In Simple Words
Post-employment retention services act like a safety net and coaching system attached to newly placed workers. Career coaches and case managers maintain ongoing communication with participants and employers post-hire, helping resolve workplace misunderstandings, addressing supervisor bias, and providing emergency financial or logistics support before life shocks cause job loss.
Low-wage job seekers in three US programs
- Without the sectoral program
- About 47% had jobs with benefits at two years
- With the sectoral program
- About 57% had jobs with benefits at two years
In SEIS, roughly 57% of participants versus around 47% of controls worked in jobs offering benefits at the two-year mark. The same complete programs included retention and other supports; the review does not isolate retention services as the cause.
See source →Research question
Newly hired non-traditional workers and employees of color frequently face workplace friction, implicit supervisor bias, or external personal shocks that lead to premature turnover and derail long-term employment advancement.
Participants
Human non-traditional low-income adult workers and partner employers across RCT-evaluated sectoral employment initiatives (e.g., JVS Boston, WRTP, Towards Employment, St. Nick's Alliance).
Study Design
Synthesis of post-hire retention interventions evaluated within multi-site randomized controlled trials (Maguire et al. 2010; Hendra et al. 2016).
Results
Retention and case management supports enabled sectoral program trainees to work 1.3 months longer (a 9.6% increase, p < 0.01) over two years and achieve a 10 percentage point increase in jobs offering benefits (57% vs 47%, p < 0.01) relative to control group members.
Takeaway
Establish structured post-placement outreach where career coaches contact placed employees and supervisors multiple times per week to navigate workplace challenges and provide emergency retention support.
Source and citation
See source →Read alongside the research
Plain-English glossary
Original explanations, informed by the references below. Examples are illustrations, not data from the studies above. The research text stays unchanged.
- Percentage points
The difference between two percentages.
ExampleA rise from 40% to 50% is 10 percentage points. Relative to the starting value, that is a 25% increase.
Office for National Statistics · Percentages ↗Read more about percentage points →- Randomized controlled trial
A study that uses chance, like drawing lots, to decide who receives each option being compared. Researchers compare the groups’ outcomes to estimate the effect of those options.
ExampleA lottery assigns volunteers to a training programme or a comparison group. Researchers then compare their outcomes.
GET-IT glossary · Randomized study ↗Read more about randomized controlled trial →