2. THE RIGHT TO WORK PLAYBOOK

The Professional Hospitality Business's Complete Guide to Right to Work Checks, Illegal Working Penalties & Home Office Compliance

The Home Office doesn't need to prove you knowingly hired someone without the right to work, only that the check itself was missing or done incorrectly. Civil penalties now run up to £45,000 per worker for a first breach and £60,000 for a repeat one, and this guide walks through every one of the official check methods in enough procedural detail to actually get it right: manual document checks, the Home Office online share-code check, digital verification for British and Irish citizens, and the Employer Checking Service for pending cases. It covers building the check into your onboarding sequence so it happens before day one, tracking follow-ups for time-limited visas, and exactly what happens if a penalty notice arrives. The toolkit gives you a new-starter checklist, a right-to-work register with follow-up tracking, a "which method do I use" decision guide, and a full employer self-audit.