With a recession at hand, HR departments face increasing pressure to make the correct decision when evaluating new hires and ensuring that their internal hiring and immigration processing systems and associated expenses are under control. While the continued economic downturn will reduce hiring across the board, many companies still will require international workers for hard-to-fill openings including IT programmers, design engineers, doctors, nurses and other highly specialized positions. Now, more than ever, organizations must implement efficient hiring and immigration processing systems in order to optimize productivity and cost-effectiveness.

“In today’s global marketplace, employers are challenged with balancing their international hiring with the additional cost associated with the new employees,” stated Bob Meltzer, CEO of leading immigration solution provider VISANOW. “While the application filing fees charged by the U.S. government are rather static, the variable costs for immigration applications add up when you consider processing fees charged by traditional immigration law firms.”

Technology has revolutionized HR departments during the past decade. Administrative activities have been translated into streamlined solutions, while HR best practices have been formalized and strengthened by technology ranging from fully integrated HRIS packages to company-wide intranets. Immigration services provide another vivid example of the advantages of utilizing a technology-based solution to slash legal outsourcing costs and improve HR performance.

“With a major demographic transition expected in the coming years as a significant percentage of skilled U.S. workers enter retirement, foreign hiring will continue,” stated Meltzer. “In this era of shrinking budgets and expanding expectations, leveraging technology to boost internal performance and reduce associated expenses has become more critical than ever.”

Employers are finding that Web-based tools and services can streamline the paperwork and cut legal costs associated with hiring foreign-born workers. Adopting technology as the foundation for delivering legal services transforms the way information is organized, processed and accessed. With a Web-based solution versus a traditional method, immigration service providers can easily scale to increase workload, expedite client communications and more effectively respond and adapt to a full range of client needs.

By leveraging technology-based systems, immigration service providers and the organizations they serve can move away from the high cost billable-hour pricing model of traditional law firms. A Web-based immigration solution allows for a transition to an all-inclusive transaction-based model, resulting in significantly reduced foreign hiring costs while employers.