The first working day of your new international colleague. Laptop ready, buddy assigned, lunch arranged. The onboarding checklist is complete, except for one thing: language is not on it.
Makes sense, you might think, the working language is English anyway. That is exactly where the problem starts, and it only becomes visible a year later. In this article you will read why the first 90 days determine the language development of international employees, and how to make language training a fixed part of your onboarding.
Why is English as a working language not enough?
The work goes fine in English. Job satisfaction does not. The Friday drinks, the joke at the coffee machine, the meeting that switches to Dutch halfway through: whoever does not speak the language is structurally not quite part of it.
Internationals rarely leave because of the work. They leave because of the feeling of never really belonging. That feeling does not appear in month fourteen. It takes shape in the first months, when someone discovers which conversations they can and cannot join.
What does language do in the first 90 days?
The first three months are the period in which a new employee forms habits, builds relationships and decides whether this is a temporary step or a place to stay.
Someone who starts learning Dutch in that period sends two signals at once. To themselves: I am investing in this country and this company. To the team: I want to belong. And the team almost always answers with patience and help. Colleagues slow down, repeat without complaint and switch to English less quickly.
The reverse is just as true. Someone who still understands no Dutch after a year has missed the momentum. Habits are set, the team has moved to English, and the threshold to start after all has only become higher.
Want to build language training into your onboarding?
In a short advisory call we look at the level of your international employees and which approach fits their first months. No obligation, even if the conclusion is to wait a while.
How do you build language into your onboarding?
Make language training part of the onboarding package, not a separate offer that people have to request themselves. In practice that means four things:
- Measure the level before or just after the start date. Then you know immediately whether someone starts from zero or already has a basis.
- Schedule the intake in week one or two. Not after the probation period, because by then the starting period is over.
- Let the lessons begin within the first month. A trainer comes to the workplace, so travel time costs you nothing.
- Choose a rhythm that fits a busy start. A fixed weekly session with the trainer, with practice in the online academy alongside it, works better than an intensive block on top of a diary that is still settling.
Put it in your terms of employment as well. Language training as a standard part of the package for international employees is a benefit that costs little and binds a lot. It also sets your vacancy apart from the one next to it.
What does that look like in practice?
Say an engineering firm hires four international engineers in spring. The working language within the team is English, the rest of the organisation works in Dutch. HR schedules the language intake in week two and lets the lessons start in week four, on site, at a fixed moment each week.
After three months the engineers still run their standup in English. But they follow the corridor conversations, read internal email without a translation tool and ask their first questions in Dutch to colleagues in production. That difference decides whether someone feels part of the organisation or only of their own team.
What does the organisation get out of it?
Weigh it against the cost of turnover. A specialist who leaves quickly costs a year’s salary in recruitment, ramp-up time and lost knowledge. A language programme costs a fraction of that. Even if language training prevents one in ten international employees from leaving, the return is comfortably positive.
On top of that you gain something harder to quantify: less miscommunication, shorter ramp-up time and colleagues who no longer have to switch by default. Want to know what a programme costs and what determines that amount? Read our article on the cost of business language training or take a look at the Dutch as a second language course.
Frequently asked questions
From what point does Dutch training make sense?
From day one. There is no minimum length of stay or language level required to start. In fact, the earlier someone begins, the more they pick up from their surroundings. Someone who starts right away practises for free at the office every day.
Does the whole onboarding have to be in Dutch?
No. Onboarding stays in the language your new colleague can work in, usually English. Language training runs alongside it, not instead of it. The goal is not that someone chairs meetings in Dutch after three months, but that they understand what is happening around them and dare to join in.
What if the employee only stays two years?
Then that employee has been part of the team for two better years, and the chance that it becomes three or four is higher. The return is not only in the long term, but in how quickly someone connects with the team.
Make language a fixed part of your onboarding
We are happy to think along about a setup that fits your intake of international employees, from level assessment to planning. Our trainers come to your workplace.
Next week: how do you motivate employees to learn Dutch, without making it compulsory?
