Trial first, staff second: how workers from Tajikistan moved onto a shoe factory's payroll

01 / First meeting

A pair of boots on the table and a person seen only on video

The shoe factory's meeting room smelled of leather and glue, even though the shop floor was two doors away. The director put a pair of men's boots from the autumn collection on the table and told Olena Lytvynenko, who runs company projects at WORKIN, that retail chains had ordered twice as many as last year, while the assembly area was eight people short. The factory had worked with local craftspeople for thirty years and had never once employed a foreign worker.

The director was not against the idea itself. What held her back was a habit that had protected the factory from mistakes for thirty years: every new worker is first seen at a workbench by the supervisor, and only then does HR draw up the hiring order. With a foreign worker that was not possible. An interview by video, experience in another country, and before the first day in the assembly area a work permit, travel, housing and an employment contract. The director said plainly that she did not want to sign up to all of that for someone she had never seen at work.

Olena put a sheet of paper next to the boots with three lines on it. After the trial, the factory takes the person onto its staff. Or it extends the trial. Or it asks for a replacement. All three options go into the contract before the first candidate boards the bus. This is the Try & Hire model: for the first period the worker is employed by WORKIN and works in the factory's area, and the factory decides on a staff position after the trial, not before it.

Try & Hire does not remove the hiring decision. It moves it from the day of the interview to the day when the person can already be seen at work.

02 / The task

Eight places in the assembly area and why Tajikistan

The factory put its task briefly: eight workers for the shoe assembly area before the autumn season began, which meant within three months. Experience with leather or footwear was welcome, and the area's mentor would teach the rest. The factory did not name a country and left the choice to us.

For a trial in the workplace, the key criterion is not the same as for ordinary recruitment. The trial has to show how a person works and how he learns. If he does not understand the mentor, the trial will measure a language barrier rather than his hands. So language came first: the mentor and the area supervisor speak Ukrainian and Russian. Second came time: the trial, the review and the transfer to staff all take time too, so the journey to the factory had to be short. Third, experience of working with materials by hand. Fourth, a reserve at our partner, because in Try & Hire a replacement is written into the contract and has to be real.

On these points we proposed Tajikistan. Most candidates there speak Russian fluently, and we check that at the interview. Citizens of Tajikistan enter Ukraine without a visa, and the route to the start of the trial takes four to seven weeks. Our licensed partner in Khujand had candidates who had worked in cobblers' and leather workshops, making bags and belts and repairing shoes. Sherzod Rakhimov, our Worker Relations Manager for Tajikistan, speaks with candidates in Tajik and Russian and could explain the trial model to them without an interpreter. The factory agreed.

Who was needed

8 workers for the shoe assembly area

Deadline

Before the autumn season, in 3 months

Model

Try & Hire: trial on the WORKIN payroll, then the factory's staff

Why Tajikistan

Russian language, visa-free route, leather experience, reserve

03 / The contract

What went on paper before the first person arrived

Before any selection began, Olena and the factory set out the trial terms in writing. Assessment criteria: quality of work on the person's own operation, ability to learn, and working with the mentor without an interpreter. Trial length: eight weeks, with a review against the criteria in week four. The rate for the trial period was agreed in advance. So were the procedure for moving onto the staff, the timescales and the replacement terms if someone did not fit. All of this went into the contract with WORKIN rather than remaining a verbal understanding.

Responsibilities during the trial were set out separately. For those eight weeks the person's employer is WORKIN: we obtain the work permit in our own name, sign the employment contract, pay wages, keep HR records and arrange housing and transport to the factory. The factory sets the work, provides the workplace, the mentor and its own production briefings, assesses the person against the criteria and makes its decision within the agreed period.

One line took longest to discuss: what happens to the documents when the factory takes a person onto its staff. The accounts department first assumed it would be an ordinary hiring order. Olena explained that a permit issued in WORKIN's name gives the right to work only for WORKIN, so joining the factory's staff requires a new permit in the factory's name, and time for it has to be built into the plan. We set that line out in the contract step by step.

04 / Selection

Khujand: photos of their own work and a talk about what a trial means

Sherzod held the interviews in Khujand together with the partner. Each candidate brought something he had made with his own hands, or photos of it: bags he had sewn, belts, shoes he had repaired. Shukhrat, thirty-two, had run a small cobbler's workshop near the bazaar for nine years and showed a boot he had resoled himself. The factory director and the mentor joined the final interviews by video and approved eight main candidates and two in reserve.

The most important part of a Try & Hire interview is explaining the model itself. Sherzod spoke to each candidate in Tajik and said the same things every time. For the first eight weeks you are a WORKIN employee, you work at the factory, and WORKIN pays your wages. In week four the factory will tell you how you are doing. After the trial the factory may take you onto its staff, and then you will sign a contract with the factory itself and your documents will be issued again. If the work turns out not to be right for you, we will tell you honestly and decide together what comes next.

Two candidates withdrew after that conversation: they wanted a permanent job straight away, not a trial. Sherzod did not try to persuade them. Hidden terms do not work in this model: a person who has not understood that this is a trial will hear the week-four assessment as a surprise. Those who agreed did so knowing it was a trial.

Each of the eight received an information sheet: WORKIN as the employer during the trial, the job title and pay from the contract, the address of the factory and the hostel, the trial length and review date, what happens to the documents on transfer, what to carry at the border and Sherzod's phone number. A separate line states that the partner did not take any money from the candidate for the job placement. That is a rule in our contract with the partner, and each candidate confirmed it with a signature.

05 / The journey

Permits in WORKIN's name, the border and the first day in the assembly area

The eight candidates gathered their permit documents in two weeks: copies of the passport pages made from the original, a translation into Ukrainian with the translator's signature notarised, and a colour photo. Nataliia Kravchuk, our Head of Documents, filed the applications with WORKIN as the employer. By law a permit is issued for the term of the employment contract, so we drew up the contract with WORKIN for six months, leaving room for the trial, a possible extension and the paperwork on transfer. The permits were issued within seven working days.

The group left Khujand on a flight to a country bordering Ukraine and then took a bus to the border checkpoint. Each person carried a border folder: passport, copy of the permit, WORKIN's invitation with the work and housing addresses, and medical insurance. At the border a person says directly that he is coming to work under an issued permit and shows the folder, as described on the page on visa-free entry. The eight arrived on the same morning, and Sherzod met them after passport control.

We had prepared a hostel twenty minutes from the factory as part of living support. The workers signed their employment contracts with WORKIN on the first day, we submitted the copies within the 10-day period, and applications for temporary residence permits went in during the first weeks. On Monday the eight came to the assembly area. The mentor received a list from us with names, photos and where each person had worked at home, and Sherzod gave her his number in case an explanation did not get through.

06 / Mid-trial

Week four: the criteria sheet and a request for staff contracts from Monday

In week four the factory director, the area supervisor, the mentor and Olena sat down at one table, with Sherzod joining by video. Each of the eight was discussed against the same criteria sheet written into the contract, not against impressions. Six people met every criterion. Daler, twenty-six, received a good mark from the mentor for quality, but he was picking up the new model more slowly than the others. Rustam, forty-one, told Sherzod in Tajik what the mentor had also seen: shoe assembly was not his kind of work. At home he had spent twenty years upholstering furniture, and small, precise work wore him out.

The contract already had an answer for each of them. The factory decided to take the six onto its staff. Under the contract, Daler's trial was extended by three weeks with a new review. For Rustam's place the factory asked for a replacement from the reserve, and Rustam agreed that this was fair to everyone. The discussion took forty minutes, and not one option had to be invented on the spot.

Then the director said the thing this chapter is really about: she wanted the six on the factory's staff from the following Monday, without waiting for the end of the eight weeks. Try & Hire does allow a worker to be taken on before the trial ends. But not from Monday, and Olena explained why.

A work permit issued to WORKIN gives the right to work only for WORKIN. If a person joins the factory's staff before the factory has its own permit, that is work without a permit, and the employment law sets a fine for the employer of twenty minimum monthly wages for each such worker. Working for an employer other than the one named in the permit is a ground for revoking the permit and carries a fine of ten minimum monthly wages per worker. So the transfer does not start with a hiring order but with an application for a new permit. The agreement was this: we would prepare the files for the six that same week and set the transfer date once the permits were issued.

1. 01

   The six

   All criteria met. The factory takes them onto its staff, and the transfer starts at once.

2. 02

   Daler

   Quality is there, learning is slower. The trial is extended by three weeks under the contract.

3. 03

   Rustam

   Assembly is not his kind of work. The factory asks for a reserve replacement.

4. 04

   Documents

   Six applications for new permits that week, transfer date set once the permits are issued.

07 / The transfer

Two permits for one person and not a single day between them

Nataliia put the new permit files together in two days, because we already had the workers' documents from the first filing. This time the applicant was the factory: an application from the factory as employer, copies of the passport pages with a certified Ukrainian translation, a colour photo, a draft employment contract with the factory certified by the factory, and proof of payment. We checked that the job title in the draft contract matched, letter for letter, the one the factory would use in the hiring order.

The factory paid the permit fees from its own account. The law links the fee to the length of the permit: for a term of one to two years it is eight subsistence minimums for able-bodied persons as of 1 January of the year of filing. The factory was signing two-year contracts with the workers, and this payment had been a separate line in the project plan since the first meeting. The law allows up to seven working days from registration of the application for the decision, and the permits for the six were issued on the fifth.

After that, everything came down to dates. The six workers' contracts with WORKIN ended on the Friday of week six. Their employment contracts with the factory took effect on the Monday of week seven. Between the two there was only a weekend, and not one working day without the right to work. The law allows an employment contract under a new permit to be signed no later than 90 calendar days from the date of issue, so there was plenty of margin, and the factory submitted certified copies of the contracts within the 10-day period. On that same Monday WORKIN, as the previous employer, applied for its six permits to be revoked: when an employment contract ends, the law obliges the employer to do so.

The six workers' residence permit applications had been based on WORKIN's permits. Our migration partner prepares the residence permit documents under the factory's new permits, and we entered the filing date in the same deadline register as the permits. Housing did not change: the factory took over the lease on the hostel rooms, so the address for registration of residence stayed the same and nobody had to move. After the transfer we continue to handle the documents as part of migration support, and what now falls to the factory is described on the page on employer duties.

1. Week 4

   Review against the criteria: six onto staff, Daler extended, Rustam replaced.

2. Week 5

   Files for six permits from the factory, fees paid, applications filed.

3. Week 6

   Permits issued on the fifth working day, transfer date agreed.

4. Week 6, Friday

   Last day of the contract with WORKIN.

5. Week 7, Monday

   Contracts with the factory take effect, WORKIN applies to revoke its permits.

6. Week 8

   Certified copies of the contracts submitted, residence permits under the new permits in the deadline register.

08 / Daler and Rustam

An extended trial, a fair replacement and two more transfers

Daler completed his extra three weeks. At the second review the mentor noted that he was now picking up the new model as quickly as the others, and the factory decided to take him onto its staff. For him we repeated the same sequence: an application from the factory, the permit, and a transfer date after the permit. The six-month contract with WORKIN comfortably covered both the extension and the new paperwork, so there was no need to rush.

Sherzod spoke to Rustam separately and told him plainly that he had not failed the trial: he had simply ended up in the wrong area. Rustam decided to go home, and the partner in Khujand kept his profile on the list for projects with furniture manufacturers. WORKIN, as his employer, ended his employment contract and applied for his permit to be revoked that same week. Sherzod planned Rustam's route back to Khujand with him and stayed in touch until he had crossed the border.

Rustam's place went to Ismoil, the first reserve candidate, twenty-nine, who had spent eight years making bags and belts in a leather workshop in Khujand. His documents had been gathered during the first selection, so WORKIN filed a permit application in its own name as employer a few days after the review. The permit was issued within seven working days, and four weeks after the review Ismoil arrived at the hostel, where seven people from home were waiting for him. His eight-week trial began on his first day in the assembly area, with the same criteria and a review in week four.

In Try & Hire the reserve is not a formality but part of the contract. When the factory chose a replacement at the review, we had a candidate from the same round of interviews, with documents ready and the same understanding that this was a trial. Ismoil completed his eight weeks and joined the factory's staff by the same procedure as the six before him.

09 / Summary

Eight places filled, and every decision made after seeing the work, not a video

Trial

8 weeks on the WORKIN payroll, review in week 4

Decisions

6 onto staff at once, 1 after an extension, 1 replacement

Transfer

New permit in the factory's name first, then the transfer date

Gap in documents

Not one working day without the right to work

Replacement

Ismoil from the reserve, trial against the same criteria

Try & Hire takes away a fear that no amount of talking can dispel: putting someone on the staff whom you have only seen on an application form. We act as the employer during the trial, write the criteria and all three possible decisions into the contract before arrival, and build the transfer to staff around the permit rather than the hiring order, so that the person never has a day without the right to work. The WORKIN replacement guarantee runs for at least 6 months from the worker's first shift, provided the agreed working, pay and housing conditions are kept. How to test a specialist before the permit is even filed is covered in the scenario on testing CNC operators before the permit, and why a worker cannot work for another employer without that employer's own permit is covered in the scenario on a neighbouring plant poaching workers. The difference between a trial, staff leasing and recruitment to order is set out on the service pages, and the whole journey on How it works. More on the pages on workers for manufacturing, production workers from abroad and the work permit.

10 / FAQ

Questions and answers