How to Retain International Employees in Germany: Connection Beyond the First Months
How to Retain International Employees in Germany: Connection Beyond the First Months
ATYORA organises hosted cultural dinners for company teams in Berlin, Hamburg and Rostock: a host from another culture cooks for the team, joins the table and tells the story behind the meal.
Retaining international employees in Germany often depends on whether they feel connected to the people they work with, not only to the role they were hired for. A fair salary, a good manager and interesting work all matter. An employee who has moved country for a job also wants to know whether they have a place in the team beyond their tasks. When that question stays open for months, staying becomes harder to justify.
When the Work Fits but the Team Feels Distant
An international employee can do the job well and still feel at the edge of the team. In many multicultural teams, colleagues spend breaks and after-work time within their own language or cultural group. Lunch conversations, shared jokes and evening plans can quietly pass by the colleague who arrived from abroad. Nobody intends to exclude them, yet the distance can grow week by week. ATYORA was built around this gap between teams that are diverse on paper and teams that are connected in practice.
Retention Is Shaped After Onboarding Ends
ATYORA sees retention take shape once onboarding ends, because the first weeks in a new role usually come with a plan: introductions, a contact person and a welcome lunch. After that phase, connection between colleagues is often left to chance. Chance tends to favour colleagues who already share a language and the same references. For an international employee, the months after onboarding decide whether a team becomes familiar or stays foreign. HR and People & Culture leads who want international colleagues to stay can plan for connection in this period, not only at the start.
What Helps International Colleagues Feel at Home in a Team
Connection in a multicultural team rarely comes from one big event. It grows from repeated, low-pressure occasions where colleagues meet as people rather than as job titles. Occasions like these work best when everyone can take part without a special skill, a competition or any pressure to perform. They also work best when the language suits the whole group, so colleagues still learning German are not left listening from the side. Recent arrivals and quieter colleagues need the same place at the table as the most outspoken people in the room. ATYORA designed its Cultural Dinner around exactly these conditions.
A Table the Team Can Return To
ATYORA's Cultural Dinner gives a team a recurring reason to sit down together around a host and a menu from the host's culture. The host cooks, tells the story behind the food and opens the conversation, while the team arrives as guests and can optionally help with the finishing steps. Because the attention rests on the host's story, an international colleague can join the conversation without being placed at its centre. Persian cuisine is one of the first menus, and dozens of menus from other countries are joining soon. As new menus join, a later dinner can bring the team a different host and a different cuisine.
Planning for Connection Across the Year
Each ATYORA dinner is fully organised, from the host and menu to ingredients, venue and logistics, so HR can focus on timing and invitations. Planning more than one dinner across the year makes connection part of team life rather than a single occasion. Inviting colleagues from different teams or departments helps international employees meet people beyond their immediate group. The evening can be hosted in German, English or both, depending on who is at the table. A group of roughly 8–25 people keeps the dinner small enough for everyone to take part in the conversation.
Staying Is a Decision Made Again and Again
An international employee decides many times whether a team in Germany feels like the right place to stay. Colleagues who know one another's stories make that decision easier. ATYORA's Cultural Dinner offers an evening where that knowing can begin, in a partner kitchen in the company's own city, at a table shared with a host.
Moments worth gathering around.
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