Eighteen women and their families: recruiting a group of packers from Kyrgyzstan

01 / The request

Eighteen packers and a floor the factory thought was convenient

A confectionery factory near Poltava expanded its packing section and asked for eighteen women. Food production experience was welcome, but the factory was ready to train people itself. We recruited in Kyrgyzstan: citizens of that country enter without a visa, and in small towns many women are looking for stable work with housing.

The factory offered housing straight away: a separate floor in a dormitory a kilometre from the factory. In the very first conversation Azamat, our manager for workers from Kyrgyzstan, asked who else lived in the building. It turned out the other floors housed male workers from another company, with a shared entrance and kitchen.

To the factory this seemed a detail: the floor was separate and the rooms locked. For women going abroad for the first time, and especially for their families, it would have been the main reason to say no. We told the factory before searching for candidates, not after the first refusal. In parallel we asked for the factory's filing documents: a register extract, the staffing schedule with the packer position, and powers of attorney. While the factory looked for housing, we were already recruiting and lost no weeks.

Who we're looking for

18 packers, food production experience welcome

The candidates

Women from small towns, most going abroad for the first time

First housing offer

A dormitory floor with an entrance and kitchen shared with men

Our condition

Women-only housing, agreed before recruitment starts

It's the family that lets a woman leave home. So we show the family the housing before the factory needs an answer.

02 / Housing

Two flats instead of a floor, and what we checked in them

The factory agreed to look for other housing and two weeks later offered two flats in a new building ten minutes from the gate. Before showing them to candidates, we checked the documents and the housing itself as we would any address for a residence permit and registration. Housing is regulated by the authorities; our job is to make sure everything is in order before people arrive.

Both flats had the same owner, with a two-year lease to the factory. We asked for the owner's consent to registration of residence for nine people in each flat to be written into the lease. The owner agreed at once, having rented to companies before. We took photos of the rooms, kitchen and entrance ourselves, so candidates and families could see the real rooms rather than pictures from a listing.

Transport after the evening shift and schedules are the factory's business, but we put into the information sheet what the factory confirmed in writing: how the women would get back to the flats after a shift. Families asked about this almost first. The factory hesitated at first over the higher rent for flats, but we showed that a single replacement in the first month costs more than the rent difference for a whole year. One flat was on the ground floor with windows onto the courtyard, and the group decided who would live with whom before departure, from a list Aigul drew up.

1. 01

   Who lives there

   Only women from the group, nine per flat, no other residents.

2. 02

   Documents

   A two-year lease and the owner's written consent to registration.

3. 03

   Address

   The same for each woman's residence permit, registration and information sheet.

4. 04

   Photos

   Taken by us in the flats themselves, so families saw the real housing.

03 / Recruitment

A woman leads the interview, and questions are asked back home

Azamat held the interviews together with Aigul, a recruiter at our licensed partner in Bishkek. The candidates spoke more openly with a woman: about children left with grandmothers, husbands with doubts, and what they feared about a foreign country. Azamat handled documents and conditions; Aigul led the conversation.

Each candidate received an information sheet in Kyrgyz and Russian: factory, job, pay, working hours, the flat's address, who lives there, how to get back after a shift, and which costs she covers herself. On the same sheet she confirms by signature that she wasn't charged for placement. We noted down the candidates' questions, because their families later asked the same ones. From forty-two CVs from our partner we held twenty-eight interviews. Eighteen candidates and five in reserve agreed, and several women decided after an honest talk about the conditions that the job wasn't for them; we thanked them for their frankness.

• who will I share a room with, and will there be men in the flat;
• how do I get home after the evening shift;
• will my passport stay with me;
• can I travel together with my sister or neighbour;
• who do I call if something happens at night.

04 / Families

A video meeting with the family before a woman says yes

After the interviews, twelve candidates asked for one thing: to talk to their families. For many that's not a formality but a condition of leaving. We held video meetings in the evenings, when husbands and parents were home. Aigul spoke in Kyrgyz, and Azamat answered questions about documents and the factory.

At each meeting the family saw photos of the flat and building, the address on a map, the information sheet and phone numbers for Azamat, Aigul and the group lead. They all asked the same things: who lives nearby, who will meet her, how she'll get back from work, can she call every day. We never answered 'we'll sort it out when you get there'. One mother asked to see the kitchen because her daughter had never cooked on a gas stove. Aigul smiled and promised the group lead would teach her. Small things like that removed more doubts than any documents.

Two families still wouldn't let the candidates go after the meeting, and we didn't press. Their places went to reserve candidates whose families had no doubts. Those who travelled did so with their families' blessing rather than against their wishes, and that's the best guarantee a woman won't head home in week three.

05 / Documents

The surname in the passport and the surname a woman uses

Three candidates' passport surnames didn't match the ones they use at home: the passports were issued before marriage, while in daily life they had long used their husbands' surnames. Only the passport matters for a work permit. So we prepared the application, translation, contract and information sheet in the passport surname and recorded both versions on the factory's candidate form. We checked Latin-script spellings against passports before translation: for two candidates the same first name was spelled differently in different documents, and the translator received a table of correct spellings from us.

One candidate was about to get a new passport in her new surname. We asked her to do it before the permit application: a new passport after the permit is issued would mean a permit update within 30 days and an extra step for the factory. She got the passport in time, and the documents were filed on it.

The rest followed our checklist: passport page copies only from the original, a translation with a certified translator's signature, photos. Each woman received a copy of her information sheet with the same surname as in her contract. The factory got its work permits within a week, having gathered its own filing documents using the company checklist.

06 / Arrival

One group, one lead and flats the women recognised from photos

The women chose Gulnara as group lead themselves: she had worked abroad before, speaks Russian, and several other candidates' families knew her. Gulnara ran the group chat where Azamat posted about tickets, documents and filing dates. Families had had her number since the first video meeting.

The group travelled together, and at the border each woman carried a permit copy, the factory's invitation with the address, and phone numbers. More on the visa-free route on our visa-free entry page. Azamat met the group and spent the first evening with the women while they unpacked, and the first thing they did was call home from the flat. That same evening Gulnara posted in the families' chat that everyone had arrived, with a photo from the flat. From then on families messaged her rather than the factory, and in the first month the factory didn't receive a single worried call.

1. Arrival day

   Meeting, the drive to the flats, calls home, a guide in Kyrgyz.

2. Days 1-2

   Employment contracts. We submit copies within 10 days.

3. First week

   Tax numbers, bank accounts, registration of residence.

4. Weeks 2-3

   Residence permit filings in two groups with Azamat.

5. Handover

   The group starts in the packing section with documents in order and dates in the register.

Temporary residence permit filings at the flats' addresses went through without delay, because we had the owner's consent to registration before departure. That's where our work with the group ended, and training in the section is run by the factory. How housing and daily life are arranged with WORKIN is described on our living support page.

07 / Outcome

A group families let go that stayed in full

Housing

Two women-only flats instead of a mixed dormitory

Families

12 video meetings, two withdrawals covered from the reserve before filing

Documents

Passport surnames used, one new passport before filing

Addresses

Owner's consent to registration in the lease before departure

The group

18 women arrived together with a lead trusted back home

What mattered most to the factory wasn't what we did but what it didn't have to do: look for replacements in the first month and explain to families why their daughters wanted to come home. There's nothing WORKIN can't solve in recruiting women's groups: we talk to families, check housing before departure and answer every question before signing, not after arrival. 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. What women going to work abroad ask is also covered in the scenario about seamstresses from Uzbekistan and Nepal, and how to house several groups in the scenario about two groups in one dormitory. Conditions for candidates are on the working conditions page and the whole route on how it works. More on our pages about packers from abroad, workers for manufacturing and recruitment.

08 / FAQ

Questions and answers