agreement with the partner.

At the pre-departure meeting Azamat also explained something candidates rarely ask about. The permit is issued to the employer, so a worker may only work for this company and in the position stated in the permit. Talant then asked what else his right to work depended on. Azamat answered honestly: mostly on documents and payments handled by the employer, and on whether someone checks them in time. We will come back to that conversation.

04 / Documents and travel

From the permit filing to a border crossing at dawn

Nataliia Kravchuk, our Head of Documents, assembled the company's documents using the employer checklist before selection had even finished. The file for each candidate followed the law: copies of the passport pages with personal data and a certified Ukrainian translation, a 3.5 x 4.5 cm colour photo, the draft employment contract certified by the employer, and proof of payment. The job title in the draft contracts was the same for everyone, assembly fitter, exactly as it was to appear in the permits.

The law allows up to seven working days for a decision to issue a permit, and the work permits for all fourteen were issued on the fifth. In parallel, the living support team checked the hostel paperwork, so that the address would work for residence registration and the residence permit filings. Azamat bought tickets only once the permits had been issued and sent everyone a copy of their permit for their document folder in advance.

The group flew to a neighbouring country and continued to the land border by coach. They reached the checkpoint at dawn, with Talant, as the group's senior, holding a list of everyone's passport numbers. The border officer asked two of them about the purpose of the trip; both answered as they had been prepared to and showed their folders. Azamat was waiting on the Ukrainian side, and by evening the group was unpacking at the hostel. What to carry on this kind of route is described on the visa-free entry page.

1. Weeks 1-2

   Interviews in Bishkek, the drawing test with the chief engineer, information sheets.

2. Weeks 3-4

   Candidates' documents, certified translations, the company's file from the checklist.

3. Week 5

   Filing for 14 permits, decision on the fifth working day.

4. Week 6

   Tickets, a document folder for each person, hostel check.

5. Week 7

   The group arrives across the land border and moves in the same day.

6. Weeks 7-8

   Employment contracts, copies to the employment centre, residence permit filings.

05 / Handover

The contract day as the starting point

On the second day after arrival the company signed employment contracts with all fourteen. We entered that day in the register as day zero: most of the deadlines a company later thinks about least are counted from it. We filed the certified copies of the contracts with the employment centre on day six, although the law allows ten days. Tax numbers, bank accounts and filings for temporary residence permits were completed in the first weeks as part of migration support, and residence registration was done at the hostel address we had checked before arrival.

The same week Andrii held a handover meeting with the company's HR director and chief accountant. He explained how the register works: it is an annex to the contract with WORKIN, the company's responsible person has access to it, and we give written notice of every deadline in advance. They also agreed on a monthly package: after closing each month, the accounts department sends a payroll extract covering only the group and the payment order for the contribution. The chief accountant agreed without objection and said contributions had never been a problem at the company. That was true. The problem appeared where nobody expected it.

06 / Twenty-three days

An empty field in fourteen employee records

Back to that Thursday. At 8:55 Andrii checked the extract against the register again: the same surnames, one contract date for everyone, twenty-three days until the two months ran out. It was not a formatting glitch, because the other columns were filled in properly. At 9:10 he called the HR director, who is listed as the responsible person in the register. The chief accountant was on leave that week, so the payroll accountant joined instead, and a video call was set for eleven.

Andrii did not stop at a phone call. At 9:40 a written warning went to the HR director and the accounts department, as our contract provides. It contained no accusations, only facts and dates: what the extract showed, what the law says, when the deadline expires and what the company needed to do. The letter is not there to catch anyone out. It records the ground, the date and the next step so that both the director and the person who will send the payment can see them.

At eleven the accountant shared her screen and opened Ermek's record in the payroll software. The insured person category field was empty. The same turned out to be true for all fourteen records: they had been created in one batch on the day the contracts were signed, and without that field the software does not calculate the contribution. The company's overall payment had come out looking as usual, so nothing suggested that fourteen people were missing from it.

From there things moved quickly. The accountant filled in the records, recalculated the first month and at half past three sent the bank a payment order for the group's contribution. At 10:15 the next morning Andrii received a new extract: fourteen rows, each with a contribution calculated. He checked every surname against the register, attached the bank-stamped payment order and closed the first month's control date. The contribution had been paid within two months of the contract date, so the ground named in the law never arose.

1. Day 38, 8:40

   Group extract: 14 zeros in the social contribution column.

2. 9:10

   Call to the HR director, video call with accounts set for 11:00.

3. 9:40

   Written warning with the ground, the deadline date and the steps required.

4. 11:00

   Cause found: an empty insured person category field in 14 records.

5. 15:30

   Records corrected, first-month contribution calculated, payment sent to the bank.

6. Day 39, 10:15

   New extract and bank-stamped payment order, checked against the register.

The group knew nothing about any of this that week, and that was how it should be. Paying the contribution is the employer's obligation, and it was for the accounts department to put it right, not for people who had done nothing wrong. On Saturday Azamat made his usual monthly visit to the hostel: people asked about their residence permit cards and bank cards, and Ermek wanted to know the easiest way to send money home. Later, once the permits were out of danger, Azamat told Talant about the check as the group's senior. Talant remembered their conversation in Bishkek and said he now understood why Azamat had answered the way he did.

07 / The second month

A check that became part of closing the month

When the chief accountant came back from leave, she proposed a change to the routine herself. A second person now checks every new employee's record in the payroll software, and before closing a first month the accounts department reviews the contribution column for all foreign workers. She asked us to keep sending our monthly package: two pairs of eyes on one column take a few minutes, while a mistake in it affects people's right to work.

Day 61 passed the way such a day should: unnoticed. The permits of all fourteen workers remained valid, and nobody at the company had to explain to the group why they could not come to work. Without a valid permit nobody may work: for employing a foreign worker without a permit the law fines the employer twenty minimum wages per person. On day 68 the package for the second month arrived, with fourteen contributions calculated in the column.

• the group's payroll extract: the unified social contribution calculated for each worker;
• the payment order for the contribution, stamped by the bank;
• the status of each person's residence permit and residence registration;
• whether the job title, passport or employer's name has changed, since permit amendments are due within 30 days;
• housing, and a conversation between the manager and the group in their own language;
• the next control date in the register and who is responsible for it.

The monthly check continues for as long as we handle the group's documents, not just for the first two months. The next control dates are already in the register: notice of permit extensions sixty days before expiry, so the application can be filed in the window between fifty and twenty days, and a passport check, since a new passport means amending the permit within thirty days. The full list of what falls to the employer after a permit is issued is on the employer duties page, and how we handled a second year of documents for two waves of workers is told in the scenario on permit deadlines.

08 / Summary

Fourteen permits that nobody had to rescue

Group

14 assembly fitters from Kyrgyzstan

Route

Visa-free, seven weeks from request to arrival

What the check found

No contribution calculated for the first month, day 38

Margin before the deadline

23 days of the two months set by law

Correction

26 hours from zeros in the extract to confirmed payment

Result

All 14 permits valid

The WORKIN replacement guarantee applies for at least 6 months from the worker's first shift, provided the agreed working, pay and housing conditions are met: the search for a replacement is not charged again, while state fees, the migration partner's services, flights and living costs of the new worker are paid by the company. But the best replacement is the one that is never needed: as long as a person's permit is valid, their place in the team stays theirs.

We do not consider a project finished on the day the group starts work. It carries on for as long as every deadline in the register has an owner and a check date, and that is how we see a company's task through to the end. How we recruit for technical roles is covered on the pages on technical specialists and production workers from abroad, the whole path from request to handover in How it works, and the terms of cooperation in the contract with WORKIN.

09 / FAQ

Questions and answers