Insight Onboarding, integration and retention
An organization does not retain people on its own
A company can create an excellent workplace and still not be able, on its own, to build everything that makes people want to stay.
THE OBSERVATION
Exemplary organizations watch people leave whom they had integrated well.
The case comes up often, and it is unsettling. Integration at work had been handled carefully: expectations were clear, the manager present, the team welcoming, autonomy well judged. Professionally, nothing explained the departure.
What played out was elsewhere: temporary housing that never became anything else, a partner who found no work, children who made no friends, no social life outside colleagues, no way to bring family over, a driver's licence that takes forever and makes everything complicated.
A person does not only leave a job. They leave a place where their life did not manage to take hold.
THREE LAYERS THAT DO NOT SUBSTITUTE FOR ONE ANOTHER
The organization, the community, the territory.
The organization acts on the work: the expectations, the manager, the autonomy, the recognition. That is its part, it is real, and no one else can do it in its place.
The community acts on everything that begins when the day ends: housing, services, family, relationships, the possibility of taking part in something. An organization can make some of those things easier; it cannot produce them.
The territory, finally, determines the collective capacity to turn an arrival into a settlement. It is not the sum of the two previous layers: it is what makes it possible, or not, to picture yourself here in five years.
WHAT THE COMMUNITY CAN DO THAT THE EMPLOYER CANNOT
Offer a space of trust that does not depend on the employer.
This is perhaps the most underestimated contribution of public and community organizations. Someone who has recently arrived often hesitates to tell their employer what is not working, because their status, their housing and sometimes their permit are tied to it. The dependency is real, and it has nothing to do with the quality of the relationship.
A settlement organization, a municipality or a community group then offers something the company cannot: a place where things can be said without putting a job on the line. This is not one more service. It is a different position.
The community's role is therefore not limited to offering services: it consists of creating conditions — housing, mobility, social life, participation — in which settling becomes possible. And that is thought about over the long term, not over the current quarter.
WHAT THIS CHANGES FOR AN EMPLOYER
Recognizing the limit is what allows you to do your part well.
Admitting that you do not retain people on your own is not a way of offloading responsibility. It is what allows you to stop carrying alone what you cannot carry, and to know who to work with for the rest. The organizations that succeed best are not the ones that do everything: they are the ones that know exactly where their boundary lies, and that have taken the trouble to know the people who cover the rest.
Who, besides us, contributes to someone staying here, and have we ever spoken to them?
We also share this thinking in our talks « Intégration en région : le rôle stratégique du leadership public et communautaire » is addressed to public, municipal and community decision-makers who work alongside employers to make settling here possible.
Our talksThis text goes deeper into one dimension of our expertise The full argument, the evidence and the possible forms of engagement are set out on the expertise page.
Onboarding, integration and retentionCONTINUE
Other insights on onboarding, integration and retention.
- Insight A good welcome can mask poor integration You can feel very well received and still spend a long time without understanding how to actually succeed in the work.
- Insight The departure is usually the last signal, not the first By the time the letter arrives, the story has usually started well before.
- Insight After recruitment, integration has already begun The contract may be signed while integration is only just beginning.
- Insight You can already integrate someone who is not here yet The first day can begin several weeks before the physical arrival.