Best hire ever!!! And see them leaving within 18 months...

The pitfalls of hiring internationally

If you were moving to a new country for a job, what would you need to feel supported and seen, and what would actually make you stay?

 That is the question most employers forget to ask. And it is the question that sits at the heart of every conversation we have at Rehive People about international talent retention. Because the companies that retain international hires at above-average rates are not necessarily the ones with the biggest relocation budgets. They are the ones who genuinely asked this question and built their approach around the answer.

Most international hires who leave do so within the first eighteen months. Not because the role was wrong. Not because the salary was insufficient. But the experience of rebuilding an entire life in a new country was not supported in the way it needed to be. The role was good. Everything around it wasn’t.

The investment works both ways. It is not only the employer who is committing here. Getting to a new country, leaving behind everything familiar, and starting again takes enormous courage. Making that person feel seen from the very start is not just good HR practice. It is the foundation of a working relationship that lasts.

There are four things that consistently make the difference.

1. Preboarding and onboarding as one continuous experience

The most significant shift an employer can make in international retention is to stop thinking about preboarding and onboarding as separate phases. For an international hire, they are one continuous experience and it begins the moment the contract is signed, not the moment the hire walks through the door.

What does this mean in practice? It means that from the day of signing, the hire should feel actively supported in every aspect of their move. Housing guidance before they start looking. Registration and administrative support as soon as they arrive. Partner support from day one. Clear communication about what to expect at every stage. And a genuine point of contact, one person, supported but not only a portal, who can answer questions and solve problems as they arise.

The Dutch bureaucratic system, BSN registration, DigiD, health insurance, bank account is navigable, but it is not intuitive for someone arriving from outside Europe. Employers who guide their hires through this process proactively, rather than leaving them to figure it out alone, create a fundamentally different start. The international hires who settle fastest, perform earliest, and stay longest are the ones who never felt alone in the process.

Housing deserves particular attention within this journey. The Dutch rental market is one of the toughest in Europe. An international hire who spends their first six to eight weeks in temporary accommodation, navigating a market they do not understand without the right support, cannot be an employee who is focused on their new role. Briefing the hire on what to expect, in all honestly, with realistic timelines and a clear support structure, makes an enormous difference to how those first months feel.

2. Partner support; the silent deal-breaker

This is the retention risk that almost nobody discusses in the hiring conversation. And it is one of the most consistent predictors of early departure that we observe at Rehive People.

An international hire who relocates with a partner who cannot settle in the Netherlands will leave the Netherlands. Not always immediately. But the decision will come. The pressure of one person feeling unsettled, isolated, and without a sense of purpose in a new country creates a situation that no salary package can compensate for indefinitely.

Partner support does not need to be a complex or expensive program. It needs to be a genuine acknowledgement that the hire did not move here alone and a practical commitment to helping their partner find their footing. This might mean career coaching, introductions to professional networks, guidance on navigating daily life in the Netherlands, but starts with simply making sure the partner is included in the settling-in conversation from the very beginning.

The employers who address this consistently, and early, report significantly higher retention among their international hires. The ones who do not often find out it was a factor only in the exit interview.

3. Cultural integration; the adjustment nobody warns you about

The Dutch workplace is distinctive. The directness that feels refreshing in an interview can feel blunt or even confrontational in a team meeting. The flat hierarchy means decisions are made differently than in many other cultures. The balance between professional and personal life is real and respected.

But cultural adjustment does not stop at the workplace door. Personal life and social circles in the Netherlands have their own rhythm too. Building a social network from scratch in a new country by finding your people, understanding the local social norms, knowing how Dutch friendships are formed, is a challenge that sits alongside the professional adjustment and often feels more isolating.

International hires who are not guided through these dynamics can make avoidable mistakes in their first months. Not because they are not capable, but because they are operating on cultural assumptions that do not apply in the Dutch context. What works is a structured program that continues through the first quarter: a cultural buddy, explicit guidance on Dutch workplace and social norms, and space for honest conversations about how the adjustment is going in every dimension of life, not just the professional one.

4. Checking-in; the simplest retention tool most companies skip

The thirty, sixty, and ninety-day check-in is the most cost-effective retention tool available to any employer of international talent. It costs nothing beyond thirty minutes of a manager’s time. And it is the one most frequently skipped, reduced to a performance review, or delegated to an HR process that misses the point entirely.

What international hires need in those first months is not to be assessed. They need to be heard. Is the housing situation resolved? How is the partner settling in? Are there cultural dynamics in the workplace or in personal life that feel confusing or isolating? Is there anything that, if it changed, would make the next three months significantly better?

These are not difficult questions. But they require a manager who has the genuine interest asking them, and the authority to act on the answers. The employers who create this environment catch problems before they become resignation letters. A structured check-in rhythm, genuinely human, not process-driven, is the single most underinvested retention tool in international hiring. It costs nothing. It signals everything.

The investment works both ways

Getting someone to a new country takes courage. It takes trust. The hire is not just accepting a job offer — they are betting a significant part of their life on the employer making good on an implicit promise: that this move will be worth it.

The companies that understand this are the ones building internationally oriented teams that perform, that stay, and that become the kind of workplace that attracts more international talent through reputation alone. The ones that do not are cycling through international hires every eighteen months and wondering why retention is a problem.

Preboarding and onboarding as one experience. Partner support from day one. Cultural integration that goes beyond the first week. And genuine check-ins that treat the whole person, not just the employee.

The investment works both ways. Making them feel seen is where it pays off.

 If you moved countries for a job, what would make you stay?