In August of last year, we welcomed our new Head of Immigration, Emma Sörensson to the team. Emma’s role and her expertise is a part of a new strategic change to meet client’s needs. She began her career in labour immigration at the Swedish Migration in 2011 and has worked in various roles both in Sweden and abroad. For the later four years, she worked at Migration Agencies headquarters as Nationally Responsible for the Work Permit Process. With her international experience in immigration and her years of working specifically with work permits, Emma brings a new and higher level of expertise and leadership to our team that simply cannot be compared.
We sat down with Emma to ask her about some of her most valuable experiences when working with work permits.
Why are you interested in the field of business immigration?
I really like to be part of enabling growth for companies in different industries. Business Immigration is a dynamic and interesting field that is in constant motion, it really keeps you on your toes.
What kind of experience will you bring to our client companies from your time at the Swedish Migration Agency?
In my role being nationally responsible for the work permit process, I handled these issues from many different perspectives. I had a strategic perspective that led me to meet many interesting stakeholders from different companies, industries, authorities, and unions. I was also responsible for internal processes such as development of methods when implementing a new law, creating new routines to make the process more efficient, IT development of case management systems and online applications, and being responsible for internal and external communication.
From this experience, I have acquired a holistic perspective of labour immigration and a broad knowledge of legislation, the process, the needs and interests of stakeholders. My background and experience will create value for our customers regardless of their needs.
In your experience, what is the biggest challenge when it comes to the work permit application process?
Knowing this area for over ten years, the fact is there will always be challenges. My job is to minimize these challenges and find solutions for our clients. With that said, the biggest challenges now are the long handling times and the complexity that has evolved over the years, where law and practice are unnecessarily complicated. We need to see a positive change within these areas so that Sweden will continue attract international talents.
What attracted you to move from working with internal processes at MIG to working at Human Entrance?
When I got the question to be Head of immigration at Human Entrance, it was an exciting offer that I could not resist! I saw an opportunity to use my experience in this field, to continue working with work permit issues, but much closer to the companies and industries. To bring my experience and understanding of Migration Agencies processes and other stakeholders to continue developing the excellent service Human Entrance is already doing. Human Entrance is a well-known service provider with a good reputation. I have been here for almost a year now. The opportunity to lead this amazing Immigration Services team, to provide the best possible experience and be part of enabling international talents for our clients is an amazing job to have.
From your expertise, how do you predict the course of business immigration will take during the next three years?
We have some interesting years ahead! We have a green revolution and growing region in the north together with a need for international talents and other labour immigration in all regions and industries. At the same time, we see suggested law changes from the government to both enable highly qualified labour immigration but also to limit low qualified labour immigration which has been criticized to prevent necessary growth. More and other changes besides the ones suggested, are needed by both the government and the migrations agency in the coming years to meet the needs of the companies.
Other than that, quality and high knowledge in the labour immigration field will be crucial to achieve a smooth process with short processing time. An ability that is difficult for a company to build and maintain. Therefore, I also see an increased use of service providers as our self, to get talents on site to the company in need of growth.
Thank you, Emma! We are so happy to have you on our team.
Thinking about international recruitment and need support with Immigration?
Contact Emma Sörensson.
emma.sorensson@humanentrance.com