Frequently asked questions

Ethical recruitment means people are recruited fairly, transparently and on the basis of their suitability for a job, not their ability to pay for one.

At FSI, that starts with a zero-fee-to-worker model. The employer funds recruitment, and workers do not pay FSI, its staff or intermediaries to secure a job. This follows the International Labour Organization principle that recruitment fees and related costs should not be charged directly or indirectly to workers or jobseekers.

But ethical recruitment is about more than fees. Candidates should know what job they are applying for, who they will work for, what they will earn, where they will work and the terms attached to the job before they agree to travel. Their decision should be voluntary and based on accurate information, without deception, coercion, contract substitution or hidden intermediaries.

FSI therefore treats recruitment as a controlled end-to-end process: direct candidate engagement, documented selection, clear employment terms, preparation before departure and an auditable record of how each worker was recruited.

The objective is simple: the employer knows where its workforce came from and how it was recruited, while the worker knows exactly what they have agreed to before leaving home.

Because recruitment problems do not disappear when the worker gets on the plane.

A worker who has taken on substantial debt to secure a job arrives under immediate financial pressure. If the role, salary or conditions are also different from what they expected, that can quickly become an operational problem: dissatisfaction, grievances, absenteeism, early departure or disputes.

International guidance recognises recruitment debt as a significant vulnerability for migrant workers and a risk factor for debt bondage and exploitation. Poor recruitment and job matching can also contribute to poor retention and repeated recruitment costs.

Good recruitment reduces those risks before mobilisation. Workers who have been properly selected, understand the role and have not had to buy access to it are better positioned to arrive ready to work and complete the job they were recruited to do.

For an employer, ethical recruitment is therefore both a compliance control and a workforce-performance issue.

FSI has its own recruitment teams in Nepal, India, Kenya and Uganda, including offices in Kathmandu, Pokhara, Nairobi and Kampala.

These are FSI operations staffed by our own people, rather than a network of independent recruitment agents.

Having teams on the ground gives us direct visibility of candidate sourcing, screening and communication and allows us to recruit beyond the usual pools concentrated around capital cities.

Where a project requires another source market, we can assess and establish new recruitment corridors.

Our recent recruitment corridors include Nepal, India and Uganda to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, Nepal to the UK and Channel Islands, and Kenya to Iraq.

FSI has also delivered recruitment and workforce programmes in other international markets, including Afghanistan, Japan, Malaysia and Singapore.

The appropriate source country depends on the role, required skills and language, worker availability, immigration rules, mobilisation timescale and destination-country regulations.

For larger requirements, we can recruit from more than one source country to increase capacity and reduce dependence on a single recruitment pipeline.

FSI does not base its recruitment model on chains of informal brokers or sub-agents.

In our core source countries, candidates are recruited through FSI's own teams and operations. This gives us much greater control over who is speaking to candidates, what they are being told and whether anyone is attempting to charge them for access to work.

There are circumstances in international recruitment where a licensed third party or specialist provider is required for a particular service or jurisdiction. Where that happens, the relationship is identified, subject to due diligence and incorporated into the controlled recruitment process.

The distinction matters: using an accountable service provider where necessary is very different from losing visibility of recruitment through an uncontrolled chain of brokers.

Control starts with reducing the number of people between FSI, the employer and the candidate.

Candidates are recruited through identifiable channels, briefed that they should not pay for an FSI job and given routes to raise concerns. Recruitment activity and candidate progression are documented so that unusual activity can be investigated.

We also work with employers on the structure of the recruitment process itself. A nominally “zero-fee” policy achieves very little if the commercial model still encourages hidden charging further down the recruitment chain.

We select people for their suitability for the role, not their ability to pay for access to it.

The process is designed around the client's actual job requirements and may include application screening, interviews, document and experience checks, English or other language assessment, practical or trade testing, medical examinations and other role-specific assessments.

Clients can participate in interviews or final selection where required.

For high-volume programmes, we agree the selection criteria before recruitment begins so that the same standard can be applied consistently across countries and recruitment locations.

Yes. FSI manages both specialist recruitment and large-scale mobilisation programmes.

High-volume recruitment is primarily a planning problem. We work backwards from the required arrival dates to determine how many candidates need to enter the recruitment funnel, which source countries provide sufficient capacity, what assessment is required and how long medical, government, visa and travel processes will take.

Where appropriate, we build parallel pipelines across several countries rather than relying on one market to deliver the entire requirement.

This gives the employer visibility of what can realistically be mobilised, from where and by when.

It depends on the recruitment corridor.

Candidate sourcing and selection can often move quickly. The limiting factors are usually external processes such as demand-letter approval, medical requirements, government permissions, visa processing and travel documentation.

Once we understand the roles, numbers, source countries and destination, we map the complete mobilisation process and identify the critical path.

For urgent requirements, we can also assess existing screened candidate pools and run recruitment activity in multiple markets concurrently.

A worker should not arrive in another country still trying to understand what job they have accepted.

Before deployment, candidates are briefed on the role, employer, salary and benefits, working hours, accommodation arrangements where applicable, destination, workplace expectations and employment conditions.

Preparation can also include skills training, language assessment or training, cultural orientation, travel preparation, worker-rights information and role-specific induction.

The exact programme depends on the job and destination, but the principle is consistent: material terms should be understood before the worker leaves home, not discovered after arrival.

Recruitment does not have to end at the airport.

Depending on the service agreed with the employer, FSI can provide worker welfare support, grievance and escalation channels, employer liaison and ongoing workforce management after deployment.

This also creates an important feedback loop. If several workers raise the same issue (whether it relates to accommodation, supervision, payroll, the role itself or something they were told during recruitment), it can be identified as a systemic problem rather than treated as a series of unrelated individual complaints.

Yes.

FSI can provide services across the workforce lifecycle, from recruitment and mobilisation through to ongoing management.

Depending on the project, this can include travel and mobilisation, onboarding, accommodation and life-support coordination, payroll administration, welfare, HR processes, leave management, performance management, dispute resolution and embedded in-country workforce support.

Clients can use FSI for recruitment only or build a broader managed workforce solution around the requirements of the project.

That depends on the destination country and the structure of the project.

Workers may be employed directly by the client or through another compliant employment structure appropriate to the jurisdiction and contract.

We agree the proposed structure before recruitment begins so that responsibilities are clear and candidates know who their employer will be and the terms on which they are being recruited.

Where a client requires a broader employment or workforce-management solution, we can assess the appropriate structure as part of the project design.

Ethical recruitment needs evidence, not just a policy statement.

FSI maintains records of the recruitment process so that clients can see how workers entered the pipeline, how they were assessed and how they progressed towards deployment.

Depending on the project, the audit trail can include candidate records, screening and assessment results, recruitment-fee declarations, approvals, employment documents, medical and immigration milestones, pre-departure documentation and worker acknowledgements.

The objective is to give the employer evidence that can stand behind its own compliance, responsible-sourcing and client-audit requirements.

FSI supplies operational workforces across sectors including construction, care (nurses and carers), hospitality, logistics and warehousing, facilities management, drivers, security, oil and gas, manufacturing, energy and other labour-intensive operations.

We recruit both frontline workers and, where required, supervisors, specialists and technically qualified personnel.

The starting point is the role rather than the sector label: what the person needs to be able to do, the environment they will work in and the standard the employer needs them to meet.

Yes.

Not every client needs a completely new recruitment programme. Sometimes the problem is a particular source country, supplier, recruitment stage or part of the worker journey.

We can review issues such as worker-paid fees, broker involvement, candidate dropout, poor selection, discrepancies between recruitment promises and employment terms, mobilisation delays, worker grievances or high post-arrival attrition.

From there, we can recommend changes to the existing process, replace particular sourcing channels or take responsibility for a larger part of the recruitment programme.

Yes, where the proposed corridor is viable.

FSI has established recruitment operations and new source-to-destination routes before. We assess candidate availability, licensing and regulatory requirements, immigration rules, processing times, recruitment costs and ethical-recruitment risks before recommending a route.

If the proposed country is not the best option, we will say so and recommend alternatives.

The aim is not simply to find somewhere that can supply workers. It is to establish a corridor that can operate compliantly, predictably and at the required scale.

FSI's ethical recruitment model has been independently documented over a number of years.

The International Labour Organization's Fair Recruitment resources profile FSI Worldwide as a good-practice example, and FSI was the fair recruitment agency in the ILO FAIR programme's 2017–18 pilot on the Nepal–Jordan corridor, recruiting 130 Nepali women for garment factories in Jordan. A Tufts University impact study of the pilot found that fairly recruited workers better understood the terms of their contracts and were more likely to reach their production targets by the end of the study, and that zero recruitment fees benefit both workers and employers.

Verité has also documented FSI's recruitment model in its work on ethical recruitment, describing the use of direct control over the recruitment process to address problems associated with labour brokers and worker-paid fees.

FSI founder Tristan Forster received the Business Leaders' Award to Fight Human Trafficking at Davos in 2013.

FSI Europe also holds SIA Approved Contractor Status for security guarding in the United Kingdom.

There is no single recruitment fee because the cost depends on the roles, volume, source country, destination and services required.

Tell us what people you need, how many and when you need them. We will assess the appropriate source markets and come back with expected lead times, an indicative mobilisation plan and a clear fee schedule.

The recruitment model is employer-funded: workers are not charged for access to the job.

Usually, very little.

We need the roles, approximate numbers, destination, target mobilisation date and enough information about the employment package to assess whether the opportunity is viable in the proposed source markets.

That normally means salary and allowances, working hours, overtime arrangements, accommodation and food where applicable, contract duration, leave, transport and any specific experience, language, medical or skills requirements.

From there, we can identify the most appropriate recruitment markets and the practical route to mobilisation.

No.

You should not pay FSI, an FSI employee, a broker or another person to secure an FSI job.

You should also be cautious of anyone who says they can guarantee you an FSI job in return for money.

If someone asks you to pay for access to an FSI vacancy, report it to us.

You can register through the Register for work section of this website.

Registration is free.

Provide accurate information about your experience, skills and contact details so that our recruitment team can identify you when we have a suitable vacancy.

FSI will contact you if your profile matches a current recruitment requirement.

No.

Registration means that FSI can consider you for suitable vacancies. It does not guarantee selection or employment.

Candidates are selected according to the requirements of each job, which may include experience, skills, language ability, interviews, practical assessments, medical requirements and destination-country eligibility.

You should never pay anyone who claims they can move you to the front of the list or guarantee that you will be selected.

Use FSI's official website, offices and authorised communication channels.

Be suspicious if someone contacts you from an unrelated account, asks you to send money to secure a vacancy, promises guaranteed selection or gives you employment terms that cannot be confirmed by FSI.

If you are unsure whether a vacancy or recruiter is genuine, contact FSI before providing money, documents or personal information.

Do not pay them.

Keep any messages, receipts, phone numbers or other information you have and report the person through our Report a fee or a problem channel.

Reporting suspected fee charging helps us investigate unauthorised activity and protect other candidates.