Immigration Compliance Insights | Complize Blog

Is Your HRIS Putting Your Sponsorship Licence at Risk?

Written by Abeer Omi | 14/07/2025 1:30:00 AM

If you manage a team that includes sponsored visa holders, there’s a good chance you’ve had moments of doubt. Is everyone working within their visa conditions? Are we keeping track of renewals? Are we meeting reporting obligations?

Most HR professionals want to do the right thing. But the truth is, your HR system might not be giving you the tools or visibility you need to stay on top of it all.

This isn’t a criticism, it’s an opportunity to make sure you’ve got the right support in place.

The Invisible Work of Visa Management

HR teams wear a lot of hats. From recruitment and onboarding to payroll, wellbeing, and performance management, there is no shortage of competing priorities.

So it’s completely understandable that visa compliance sometimes falls between the cracks, especially when your existing HR system doesn’t give you clear signals or alerts. It might store visa details in a field somewhere, but it probably doesn’t tell you when something changes or needs attention.

And that’s where the risk starts to creep in.

Your HR System Was Not Built for Sponsorship

Most HR systems are designed to manage people, not immigration processes. While they do a great job handling contracts, leave, and payroll, they don’t always track visa timelines, remind you of reporting requirements, or flag potential issues with visa conditions.

Common gaps we see include:

  • Visa information that isn’t kept up to date
  • No live VEVO integration to verify work rights
  • No alerts for important events like visa expiry or role changes
  • No structured workflow for reporting to the Department
  • No easy way to involve managers or other teams in the process

None of this is a reflection on HR capability. It’s simply about whether the tools you have are designed for the job.

HR Wants to Get It Right

We talk to HR leaders across aged care, hospitality, healthcare and tech. Most are highly aware that they have visa holders in the business. They know there are legal obligations. They want to do the right thing.

But the process feels disconnected. It might involve spreadsheets, scattered reminders, manual VEVO checks, and hoping someone remembers when something is due.

That’s a heavy burden to carry, especially when HR teams are already stretched thin.

What Better Support Looks Like

Rather than trying to do everything manually or adding one more spreadsheet, better support means giving HR the tools to:

  • See visa status in real time
  • Get proactive alerts when something needs action
  • Know which events must be reported and when
  • Have simple checklists and templates to follow
  • Equip managers with just enough information to be helpful
  • Be confident they are doing the right thing

When this support is built into your daily workflows, visa management stops being a stress point. It becomes just another part of how you manage people well.

Why This Matters Now

In the last 12 months,  government enforcement has increased. New laws have added stricter penalties and higher expectations. This includes bigger fines and the possibility of losing your ability to sponsor visa holders altogether.

But rather than viewing this as a reason to panic, it can be a reason to put the right tools in place. Because when HR has visibility and support, the risk of getting caught out drops dramatically.

The Role of a Purpose-Built Tool

Complize is a platform built specifically to help HR teams manage international workforces with confidence.

We are not trying to replace your HR system. Think of us as the extra layer that picks up the immigration pieces your existing tools don’t handle well.

With Complize, you can:

  • Automate VEVO checks and see live visa status across your team
  • Get reminders when a visa is due to expire
  • Receive alerts when key changes (like resignation or promotion) might need reporting
  • Store all sponsorship-related records and actions in one place
  • Deliver quick micro-training to help managers understand their role

This means fewer surprises, fewer risks, and far less time spent chasing information across teams.

A Better Experience for Everyone

When visa management is structured and supported, everyone benefits.

  • HR feels confident that nothing is being missed
  • Managers know when they need to act and when they don’t
  • Employees feel supported and informed
  • Legal and risk teams know the organisation is protected
  • The business avoids disruption caused by avoidable breaches

And most importantly, HR gets to focus more time on strategic people priorities rather than chasing down visa documents.

Your Next Step

If you have more than 50 visa holders in your business, now is the time to ask: is your HR system giving you the full picture?

If not, we’re here to help.

Book a quick discovery session with our team.