You have just hired the international specialist you spent months looking for. The working language is English, the collaboration is going well, and on paper everything is sorted. Yet you see it happen in many organisations: a few years later that same person is gone. Not because the work disappointed them, but because they never quite became part of the whole.
Why does international talent leave sooner than you expect?
In 2023, over 1.1 million international employees were working in the Netherlands, a group growing by around 5.6 percent a year (Decisio). At the same time, Statistics Netherlands (CBS) reports a figure that should keep HR teams awake: of the highly skilled migrants who arrived in 2009, 81.8 percent had left the country again within ten years.
Part of that is natural and comes with international work. But a large share leave for a reason you can influence as an employer: they never truly feel at home. They take part in the work, but stand outside everything around it. And that often starts with language.
Isn’t English at work enough?
For the work itself, usually yes. For belonging, no.
Because real company life happens only partly in meetings. It lives in the chats by the coffee machine, in the joke that does not quite translate, in the discussion that slips back into Dutch halfway through because it is faster. It lives in the HR email about the pension scheme, in the letter from the occupational health service, in the Slack channel where colleagues type to each other in Dutch.
Your international employee does not miss all this because nobody is friendly. They miss it because the language draws an invisible line. They hear the words but not the tone. They are present, but sit just outside the circle. And that is exactly the difference between someone who takes part and someone who stays.
What does Dutch in the workplace give your organisation?
Investing deliberately in Dutch for your international staff touches more than language skills alone:
- Retention. People who speak the language build a social network at work faster. And people rarely leave colleagues they feel connected to.
- Faster integration. A new employee who can follow informal conversations within a few months settles in far sooner than someone who only picks up formal English.
- Safety and clarity. In workplaces where instructions, procedures and discussions partly run in Dutch, language skills prevent misunderstandings.
- The whole family. International talent often arrives with a partner. People who feel at home in the country, not just at the office, stay longer.
In short: Dutch in the workplace is not a perk for the employee. It is one of your strongest tools to hold on to talent you worked hard to attract.
How do you approach Dutch for international employees?
Not with a generic off-the-shelf course. An experienced software developer who already manages the supermarket needs something different from someone who has just landed and understands nothing yet. And both need something other than the standard NT2 integration route.
At Language Partners it therefore starts with the right starting level and a concrete goal: following the team meeting, emailing with colleagues, or passing the civic integration exam later on. The training is blended, with personal guidance from certified trainers and an online learning environment that connects seamlessly to it. Face-to-face and online run side by side, so your employee practises with real work situations and keeps working at their own pace in between.
Whether that works best as individual training or in a small group depends on your team and your planning. We are happy to think along with you on that.
Attracting international talent cost you time, money and effort. So make sure it stays.
Want to know which approach suits your international employees?
We are happy to think along about level, languages and planning. One conversation is enough for a concrete proposal.
Frequently asked questions about Dutch in the workplace
From what level can an international employee start?
From zero to advanced. We determine the starting level beforehand and tailor the training to it, whether someone has just arrived or already manages everyday Dutch.
How quickly do you see results?
With an intensive approach, employees notice within a few weeks that they follow more of the informal conversations at work. The pace depends on the starting level and the hours per week.
Can the training be online or does it have to be on site?
By default a trainer comes to your office for face-to-face lessons. Your employee also gets access to the LP Academy platform to practise in between. We call this blended learning. We tailor every course in consultation, so online only, face-to-face only or at a Language Partners location is also possible.
Is this the same as a civic integration course?
Not necessarily. We focus on Dutch for the workplace, but the training can also be aimed at the civic integration exam if that is the goal.
Individual training or in a group?
Both are possible. What suits best depends on the level, the goal and your team’s planning. We are happy to advise you on this.
