H-1B Compliance: Top 4 Questions From Our SIA Webinar

Our recent Staffing Industry Analysts webinar, Beyond H-1B: Building a Resilient Talent Strategy in a Changing Immigration Landscape, sparked more great questions than we had time to dig into!

We joined Staffing Industry Analysts (SIA)’s Tim Szuhaj and Global Detroit's Khadeejah Lasuc-Lewis to talk about what today’s immigration landscape means for employers, contingent workforce programs, and the people navigating it. A few topics came up more than once, so we wanted to take a closer look at them here.

Question #1: What’s changing in the H-1B market?

The need for highly skilled talent is still there. What's changing is the environment around it. Regulatory shifts, more compliance scrutiny, and evolving client demand are reshaping how organizations recruit, deploy, and retain foreign national talent.

So what does this mean in terms of the program's integrity and compliance? The USCIS has added guardrails to prevent abuse, including limits on multiple lottery submissions and more frequent site visits, so working with vendors that have strong compliance governance matters more than ever.

At the same time, demand is shifting toward specialized expertise like AI/ML engineers, data engineers, cloud architects, cybersecurity professionals, and DevOps engineers. That means premium bill rates and a bigger role for skills mapping over traditional "bench sales" sourcing. Remote work helps too, expanding the talent pool beyond major tech hubs and easing wage pressure.

It also means looking beyond H-1B. OPT and STEM OPT create another path to skilled talent already in the U.S. and give employers more time to plan ahead.

Question #2: What should Hiring Managers be thinking about now?

Hiring Managers don't need to know every detail of immigration law, but they should understand who is on their team, including contingent workers, and when a change could have an impact. The earlier those changes reach the right partners, the easier it is to plan ahead. A few priorities make a real difference:

• Reduce vendor layers for faster hiring, better candidate engagement, and lower compliance risk.

• Prioritize skills over visa status. Many H-1B professionals bring expertise that's hard to source elsewhere.

• Verify compliance early, confirming work authorization, sponsorship, documentation, and job duties before moving forward.

• Hold suppliers to a higher standard, evaluating them on niche talent access and compliance, not just cost.

• Focus on retention, through career growth, stability, sponsorship support, and meaningful work.

Question #3: How do you track visa status across a contingent workforce?

This gets more complicated when suppliers and subvendors are involved. Subvending opens up the talent pipeline but adds risk. At minimum, organizations should identify a worker's visa category, employer of record, authorization dates, and worksite, and keep that information current. A few practices help, including for fourth-party relationships:

1. Require proper disclosure of the employer, including whether a vendor is using a subvendor and who that subvendor is.

2. Use an approved subvendor list to help ensure visa compliance and accurate pay.

3. Keep contract end dates and SOWs updated on time. Delays create problems for H-1B extensions.

4. Consider a payroll partner when the layers get too deep, one that supports H-1B workers with clear transparency.

If it's difficult to answer a basic question like "Who actually employs this worker?" there is likely a bigger visibility gap that needs to be addressed.

Question #4: Why do people stay?

This question brings the conversation back to the part that matters most: the people behind the process. Foreign national workers stay for the same reasons any of us do, to build stable lives through family, community, career, and education.

• Better opportunities. Countries like India and China produce millions of STEM graduates each year, far outnumbering the U.S., which makes American careers attractive.

• Higher education. Many come for advanced degrees at top U.S. universities and stay for the opportunity that follows.

• Higher income. U.S. wages often outpace what workers would earn at home.

• Family and community. Many settle near relatives already in the U.S., in communities that make daily life more comfortable.

Layered on top of that is the immigration process itself, which makes clear communication and confidence in what comes next even more important.

During the webinar, Global Detroit shared an example of an employer that had been losing OPT workers at the STEM extension stage because the process felt too difficult to manage. With the right support, those workers had a path to stay rather than the employer starting over with new talent every year. A strong immigration strategy helps organizations plan ahead, and it gives talented people a clearer path to keep building their careers.

Keep the conversation going

These four questions only scratch the surface of what employers are navigating right now. Visibility, compliance, and retention aren't separate problems, they're connected, and getting one right tends to make the others easier. If your organization is working through how foreign national talent fits into its workforce strategy, PG's Foreign National Talent Management team can help you assess where the gaps are and build a plan to close them.

Ready to talk through your workforce strategy? Connect with our team and watch the full SIA webinar here!