OIA is excited to announce a new Workday initiative aimed at improving our support to Human Resource (HR) partners and foreign national employees and visitors. Beginning September 1st, 2024, Workday will introduce and send automated alerts specifically designed to notify both HR partners and employees/visitors who have a Workday profile of upcoming employment authorization/immigration status expiration dates.

The visa status expiration alerts will be sent to both the HR partner of record in Workday and the employee/visitor indicating an upcoming status expiration date. Alerts will continue at varying intervals specific to visa type until the end-date has either been reached or extended. See below for a sample of the language used for all visa types:

SAMPLE ALERT:

The alert will be specific to the individual employee, listing their visa type and the status expiration date listed in Workday.

Dear [First name] [Last name],

This is an automatically generated alert notifying you that your current [Visa Type] status will be expiring on [Visa Status Expiration Date/I-9 Expiration Date].

To avoid disruption to your immigration status, please reach out to your unit business administrator, PI or supervisor, and/or Human Resources Partner to discuss further, if you will continue in your position at the university.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Purpose

Our goal with these alerts is to help proactively manage and address immigration status expirations, reducing the risk of non-compliance and potential work interruptions due to lapse in status/employment authorization. These alerts will be in addition to I-9 expirations and other Workday reporting functionality already available.

The following schedule outlines when alerts will be sent based on the visa type and expiration date in Workday. The cadence takes into account the amount of time required to prepare and file extensions where necessary. We recognize this will result in an increase in the amount of email you receive; however, we hope this will further mitigate some of the issues outlined above. Alerts by visa type will be sent in advance of the status end-dates recorded in Workday at the following intervals:

J-1/J-2 (with EAD): 120-days, 60-days, 30-days
H-1B/E-3: 210-days, 120-days, 60-days
TN: 120-days, 30-days
F-1 OPT: 180-days, 90-days, 60-days

Please note: these alerts will not go to current University of Chicago students on F-1 or J-1 student visas who have on-campus jobs.

We would also like to share a few additional points:

H-1B extensions can be filed with U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services up to six months in advance of the current expiration date.
- There are timed components specific to the preparation and filing of H-1B petitions (both new, amended and extended filings) that require advance planning.
- OIA requests at least 45-60 days to prepare and successfully file H-1B petitions. If you have a case or situation where there isn’t this amount of time, please reach out to your OIA contact before submitting a request to discuss strategy and the best path forward.
The University is not an eligible employer for the purposes of STEM OPT. If you have candidates for positions who claim otherwise, please let us know, but the institutions standing with E-Verify means we cannot support STEM OPT employment. For more information, please visit the STEM OPT Extension page.
Employees on a standard period of post-graduation OPT (12-months) will need to change status at the conclusion of their OPT period. If you have questions about which status is most appropriate, please reach out to your OIA contact.

How soon can a unit/department submit a request for new or extended visa sponsorship?

Whenever possible, we encourage departments to submit a request for new or extended visa sponsorship based on the following timelines:

J-1: new sponsorship: 60-90 days in advance of intended start-date; extended sponsorship: 30 days before current program end date on Form DS2019
H-1B and E-3: new and extended sponsorship: up to six months in advance but not later than 60-days.
TN: 3 weeks (Canadian citizens), 3 months (Mexican citizens) before current I-94 “Admit Until” date
F-1 OPT: 3-4 months before end date listed on EAD card

We recognize that there are exceptional circumstances and cases that cannot be submitted in line with the above timelines. In instances where you know you have an urgent or last-minute case, please first reach out to your OIA contact to discuss. With advanced warning and context, the OIA team can triage emergent situations.

What happens if the information in Workday seems incorrect?

We anticipate there may be incorrect data in Workday for some employees resulting in an inaccurate alert. Employees should confirm their employment/visitor status end date with their HR partner using their most recent immigration document, for example:

J-1: Form DS2019 Program End-Date
H-1B: Form I-797 Approval Notice and/or Form I-94
TN: Most recent Form I-94 (“Admit until”)
F-1 OPT: EAD Card End-Date
J-2: EAD Card End-Date and Form DS2019

If the data in Workday is incorrect, please work to correct it so that it reflects an accurate end-date. Once the end-date in Workday has been updated, alerts will be sent based on the updated end-date for correct alerts moving forward. In the event you are unable to update the information or are unsure why it is reflected as it is, please reach out to Cristina Cruz (cristinadc@uchicago.edu), Foreign Tax Analyst in Financial Services for help and next steps.

Next steps…

Representatives from OIA will be attending the next HR Townhall meeting to further introduce these alerts and answer any questions. In the meantime, if you have questions or concerns, please reach out to OIA Executive Director, Nick Seamons (nseamons@uchicago.edu), or Employee and Scholar Services Sr Adviser, Alex Kirshenbaum (akirshenbaum@uchicago.edu). As is the case whenever a new initiative is developed and rolled out, we may need to make adjustments/revisions as this moves ahead and encourage you to share your feedback.

We appreciate your patience and partnership and want to further thank central HR and the Workday Development team for their help in moving this forward.