Bill Kerr: Foreign talent is critical to the success of American companies, but there are many barriers to gaining entry. The process is complex and bureaucratic, and some worker visas are allocated by a lottery system with no guarantees. Rule changes in 2017 and 2018 have added additional costs to companies and increased anxiety for the professionals who rely on them.

Welcome to the Managing the Future of Work podcast from Harvard Business School. I’m your host, Professor Bill Kerr. I’m joined today by Dick Burke, CEO of immigration solutions company, Envoy Global. With a wide range of clients who move talent across borders, Dick has an inside look at the issues plaguing American firms and the foreign workers they go to such great lengths to acquire. Welcome Dick.

Dick Burke: Hello, Bill. Thank you for having me today.

Kerr: Dick, tell us a little about Envoy Global.

Burke: Certainly. So we help companies with their visa and immigration needs. What we do is we combine top-flight lawyering with powerful technology, which we’ve developed over about 20 years, and we use that technology to augment the service delivery to help companies—as big as Fortune 50 companies, all the way down to very promising startups—either bring people into the United States or send them overseas. And secondly—increasingly relevant in this day and age, Bill—we help companies ensure that once they’re here, they can stay here compliantly. There’s a very big focus in the United States and in other countries around compliance, and we can help automate that and simplify that and find some guarantees and insurance around that.

Kerr: Okay, so how many countries in total do you cover? You said the United States brings them in; how many people do you send people to?

Burke: In total, about 160 different countries. The United States is certainly the biggest, followed by countries like Canada, the United Kingdom, China, India, Mexico, Australia are probably the next batch. And then we have the capabilities to send people anywhere. And so frequently the use case will be in the United States or U.S. overseas. It might be overseas to overseas, or it might be India to the United States to Australia—three countries. And our combination of our lawyering and our technology allows for a seamless transition in these increasingly mobile times.

Kerr: Transit migration across facilities of an organization.

Burke: Exactly right.

Kerr: You mentioned a 20-year history to Envoy Global. Have you seen things like the transit migration becoming more prevalent over time?

Burke: It is, particularly for larger companies. There used to be a trend more toward: We’re going to send Bill Kerr to Asia for two or three years to run an adjunct office of Harvard Business School. Now, they’re saying: We’re going to send you over there on a more sporadic basis. You’ll be coming back and forth. So short-term travel becoming a bit more common, relative to the longer two- to three-year assignments.

Kerr: Okay, that level of responsibility may be a bit too high for Bill Kerr, but I appreciate the thought. With HR being so sophisticated today, why do your clients particularly hire you?

Burke: There is a pervasive need. The United States Department of Labor said there will be 2 million unfilled computer science jobs by 2020. So even the government is acknowledging that. So ingredient number one is: There’s need. Ingredient number two is: Those two factors you said at the introduction. There is complexity, and there’s bureaucracy, and you need an expert to help navigate. Think of other areas within the HR department. Imagine an HR department that doesn’t utilize an HRIS system, or an applicant tracking system. You would think they’re in the Stone Age. Our pitch is: Listen, immigration is so core to your strategic goals—CEOs made clear to us in surveys that accessing the best talent is one of their top three priorities—if you can’t get those domestically, you need them internationally. It is complicated and bureaucratic, as you say; you need this combination of great lawyering and technology.

Getting back to this HRIS applicant tracking analogy, why would you not leverage technology? We know that the process of filling out an immigration application can contain up to 500 data fields. We know that certain of the larger companies will file thousands of applications each year. In aggregate, you are submitting and handling and processing tens of millions of data fields. Doesn’t that suggest you might want technology to both simplify the process, to expedite the process, and to reduce human error? In addition, with immigration, you’ve got multiple parties involved. You’ve got the foreign national, you’ve got the hiring manager, you’ve got the HR department, you might have a global mobility department, you’ve got the attorneys, you’ve got the paralegals. You can easily have six or seven parties involved. Shouldn’t there be a role for technology to play to drive collaboration across the communication platform? We believe those are the factors that are driving companies to hire us.

Kerr: You’re a rapidly growing startup company. When you look out into the future, do you think that this immigrant tracking feature will be a part of all HR software packages?

Burke: We believe it will, for two reasons: One, the criticality of foreign national talent to address the companies’ hiring needs. Secondly, the increasing ease of which we can integrate via API our technology into either the applicant tracking system—so right at the very beginning of the process, help identify who the candidate is, whether they will require work authorization, and get that process started immediately—or into the HRIS. Why HRIS? Well, there’s so much data that resides in the HRIS that has utility to the visa application procedure and vice versa. So I do believe there will be integration, yes.

Kerr: When you start working with a client, what do they describe as being their main pain points?

Burke: The pain points are this persistent shortage of talent. When they say they have a shortage of talent, they are willing to take on the uncertainty of immigration and the incremental cost of immigration, because they cannot find enough domestic-born talent. So they’ve got this yawning need. On top of that, they’ll say there have been this perennial concerns about immigration that are their core sets of concerns. One: We’ve got to collect documents. We’re worried about missing a deadline. We’re worried about the foreign national’s application not being accepted. What’s been interesting in the last two years, what’s made this space such and interesting space to be in, is there is a whole other layer of concerns that the HRs are concerned that they bring to us as their sets of concerns. Uncertainty of outcome is now cited by 35 percent of employers as a concern about relying on foreign nationals to fill their hiring needs.

Kerr: This 35 percent, that comes from the survey you conducted. Maybe tell us a little bit about that.

Burke: Each year, working with Nielson, we conduct a survey of over 400 HR professionals across the country representing all geographies, all industries, all sizes of companies, both public and private. So we get a very good view into the zeitgeist, if you will, of the immigration landscape from the people in the trenches trying to navigate. The most recent survey made clear—it was taken after about a year of the Trump presidency—a couple of the findings were very interesting, Bill. One was that, notwithstanding the tightening of policy and the increased difficulty of policy, heightened demand still for talent. The other thing is, dramatic increase and foreign national anxiety, many employers are very worried about that. Also, concern about outcome, much more pronounced. Concern about delay, much more pronounced. Employers are representative companies, and the companies like a certain business environment, they’re not getting that right now in the current immigration environment.

Kerr: When you say these consequences of delay or some project can’t take root, what frequency do you see that?

Burke: It happens with some regularity, and it’s a regularity that isn’t picked up on the popular press. Our survey exactly asks the question you just posed, Bill. It’s interesting. About 26 percent of employers say they’ve either been forced to postpone a project, or to cancel a project, or to move a project overseas. Interestingly, we help a very large, well-known food and beverage company in the United States. They have a need for engineers to design the containers that will hold their products—food or beverage. There are environmental concerns. There are cost concerns that the package has to be durable enough to withstand the rigors of shipping, but it’s got to be light enough, etc., etc.

They could not find enough engineers. Because of the increased complexity of the last years, they said we’re going to move to Mexico, and they have now hired a bunch of engineers in Mexico, and they are packaging their product in Mexico, for this reason. There are many others. We have a debate that suggests, oh, we can have tough policies, everyone’s going to want to come here. Well, not exactly true. It is global mobility for a reason. The jobs can go elsewhere, not just in the United States.

Kerr: With your multi-country footprint employer base, have you seen examples of your client saying, after trying to get into the United States, it doesn’t work. Okay, why don’t we, instead, apply to send this person over to Mexico, or up to Canada, or to the U.K.?

Burke: Absolutely. Those are two of the most common destinations, because of proximity. Mexico is the example I just gave; Canada has been very, very aggressive. We know Salesforce has committed $2 billion to build out a campus in Canada, multiple campuses in Canada. They’ve reformed immigration policies—you can now get work authorization within 15 days. They are seeing the uncertainty in the delays, in the current environment, Canada in particular.

Kerr: So given that you’re front line to these decisions, is there a pecking order of these countries, that, if you can’t come to the United States, we go first here, first there? Is that changing?

Burke: We’re finding that Canada is being the most aggressive. They’ve got the advantages of language, they’ve got the advantages of geography, proximity to the United States, advantages of similar time zones, advantages of in-born talent clusters driven by their superb technical schools outside Toronto—Waterloo in particular—and now the liberalization of their immigration policies. Toronto is the most cosmopolitan in the world. More than 50 percent of the residents of Toronto are foreign nationals, interestingly. So we’re finding the most there. But countries that others might find sleepy backwaters are getting much more aggressive. We know Mexico from personal experience, the one I told you. We know that China now houses as many unicorns—unicorns are private companies valued over $1 billion—China has as many unicorns now as the United States does. You wouldn’t have been able to say anything near that 10 or 15 or 20 years ago.

Kerr: Yeah, but with the multinationals and the larger corporations there, it’s not just the unicorns, do you see evidence of companies moving to China for the immigration policies?

Burke: Yes. Now there are concerns about China that go beyond this podcast, but there are receptive climates outside the United States, and we think an educated argument around U.S. immigration policy needs to be mindful that, if the jobs don’t come here, they may well go somewhere else.

Kerr: Over the last couple of years, there have been reports that the system has gotten worse. Do your clients feel that way?

Burke: They do feel that way, and it’s interesting. Our survey made very clear that employers are finding the process to be more broken than it was before. They’re finding there to be more uncertainty, there finding longer delays in processing, and more arbitrary decisions.

Kerr: Walk us through a few of those.

Burke: Number one: Increases in what’s called and RFE—that’s a request for evidence. That’s the government coming back and saying, “Okay, we’ve got your application about Bill Kerr; we’ve got some more questions about him.” Sometimes those questions may be legitimate. Sometimes they may be entirely specious because either the government’s just trying to pour sand in the gears, employers are telling us, or they’re just trying to slow down the process. We represent a Fortune 50 company, with revenues approximately $100 billion, it’s a name everyone knows. The government came back with an RFE saying, “Are you sure this company can afford to pay to hire this foreign national?” So increase of about 200 percent in the HR fees. Denials—these are cases which historically would have been approved in prior years—now getting denied up 41 percent on a year-over-year basis. So dramatic increase there.

Kerr: Before you continue onwards, with RFEs, one of the claims it’s given is that this is evidence of better vetting. You’re both before and after the administration change. Do you think that we needed better vetting?

Burke: In certain instances, we without a doubt needed better vetting. What the employers are saying to us is, “We want to live by the rules. We are not seeking to take advantage of the program, to pervert the program, to outsource jobs that are otherwise held by United States citizens.” They’re saying, “Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water.” In many of the instances we see of these RFEs, it’s not as though they’re all legitimate in their minds. These are capricious administrative actions, according to the HRs that we represent, designed to slow down and complicate and retard their growth. Another client of ours—a very, very well-known B2C website that I would bet most people and many of the listeners have utilized in the last week or month—they received an RFE saying. “Do you really need to hire this computer programmer?” And so there’s a level or inquiry in the RFEs that are making the process more difficult.

A couple other examples, if I may. One of the more notable ones in the last years is the decision to not allow dependents to work in the United States. The H-4 authorization, to dig into that for those who aren’t familiar, that was a program put in place by prior administration that said, “We know that if we want to hire a foreign national, she may have a dependent, a spouse, a partner. If we want to get that person to come, we’ve probably got to make certain that that person can bring their spouse, partner, loved one with, and so we would give authorization to that second person.” That is going away, and that is another thing driving this foreign national anxiety, making the U.S. a less desirous place to be.

Kerr: In some places, it’s very expensive to live, and the ability to have two incomes can help with that.

Burke: It’s integral. It’s necessary, absent that they’ll say, “I’ll go to Canada, where I know I can make a very comparable salary and I know that my spouse, partner, loved one will be able to also work now.” Most recently, and I’ll finish, the government had a program called “premium processing.” If you’ve been to Disney World, think of FastPass. What premium processing did, is it allowed you to get your application handled more expeditiously. Otherwise, it could be six, seven, eight, nine months. The premium processing could be handled in weeks. The government has said in a very common case, an H-1B transfer, so if Bill Kerr wants to go to from Harvard Business School and teach at MIT, and you’re an H-1B, you’d have to do an H-1B transfer. In the old days, you would do a 15-day premium processing, in 15 days you could make the jump. Now, if you want to do that, premium processing is gone. You’re going to have to tell Harvard you’re leaving so that MIT can prepare the application, but MIT won’t be able to hire you for six or seven months. That completely slows down the mobility of talent within the country, and MIT’s going to say, “Well, we can’t hire Kerr, because can wait six or seven months to find out if he’s going to be able to come or not.”

We have a very large customer—another one who is very well known—who said, “We’re just not going to hire any more foreign nationals who are going to need to have their H-1B transferred, and we’re just going to have slower hiring and slower consummation of our strategic initiatives.”

Kerr: Wow. What’s the impact on the migrants, themselves? You mentioned earlier a higher level of anxiety, but tell us both a little bit more in depth, how do the foreign migrants feel? And then what are employers doing about that?

Burke: The foreign nationals are feeling increasingly anxious. We asked about 50 questions in this survey of 400 professionals. The single most noteworthy finding in the survey, was foreign national anxiety is through the roof. Instances like the travel ban, instances like the blowing up of premium processing, increase site audits, are making foreign nationals feel incredibly anxious and concerned about their status, can their dependent be here, and can they work? What we’re telling employers to do about that is empathy, empathy, empathy. You’ve got to be mindful of the stress that the foreign national is feeling. They’re already in a foreign land. Their ability live here and work here is dependent on you securing this visa for them. You’ve got to be empathic. The most sophisticated HR departments don’t just use technology, but they use technology and they are also incredibly empathic. You need to understand what this foreign national is going through. Can they come to the country? Can they work in the country? Can they bring their loved one to this country? Will their loved one be able to work? Can they switch jobs? All of these things, are they unwittingly out of compliance? You need to be remarkably empathic. You should give the foreign national access to the attorney—that generally has a very calming and helpful and constructive influence on the foreign national when she can talk to his or her attorney, that is very, very helpful.

Kerr: That’s not always the case because the employer is the one sponsoring the visa.

Burke: That’s exactly right. The attorney-client relationship exists, with a few minor exceptions, between the employer and the counsel. But the foreign national is essentially the beneficiary. We believe it’s best to address that foreign national anxiety and to prepare the strongest application and ensure your clients by having a direct line of communication between the foreign national and counsel. We’re saying that is a very prudent thing to do. And also just be patient with the foreign national because of the anxiety they feel.

Kerr: If we gave you a magic wand and let you change two things about the current system, what would they be?

Burke: One would be a request that we could have a fact-based debate. I think the book you’ve recently published through Stanford [The Gift of Global Talent: How Migration Shapes Business, Economy & Society] is terrific, because it really goes to pains, in my mind, in a very accessible way to identify the pros and cons. Scare tactics, hyperbolic arguments are not going to get us where we need to go on something as important as global talent. That would be the first one.

The second one would be to reform the program for high-skilled immigration, to be more mindful of the fact that the talent is mobile, that the talent is anxious, that other countries are proactively and aggressively recruiting our talent. So let’s try to provide a bit more certainty. Business doesn’t like uncertainty.

Kerr: No, it doesn’t.

Burke: In any context, immigration being one of them. Let’s try to provide an environment that gives both the employer and the foreign national certainty that they can come and they can stay and they can contribute, and oh, by the way, they can pay taxes. And oh, by the way, they can contribute to GDP, and they can contribute to other job creations. It would be those things.

So the second thing that would come out of my wand would be reforms H-1B process that acknowledge that if there are abuses, they would need to be addressed, but it would also acknowledge talent is the most important global resource right now. There’s not enough of it in the United States. Most studies show that immigrants can be job creators, not job takers, and certain policies would do that. What would that mean on the H-1B? It would mean lifting the cap back to where it was 10 or 15 years ago when the unemployment rate was a lot higher, paradoxically; it would be to prioritize jobs that pay a higher salary to address those rare instances of abuse; it would be to try to allocate some of the H-1B positions to geographies in need of economic revitalization. I’m from Chicago so I’m probably biased to the upper Midwest, but, boy, it sure would be nice if some of those …

Kerr: Spread the love around.

Burke: Spread the love around, right? I would advocate that. I would advocate some way to take some of the proceeds from this to do retraining, I try to be incredibly empathic to those who have been impacted by tech obsolescence, and the impact of globalization—we have to, as a country, be mindful of those things. So that would also come out of my magic wand, those types of reforms.

Kerr: So Dick, let’s take some parting advice. What would you say to a skilled immigrant seeking to come into the country?

Burke: I’d encourage her or him to come. The United States, I think, still offers the most opportunity without a doubt, but I’d encourage them to be patient. I’d encourage them to have confidence. I’d encourage them to find an employer who’s got some experience hiring foreign nationals because they’ll be more savvy about navigating that shoals of it. They’ll also have a community of other foreign nationals. That would be the advice I’d give the foreign national.

Kerr: Okay, and what about the companies? The HR folks.

Burke: For the companies, empathy, empathy, empathy. HRs are pulled in 1,000 different directions, we know that immigration is one of the 14 main areas of focus for the HR. But for that foreign national, this is their most important thing. For her or for him, the ability to work here, live here, have their family here, critical. You’ve got to be empathic to them. We would say also, you’ve got to work with people who are expert at this, who do a volume of cases, so that they know what is happening in the government, what types of arguments are prevailing with the government, what types of cases are more likely to draw a request for evidence. Utilize technology just like you utilize technology to improve your application process, your benefits processes, your continuing education processes, because you will go faster and you will go more accurately.

Kerr: Sounds like as the margin for error has gotten smaller, you’re suggesting be even more rigorous around the process.

Burke: That’s exactly right, and that margin for both in the procurement of the visa bill and in the ongoing compliance with the visa.

Kerr: Dick, thank you for giving us an inside look at the challenges faced by U.S. companies and how the immigration system might be change for the better.

Burke: Thank you for having me. I really enjoyed it. Congratulations on your book; I think it’s terrific.

Kerr: Thanks to all of you for listening in...