Seventy-two hours: how we let a worker go home to his mother and kept his place filled

01 / The call

Tuesday, 23:40: a call from the warehouse dormitory

At 23:40 on Tuesday Sherzod's phone lit up with a name that never appeared on it late at night. In five months at the warehouse Jasur, a thirty-four-year-old order picker from near Kattakurgan, had never once called after nine. He spoke quietly so as not to wake his roommates, and in Uzbek, although with Sherzod he usually switched to Russian. An hour earlier his sister had rung: their mother had been taken to the regional hospital in Samarkand, heart surgery was scheduled for Monday, and the doctors wanted one of the grown-up children at her side.

Jasur is the eldest son. His father died six years ago, his younger brother works in Kazakhstan, and his sister is on her own with three children. He did not ask about money or about who would take his place. He asked two things: whether he would leave any problems with his documents behind, and whether he could ever come back to this warehouse.

Sherzod, our Worker Relations Manager for Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, answered just as briefly. By Friday everything would be closed as it should be, and nobody was shutting the warehouse door behind him. Then he told Jasur to get some sleep, jotted three words in his notes (application, permit, reserve) and booked a call with the warehouse for half past eight in the morning.

When someone works three thousand kilometres from home, sooner or later trouble reaches their family. We cannot know when, but from the first day of a project we keep a set procedure, a reserve from the same selection and a manager who knows every worker by name.

02 / The group

Twenty-two order pickers and why we recommended Uzbekistan

We had brought this group to the warehouse five months earlier. The warehouse was opening a second building and came to WORKIN with a clear task: twenty-two order pickers within seven weeks, people with warehouse experience who can read product labels and understand the supervisors from day one. The warehouse did not name a country. Kemal, our Head of Recruitment, and Olena, who runs projects with companies, compared the options on five points: language, the route against the opening date, experience specifically in warehouses, the candidate pool at our partners, and how people would live together as a group.

Seven weeks ruled out visa countries at once: the D visa route takes eight to twelve weeks. Among the visa-free countries, Uzbekistan fitted best. Our licensed partner in Samarkand had a base of people who had spent several seasons in warehouses and wholesale markets in Tashkent and Kazakhstan. In the Samarkand and Bukhara regions many people speak Russian and often Tajik at home, and Sherzod speaks both with them, as well as Uzbek. The warehouse supervisors speak Ukrainian and Russian, so there was no language barrier to expect at the start. The four-to-seven-week visa-free route fitted the deadline, and the warehouse agreed with our proposal.

At selection we checked more than experience. Labels and delivery notes at the warehouse are in Ukrainian, so every candidate read product codes and names aloud in Cyrillic: younger Uzbeks went to school in the Latin script, and some found this harder than expected. We selected twenty-two main candidates and five in reserve. The reserve candidates went through the same interview and the same check, received the same information sheet and agreed that they could be called up as replacements within a year.

Under WORKIN's contract with the partner, candidates pay nothing for placement. Uzbek law allows agencies to charge candidates, so for us this is a separate contract term, and Sherzod checked it in a personal conversation with each candidate.

Warehouse's task

22 experienced order pickers within seven weeks

Why Uzbekistan

Warehouse experience, Russian with supervisors, visa-free route within the deadline

Selection

Samarkand and Bukhara, reading labels in Cyrillic

Reserve

5 candidates from the same selection

Group documents

Work permits, employment contracts, temporary residence permits

03 / The plan

Wednesday, 8:30: seventy-two hours on a single sheet

At half past eight Sherzod set up a short video call. The warehouse joined with its head of HR and chief accountant; WORKIN with Andrii, Deputy Director responsible for operations and the guarantee, and Nataliia, Head of Documents. Sherzod recounted the night-time conversation and gave the key date: on Friday evening Jasur had to be on a bus. Everything that needed to happen before then was mapped out on a shared sheet in twenty minutes.

The first rule of such a plan is roles. The dismissal is handled by the warehouse: Jasur is its employee, the warehouse director signs the order, and accounts prepare the final settlement. The documents that exist because Jasur is a foreign national are ours: the application to revoke the permit, the copy of the order for the migration partner, the journey home. The replacement is also our part, and that same morning Andrii sat down to check the guarantee terms.

The warehouse agreed to release Jasur from the date he asked for. The head of HR said there had not been a single complaint about him in five months and asked for just one thing: that he should leave calmly, with his settlement in hand and the certainty that his documents were in order.

1. Wednesday, 8:30

   Call with the warehouse: dismissal date, roles, a shared sheet with deadlines.

2. Wednesday, 18:00

   Jasur writes his resignation with the date he asks for. Sherzod translates every line into Uzbek.

3. Thursday, by lunch

   HR drafts the order, Nataliia prepares the permit revocation application with the same date.

4. Thursday, evening

   Route to Samarkand planned, tickets bought, documents explained at the dormitory kitchen table.

5. Friday, 14:00

   The order, a copy of it, the statement of amounts due and the settlement. The warehouse signs the permit application, WORKIN files it.

6. Friday, 21:15

   The bus. Sherzod stays in touch up to the border and on to Samarkand.

04 / Documents

Three dates that must match to the day

When a foreign national's employment contract ends, the employment law requires the employer to apply for revocation of the work permit. The permit was issued for Jasur specifically and for this warehouse specifically, so after the dismissal it is closed just as formally as it was opened. The decision on revocation is made within three days. We prepare the application, the warehouse signs it and we file it, so the company has no extra task on a day when it is already losing a person.

Nataliia spent most of her time not on the application itself but on the dates. Jasur's resignation, the warehouse's order and the permit revocation application must all show the same last working day. If one document carries the date the resignation was written and another the date of the order, the mismatch will need explaining later. So before signing, all three documents were laid side by side on one screen, and Nataliia checked them line by line.

The second detail was language. The order, the statement of amounts due and the application are in Ukrainian, and Jasur reads Ukrainian slowly and not all of it. On Thursday evening Sherzod came to the dormitory and sat with him at the kitchen table over every page: what each line means, where each figure comes from, what the warehouse signs and what he signs himself. It took forty minutes. Nobody should ever sign what they do not understand, least of all on a day when their mind is already at the hospital.

On Friday the migration partner who had handled Jasur's residence permit received a copy of the order so it could close its part of the support. We did not delete Jasur's card from the original selection; we moved it to a separate returns folder, noting that he had left for family reasons, without a single complaint, and wanted to come back.

05 / The journey

A bus on Friday evening and a hospital in Samarkand on Sunday

Sherzod planned the route home with Jasur on Thursday while accounts worked out the settlement. By bus across a land border crossing into a neighbouring country, from there by plane to Tashkent with one connection, and from Tashkent by high-speed train to Samarkand. Jasur bought the tickets himself; Sherzod looked at other things: at least six hours between the bus and the flight, a connection that was not too tight, and a later train from Tashkent in case the flight was delayed.

Then together they checked what had to be in his jacket pocket rather than in a suitcase in the hold: passport, temporary residence permit, a copy of the dismissal order and a phone with a charged power bank. People leaving the country are rarely asked much at the border. But someone who knows what they will show and say does not worry about documents, and Jasur had enough to worry about already.

His roommate Rustam, from the same district back home, helped him pack and took his locker key to hand to the dormitory manager. By Friday the whole group knew Jasur was going to his mother: Sherzod explained to the men at the dormitory himself that the dismissal had been processed at Jasur's request, the settlement paid, the documents closed, and that someone from the same selection would take his place. We give such explanations within what the worker has agreed to share, and we never leave a group guessing.

The bus left at 21:15. Sherzod messaged Jasur at every stage: after the border, at boarding, after the connection. On Sunday afternoon a photo arrived from a corridor of the regional hospital in Samarkand: Jasur with his sister by the ward door. On Monday the operation went well, and that evening Sherzod passed the news on to the warehouse's head of HR.

06 / The reserve

Oybek from Gijduvan, who got a call every month

Back on Wednesday, while Jasur was writing his resignation, Andrii was checking the guarantee terms. 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. Jasur was in his fifth month. The project's monthly checks showed the warehouse was keeping the terms from the contracts and information sheets: pay on time and at the agreed level, and the same dormitory people had seen in photos before departure, whose documents we had checked before the group arrived as part of living support. So the warehouse does not pay again for recruiting the replacement.

The reserve from the original selection had not been left in a drawer. Once a month Sherzod called each of the five reserve candidates: were they still ready to travel, had their passport changed, had they found work at home. By November two of the five had dropped out: one had taken a warehouse job in Tashkent, the other had married and decided not to travel for now. First on the list was Oybek, a twenty-nine-year-old order picker from Gijduvan who had worked two years at a distribution warehouse in Tashkent and had read every product code in Cyrillic without a single mistake at selection.

Sherzod called him on Wednesday at six in the evening, when it was already nine in Gijduvan. Oybek picked up on the first ring: his passport was valid for another four years, and his family had been asking for a month when he would be called. The warehouse's head of HR looked at his card from the original selection, the interview recording and his test result, and approved him that same evening without a new interview.

Sherzod also explained to Oybek why the place had come up: a man had gone home to his sick mother, not because of problems at the warehouse or the dormitory. A candidate travelling as a replacement needs to know this before departure, not hear it from roommates on the first evening.

1. 01

   Recruiting the replacement

   Not charged again: the replacement is within the guarantee, and the agreed working, pay and housing conditions were kept.

2. 02

   State fee

   The warehouse pays for Oybek's new permit, by the statutory formula depending on the permit term.

3. 03

   Migration partner

   The warehouse pays for the partner's services on Oybek's documents after arrival.

4. 04

   Travel and living costs

   The warehouse pays for Oybek's journey and his place in the dormitory, as for the whole group.

07 / New permit

Twenty-four days from the call to the first day at the warehouse

Jasur's permit was no use for Oybek: a permit is issued for a specific foreign national, so a replacement needs a new one. Nataliia put the package together from the list we had already been through with the whole group: the application on the prescribed form, copies of the passport data pages with a certified Ukrainian translation, a colour photo 3.5 x 4.5 cm, a draft employment contract certified by the warehouse and proof of payment. The warehouse's own documents for filing had already been collected using the checklist, so nothing had to be found again.

The longest part was the translation: the partner's representative in Bukhara booked Oybek in with a notary on Thursday morning so the passport pages could be translated and certified in one visit. There Oybek also had his photo taken and signed the candidate agreement together with an updated information sheet: the same job title and pay as in the group's contracts, the dormitory address, Sherzod's phone number and the list of documents to carry. On Friday the scans reached Nataliia, and on Monday the warehouse certified the draft employment contract.

The application went in on day eight. The law allows up to seven working days for a decision to issue a permit; the decision came on the fifth. Citizens of Uzbekistan need no visa, so Oybek bought his ticket: by plane to a neighbouring country, then by bus across the land border. Before he set off, Sherzod had a separate conversation with him about visa-free entry: state the purpose of the trip as it is, work under an issued permit, and keep the copy of the permit, the warehouse's invitation and the proof of housing in a folder in hand, not only on the phone.

Oybek arrived on day twenty-two. Sherzod met him at the bus station in Kyiv and took him to the dormitory, where a made-up bed was waiting for him, and so was Rustam, who promised to show him around. The next day the warehouse signed an employment contract with Oybek, we filed the certified copy within the 10-day term, and the migration partner booked him in to apply for a temporary residence permit at the same address as the rest of the group. On day twenty-four Oybek started at the warehouse.

1. Day 1

   Guarantee check, call to Oybek, warehouse approves him on his card from the original selection.

2. Days 2-3

   Notarised translation of passport pages in Bukhara, photo, candidate agreement and information sheet.

3. Day 6

   The warehouse certifies the draft employment contract and prepares proof of payment.

4. Day 8

   Application for the new permit filed.

5. Day 15

   Permit decision on the fifth working day, ticket bought.

6. Day 22

   Oybek arrives, met at the bus station, dormitory.

7. Days 23-24

   Employment contract, copy filed on time, booked in for the residence permit, first day at the warehouse.

08 / The return

A message in February: mother is better, can I come back

All winter Sherzod messaged Jasur every few weeks to ask about his mother. In February Jasur wrote first: his mother was on her feet, his sister could manage, and he would like to come back to the same warehouse. Sherzod passed this to Olena, and Olena to the warehouse. The answer came within a day: the building season starts in spring, the warehouse had been planning to strengthen the second building and was ready to take Jasur on as its twenty-third order picker without taking Oybek's place.

A return is not the continuation of the old story but a new route. The previous permit was revoked after the dismissal, so the warehouse files a new permit application with a new draft employment contract and the same document list. This is where November's care paid off: the resignation, the order and the revocation application all carried one date, Jasur's card sat in the returns folder with a note on why he had left, nothing needed explaining, and the warehouse did not ask for a new interview.

Jasur already knew the way, but he received a new information sheet with the dates of the new contract and went through the border conversation with Sherzod again: purpose of the trip, copy of the permit, invitation, housing address. The permit decision came within seven working days, and in mid-March Jasur arrived at the same bus station. The first to shake his hand at the dormitory was Oybek.

From there it was the same as the first wave: an employment contract, a certified copy within the 10-day term, the residence permit application and address registration at the dormitory, which the migration partner handles as part of our migration support.

Permit

New, because the previous one was revoked after dismissal

Selection

No new interview, based on the card from the returns folder

Contract

New employment contract, copy within the 10-day term

Entry

Visa-free, with a copy of the permit, an invitation and the housing address

Place

Twenty-third order picker, Oybek stays

09 / Summary

Let go properly, replace quickly, welcome back calmly

• within 72 hours: a resignation with the date, the order and settlement on the day of dismissal, a permit revocation application with the same date;
• every document explained to Jasur in Uzbek before signing;
• a journey home with margins between stages and documents in his pocket, the manager in touch all the way to Samarkand;
• a replacement from the reserve of the same selection: 24 days from the call to Oybek to his first day at the warehouse, recruitment not charged again;
• four months later Jasur came back on a new route: a new permit, a new contract, a new residence permit application.

When trouble reaches a worker's family, a warehouse should not have to choose between decency and an empty place. We take on the documents, the journey and the replacement, so the company can simply let the person go, and the person can leave calmly and, if they wish, come back. How to handle several departures in a row and place replacements from a reserve is covered in the scenario on guarantee replacements at a cable plant, and how to prepare documents for a trip home in the middle of a contract in the scenario on builders travelling home for a holiday. What the company is responsible for on permits is described on the page on employer duties, and the worker's whole journey on How it works. More on the pages on workers for logistics, warehouse workers from abroad, workers from Uzbekistan and recruitment.

10 / FAQ

Questions and answers