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Build vs Buy: Global immigration in-house vs outsourced for HR

For HR managers
If you are weighing global immigration in-house vs outsourced, start with a hybrid stance. Keep strategy, prioritization, and employee comms inside HR. Hand filings, tracking, and compliance cadences to a specialized partner with clear SLAs and named escalation paths. Shift the mix only when your scorecard shows real value.

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Global immigration in-house vs outsourced: how to choose your model


In-house. HR designs the process, manages vendors for filings, owns employee communication, and reports to leadership. Legal advises on edge cases.


Hybrid. HR owns priorities, stakeholder alignment, and the employee experience. A partner executes filings, status tracking, compliance sweeps, and weekly triage under HR’s playbook.


Fully outsourced. A law firm or platform runs the workflow end to end. HR approves, monitors KPIs, and handles internal messaging.



What leaders care about

  • Control. Who sets policy, timelines, and exceptions

  • Speed. Time from “we need a visa” to “employee is cleared”

  • Quality. Clean petitions, accurate data, audit-ready records

  • Cost. Legal and platform fees, internal hours, rework

  • Employee experience. Clear steps, predictable timelines, one source of truth

  • Visibility. Risks and budget in one view




Quick scorecard to choose your model


Score each 1–5, multiply by weight, add totals.

  • Responsiveness and access (named pod, exec escalation under 4 hours): Weight 3

  • Change velocity and customization (time to ship a new template, policy, or report): Weight 3

  • Employee experience quality (clear emails, checklists, CSAT/NPS): Weight 2

  • Internal lift on HR (how much chasing or QA HR must do): Weight 2

  • Control and visibility (single intake, prioritized weekly list, exec dashboard): Weight 2

  • Post-filing compliance (I-9 reverification, address changes, expirations monitored): Weight 2

  • Total cost in practice (fees plus delay and rework costs): Weight 2

  • Global breadth and throughput (countries covered, peak capacity): Weight 1




How to read it

  • If you value fast answers, low internal lift, and tailored workflows, Fully outsourced (like WayLit) will usually win.

  • If you need one-vendor scale for thousands of cases across many countries and are willing to trade customization for volume, large-scale providers may score higher on the breadth item.

  • Stable, low-volume programs with in-house expertise can still justify In-house.



Sizing check

If you expect 5–200 active cases per year and you want HR’s workload to drop immediately, choose Fully outsourced (WayLit) and reassess in 90 days. If you expect 300+ cases across 25+ countries, compare Fully outsourced to a large-scale provider on breadth and time-to-first-response.



When in-house wins

  • Stable hiring plan with mostly repeatable work

  • At least one HR owner who tracks expirations and comms

  • Responsive counsel for edge cases

    Risks to watch: knowledge trapped in one person, PTO coverage gaps, and spreadsheets that do not scale




Fully outsourced: what you gain

  • Named pod with direct access to leads and a guaranteed escalation lane

  • Prioritized weekly “what matters” list tied to your bandwidth, not just case status

  • Template control for employee emails and manager checklists

  • Fast changes when a reorg, new location, or policy tweak hits

  • Proactive post-filing compliance and travel risk monitoring



Hybrid: when to consider

  • You already have internal specialists and want to keep some filings in-house

  • You are piloting in one region before scaling



In-house: when it works

  • Small, predictable volumes and readily available counsel for edge cases




Non-Negotiables for any model

  • One intake for managers and recruiters

  • A living roster of foreign national employees with status, expirations, filings, and risk flags

  • A monthly compliance sweep for I-9 reverification, address changes, and travel risk

  • Playbooks for M&A, reorganizations, and title or location changes

  • A one-page executive view with pipeline, risks, costs to date, and the next 90 days




Sample SLAs and metrics

  • Triage a new request: within 2 business days

  • File after document collection: 10 to 15 business days by case type

  • Answer employee questions: within 1 business day

  • Escalation: named contact within 4 hours for travel or work-authorization blockers

  • Quality: zero missed expirations and zero returns for incomplete basics

  • Visibility: weekly or bi-weekly status digest and monthly risk and budget review




Vendor evaluation questions that reveal reality

  • Who is our named escalation contact and what is the guaranteed response time

  • Show last month’s on-time filing rate and average days to file by case type

  • Demonstrate how expirations are prevented without pushing tracking to HR

  • How quickly can you adopt our intake, email voice, and reporting cadence

  • Will our pod stay stable quarter to quarter

  • Walk through your playbook for 221(g), passport return timing, and travel emergencies

  • After a reorg mid-PERM, who updates strategy and who informs the employee





A 30-60-90 plan to switch models

Days 1–30. Pick the model with your scorecard. Confirm owners, escalation paths, and SLAs. Move your roster and open cases into a single tracker.

Days 31–60. Run a weekly with HR, Legal, and your partner. Ship a consistent employee comms kit. Pilot with one business unit.

Days 61–90. Roll out to the full company. Publish the executive dashboard. Review delays and lock the next-quarter plan.

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