Forty-five kilometres to the migration office: residence permits for a remote farm

01 / The request

A farm an hour's drive from the nearest bank

A dairy farm with fourteen hundred cows stands near a village in the Rivne region, forty-five kilometres from the district town. The village had no machine milking or herd care operators left, so the farm asked for twelve people from Kyrgyzstan. Many men there have looked after livestock at home since childhood and have worked on large farms.

The farm had its own housing: a renovated house in the village with twelve beds. The house documents were in order, and the farm as owner was ready to provide everything for registration. But near the house there's no bank, no tax office and no migration office. All of those are in the district town, served by one bus a day.

Azamat, our manager for workers from Kyrgyzstan, saw straight away where the main difficulty would lie. Each worker's first month isn't only work but also several mandatory tasks at offices, some of which can only be done in person. And the farm can't release twelve operators at once: cows are milked several times a day, every day.

The farm had some experience with foreign workers: two years earlier it had hired two vets from Uzbekistan, but its accountant had handled the documents then, and every trip to the district town became a week-long affair. This time the farm wanted the agency to take all of it on from start to finish.

Who's needed

12 milking and herd care operators

Housing

The farm's house in the village, registration documents in order

Offices

Migration office, bank and tax office in the district town 45 km away

Constraint

The farm releases no more than three operators a day

02 / Selection

Remoteness in the information sheet, not after arrival

Azamat held interviews in villages of the Osh and Jalal-Abad regions with our licensed partner. There are plenty of candidates with livestock experience there, but not everyone is ready to live in a village far from town. So we raised the remoteness at the first interview rather than leaving it for later. Interviews took longer than usual: Azamat asked not just about experience but about how people pictured village life in winter.

Each candidate's information sheet covered not only the job, pay and hours but what matters for this farm in particular: how many kilometres to town, how often the bus runs, where the nearest shop and cash machine are, and how the farm helps with trips. It also confirmed the candidate hadn't been charged for placement. Two candidates then said they'd rather work closer to a town, and we thanked them for their honesty. Twelve people agreed, plus two in reserve.

• the village is 45 km from the district town, with one bus a day;
• there's a shop in the village but no cash machine; the nearest is in town;
• housing in the farm's village house, two or three to a room;
• first month: group trips to offices on the farm's schedule;
• mobile signal available, internet in the farm house.

03 / Permits and the journey

Permits within a week and a route to the village we drove in advance

The farm prepared its filing documents in advance: a register extract, the staffing schedule with the machine milking operator position and powers of attorney. Applications for twelve work permits went in on one day, the farm paid the fees from its own account, and decisions arrived within a week.

We planned the journey from the border to the village too. The group took a coach to the regional centre, where the farm's vehicle met them. Before arrival Azamat drove the route from the bus station to the farm house himself, to know how long it took and where people might need help.

At the border everyone carried a permit copy, the farm's invitation with the address and Azamat's phone number. Border officers asked about the purpose of travel, people showed their documents, and the whole group cleared control without delay.

04 / The task map

Every office and first-month task on a single sheet

Citizens of Kyrgyzstan enter Ukraine without a visa, and the legal period of stay starts on the day of entry. So residence permits have to be arranged in the first weeks. Everyone also needs a tax number and a bank account. Doing these one at a time, as people usually do in a city, would mean each operator travelling to the district town three or four times. For twelve people that's more than forty trips and forty gaps in the farm's schedule.

Azamat drew up a map: which tasks, where, which days each office is open, what to bring, how long each takes, and whether several can be done in one day. It turned out the tax office, bank and migration office in the district town were within a ten-minute walk of each other. With documents prepared in advance, one trip covers three tasks. Azamat also found out which days the migration office had fewest visitors and asked for appointments on those days.

05 / The trips

Four trips of three and a schedule agreed with the farm

How many people the farm can release in a day is the farm's call. It said no more than three operators, and not on days when the vet does the herd round. On that basis we split the twelve into four groups and set the trips on four different days over the two weeks after entry.

The farm provided a car for the trips, and Azamat went with each group. The order on every trip was the same: tax office first, because the bank needs the number, then the bank, then the migration office. We booked migration office appointments in advance so the group wouldn't queue for half a day and would be back before evening milking. On one trip the bank asked for an employment reference not on the standard list. Azamat called the farm's accounts department, the reference was emailed over, and the matter was settled on the spot.

Before setting dates we arranged registration of residence at the farm house: without it some of the tasks in town were pointless. The farm had provided the house documents before the group entered, so registration went through in the first week.

1. Week 1

   Entry, contracts, registration of residence at the farm house, migration office appointments.

2. Trip 1

   Three operators: tax office, bank, residence permit filing. Back by evening.

3. Trip 2

   Three operators two days later, same order and same document set.

4. Trip 3

   Three operators in the second week.

5. Trip 4

   The last three. All twelve filed for residence permits within two weeks.

06 / Documents to carry

A forgotten document means another ninety kilometres

In a city a forgotten document means another metro ride. Here it means another ninety kilometres there and back and another day without an operator. So before each trip Azamat put together a folder for each of the three and checked it against a list the evening before, then checked it again in the morning before leaving.

Each trip's folder held everything needed for all three tasks. People kept their original passports on them; copies, photos and farm documents were in the folder. In four trips, nobody ever had to go back for a document. After each trip Azamat didn't empty the folders but added copies of the documents received, and they became the basis of the farm's personnel files.

1. 01

   Passport

   Original with the person; page copies and translation in the folder.

2. 02

   Permit and contract

   A work permit copy and the signed employment contract.

3. 03

   Address

   Registration of residence documents for the farm house.

4. 04

   Other

   Photos, details for the tax number and bank, the migration office appointment.

07 / The cards

Collecting cards without extra trips

Once the temporary residence permit cards were ready, they had to be collected too. So as not to spread this over twelve separate trips, Azamat tracked readiness and scheduled collection when at least three people's cards were ready. Two groups collected their cards on one trip because theirs were produced at the same time. One card was delayed by a week due to a technical error in the details, and that operator collected it when the farm was taking people to town on other business anyway.

We entered each residence permit's expiry date in the register on the day the person collected the card. Future office tasks, such as extensions, we now plan on the same principle: one trip, several tasks, groups of three, appointments booked ahead. How we manage these deadlines going forward is described on the migration support page.

08 / Outcome

Twelve residence permits in two weeks without stopping the farm

Selection

Remoteness described in the sheet; two declined at home

Task map

Tax office, bank and migration office in one trip

Trips

Four groups of three on the farm's schedule

Documents

Folders checked twice, no repeat trips

Cards

Collected in groups, dates in the register the same day

There's nothing WORKIN can't solve when offices are far away: we map the tasks, combine them into group trips and prepare documents so every journey covers everything that can be done in a day. The WORKIN replacement guarantee lasts at least 6 months from the worker's first shift, provided the agreed working, pay and housing conditions are kept. How residence permits were arranged for a crew far from the migration office on a construction site is covered in the scenario about housing with an address for a solar plant crew, and how to split twenty-eight people's filings into groups in the scenario about a road season. The farm's filing documents follow the company checklist, and employer obligations are on a separate page. More on our pages about visa-free entry, registration of residence, the work permit, workers for agriculture, general labourers from abroad and how it works.

09 / FAQ

Questions and answers