Experience you can see on video: how we found mushroom growers in Nepal for a new room

01 / The task

A fourth growing room and fifteen weeks to the first cycle

Banepa, Kavre district, east of Kathmandu, seven in the morning. In a low farm building, shelves hold bags of compost with the white caps of button mushrooms pushing through. Our partner's coordinator starts recording on his phone. Bishnu Shrestha, thirty-three, holds a sheet of paper up to the lens with his name, the name of the farm and the date. Then he puts the sheet on a shelf, washes his hands, changes into rubber boots at the door and starts picking, without the recording ever stopping. That afternoon, Kyiv time, the file will be opened by the technologist of a mushroom farm in the Khmelnytskyi region.

The farm grows button mushrooms all year round in three growing rooms and was finishing a fourth. Its director came to WORKIN with a task: before the first cycle in the new room, the farm needed twelve people who had already worked on mushroom farms. The launch was fifteen weeks away. The technologist explained why experience was non-negotiable: there was nobody at the farm to train twelve newcomers from scratch at the very moment a new room was starting up.

That gave the project two conditions pulling in opposite directions. Rare experience meant a wide search, and a wide search takes time. The room launch meant there was exactly as much time as our longest route takes, plus one week.

Who is needed

12 workers with experience on mushroom farms

Deadline

Fifteen weeks to the new room's first cycle

Must-have

Experience of picking mushrooms and working in growing rooms, verified on site

Contract

Long-term, the farm works all year

02 / Choosing the country

Why we looked for mushroom farm workers in Nepal

We checked the shortest routes first. A visa-free route takes four to seven weeks, so time was no problem at all. But in our partners' candidate files in the visa-free countries, people with experience specifically on mushroom farms were few and far between, and gathering twelve of them would have taken months. There was time, but there were no people.

In Nepal mushroom growing is widespread: small and medium-sized farms operate in the Kathmandu Valley, in Kavre district and in Chitwan, and some Nepalis have spent years working on mushroom farms abroad. Our licensed partner in Kathmandu named the first candidates with that experience within a week. Language worked too: the technologist speaks English, and a Nepali group always includes people who can explain things in English to the rest.

That left the timing. The route from Nepal takes 10-14 weeks, and we do not take on Nepal for a date less than three months away. Here there were fifteen weeks, meaning one week of margin, provided everything that could run in parallel did run in parallel. Arif, our worker relations manager for Bangladesh and Nepal, showed the farm's director a calendar with that single week, and the farm agreed to Nepal.

1. 01

   Experience

   Farms in the Kathmandu Valley, Kavre and Chitwan, experience on mushroom farms abroad. In the visa-free countries, only isolated candidates.

2. 02

   Language

   English with the technologist, with the more experienced workers explaining to the rest.

3. 03

   Timing

   A route of up to 14 weeks against 15 weeks to the room launch.

4. 04

   Candidate pool

   The partner in Kathmandu named the first candidates within a week.

03 / Checking experience

Nineteen videos filmed on farms, not at home

The partner collected thirty-one applications from people claiming experience. An application shows what a person writes about themselves, not what they can do. The technologist could not spend a week in Nepal: three working growing rooms and the build of the fourth depended on her. So we agreed on videos, with rules that make it impossible to pass off a nice picture as experience.

The candidate did not film. The partner's coordinator did, travelling to the farm where the person works or used to work. One continuous take, no editing. At the start the candidate holds up a sheet with their name, the farm's name and the date. The coordinator took down the farm owner's phone number, and the partner called the owner separately to confirm how long the person had worked there. The technologist wrote the task for the video, and it was the same for everyone.

Nineteen candidates agreed to be filmed this way. The technologist watched a few videos each evening and then held a short video call with those who passed: Arif spoke English, and the partner's coordinator interpreted into Nepali. Two of the videos showed people who had only packed finished mushrooms on their farms. In a third, the experience amounted to a few bags of oyster mushrooms beside the candidate's own house. The technologist turned down one more candidate after the call. Twelve people were approved, with three in reserve.

Bishnu from Banepa has worked on a button mushroom farm for seven years, and the technologist watched his video twice. Min Bahadur Tamang, thirty-eight, spent four years on a mushroom farm in South Korea and now grows oyster mushrooms at home in Kavre. He confirmed his Korean experience with the employment contract he had kept from that farm, and since his English is the best in the group, the technologist asked him to help her talk to the others in the first days. Sarita Magar, twenty-nine, spent five years picking and sorting button mushrooms on a farm in the Kathmandu Valley. Her daughter stays at home in the care of Sarita's mother.

04 / Information sheet

The terms in Nepali, read aloud

Before the permit filings, every approved candidate received a vacancy information sheet in Nepali. The English version had been ready earlier, but most candidates from the villages of Kavre and Chitwan read English slowly, and in Nepal the decision to go abroad is often taken by the whole family. The sheet had to be something a wife, a mother or an elder brother could read.

• the employer, the address of the farm and the address of the accommodation;
• the position and the nature of the work: picking and sorting mushrooms in growing rooms that are cool and humid, with work clothes and boots provided by the farm;
• the term of the employment contract: long, because the farm works all year;
• the pay from the draft contract, paid twice a month;
• housing, meals and the journey from the accommodation to the farm;
• the estimated processing time: up to fourteen weeks;
• Arif's and WORKIN's phone numbers for questions;
• a signed confirmation that neither WORKIN nor the partner took any money from the candidate for the job.

The partner's coordinator gathered the candidates at the office in Kathmandu and read the sheet aloud, line by line, while Arif joined by video and answered questions. People asked less about money than about how often they would be able to talk to home and whether they would live alongside people from their own district. After the reading, one candidate from Chitwan withdrew: he wanted seasonal work so he could go home every summer to plant rice, and the farm was offering a long-term contract. The first reserve took his place before the permit filings, so nothing had to be redone.

A person who changes their mind after the information sheet does not cost the project a new permit. A person who changes their mind after the visa does.

05 / Calendar

Fourteen weeks counted back from the first cycle

Arif built the calendar not from the day of the request but from the day the first cycle would begin in the new room. From there he took off a week of margin and placed everything else before it: handing people over to the farm, arrival, travel and every document on the route. That made it clear that anything not dependent on the permit had to start in the first few days: the farm's filing documents, the candidates' certificates, the passport translations.

We assembled the farm's documents using the company checklist during the first three weeks, in parallel with the videos. The candidates ordered their police clearance certificates as soon as they were approved, and copies of their passport pages with a Ukrainian translation and a notarised translator's signature were ready for filing. The filing for twelve work permits went in during week four, and by law the decision is made within seven working days.

1. Week 1

   Request, criteria agreed with the technologist, the partner in Kathmandu gathers applications.

2. Weeks 2-3

   Videos on farms, calls with the technologist, 12 approved and 3 in reserve, certificates ordered.

3. Week 3

   Information sheets in Nepali, one candidate replaced from the reserve.

4. Week 4

   Filing for 12 permits.

5. Week 5

   Permits issued. Documents for the Nepali exit permit and D visa files.

6. Weeks 6-10

   Exit permit through the partner, consular appointments, D visas.

7. Weeks 11-12

   Tickets, Moldovan transit visas for the flight, a video briefing on the journey.

8. Week 13

   Arrival on Saturday, move into the farm's workers' house.

9. Week 14

   Contracts, tax numbers, residence permit applications, handover to the farm.

10. Week 15

    First cycle in the new growing room.

The longest and least predictable stretch of the calendar is the consular stage, and we have no influence over appointments: they open under the consulate's own rules. So the D visa files were complete before any slots appeared, and Arif checked the appointment calendar every day, booking candidates into the first free slots. All twelve had their visas in week ten, and the week of margin was never touched.

06 / The journey

Exit permit, D visa and transit through Chișinău

With Nepal, two states are involved in the route: besides the Ukrainian permit and visa, a Nepali exit permit is needed, issued by the Nepali side. In this project it did not become a bottleneck: we prepared the Ukrainian documents the partner needed on the day the permits were issued, just as in the scenario about a fish processing plant. The D visa file included the farm's invitation, a copy of the permit, proof of accommodation, a passport with plenty of validity left and a medical insurance policy.

People from Nepal arrive in a country neighbouring Ukraine and cross a land border. For this group, as for the group in the scenario about transit through Moldova, we built the route through Chișinău: tickets bought before the transit filing, a connection with margin, and Moldovan transit visas issued for a specific flight. A week before departure Arif held a video briefing with the group on the journey: who would meet them at the border, what to show at Ukrainian control, how to answer questions about the purpose of the trip. He also repeated the rule from our workers' guide: your passport stays with you, and nobody has the right to take it.

Exit permit

Through the partner in Kathmandu, documents on the day permits were issued

D visa

Files ready before appointments opened, visas in week ten

Transit

Through Chișinău, for a specific flight

Border

Passport with visa, permit copy, invitation with housing address, Arif's number

07 / Handover

Saturday at the border, Monday at the farm

The group arrived on Saturday evening. Arif met them on the Ukrainian side of the border and drove them to the workers' house the farm keeps ten minutes from its growing rooms. Rooms had been assigned before arrival: Sarita and the two other women in the group had their own room, and people from Kavre shared with each other. We had checked the property documents needed for residence permits and registration of residence back when the farm was signing the invitations: the address in the invitation matched the documents for the house.

Sunday went on sleep and finding the way to the shop. On Monday the farm's HR department signed employment contracts with all twelve, and we submitted the copies within the 10-day term. The law allows 90 calendar days from the permit's issue date to conclude the contract, and nine weeks had passed since our permits were issued. Tax numbers and bank accounts were sorted within the first week, and the applications for temporary residence permits went in well before the D visas expired.

At the end of the week we handed the farm a list of the group with residence permit filing dates and contacts, and every worker received a guide in Nepali with Arif's number. That is where our part ended, and from there the farm takes the people on. We continue to handle the group's documents under migration support, and Arif stays in touch with the workers for the whole contract term.

08 / Summary

Twelve experienced people and a week of margin that was never needed

Experience

19 farm videos, 12 approved and 3 in reserve

Information sheet

In Nepali, read aloud before the permit filings

Calendar

Counted back from the first cycle, parallel steps from week one

Route

Permits in week five, D visas in week ten

Handover

In week fourteen, a week before the room launch

Rare experience and a tight deadline usually pull a project apart. We bring them together: we check experience where the person works, explain the terms in the language of their family and count the route back from a date that cannot move. 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 met: finding a replacement is not charged again, while state fees, the migration partner's services, travel and living costs for the new worker are paid by the enterprise. How skills are checked before the permit filing in another trade is covered in the scenario about welders. The whole journey is described on How it works, and the documents candidates collect on the candidate documents page. More on the pages about workers for agriculture, workers from Nepal and recruitment.

09 / FAQ

Questions and answers