Improving Recruitment & Reducing Turnover In Illinois’ Immigrant-Serving Organizations

The immigration legal services field plays a critical role in the U.S. and yet is persistently underfunded and faces staff retention and recruitment challenges. This complex and emotionally demanding work often relies on variable funding sources that impose barriers to creating sustainable long-term careers.

To help understand turnover at its 51 partner organizations in the statewide network of immigrant legal service providers in Illinois, The Resurrection Project (TRP) engaged WORC to investigate causes of turnover and identify employee retention best practices.

Highlights of Findings

Overall, there was a high degree of alignment between leadership and frontline staff in their views of retention and recruitment factors. Survey and interview findings revealed that staff members at the 51 organizations identified the following as key factors in retention and recruitment:

1. Mission alignment

2. Workplace culture

3. Low pay

4. Stressful nature of the job

Interestingly, the top two factors identified, mission alignment and workplace culture, present an opportunity for leadership to improve retention and recruitment in the absence of additional financial resources. Conversely, low pay and the stressful nature of the job remain outside the sphere of leadership’s influence as these are primarily tied to funding.

Want to learn more about the research? Check out the full report here.