What determines success in the workplace?

Nathan Kaye investigates

Which factors influence the chances of refugees for a good future in the Netherlands? And can you predict that future? Researcher Dan Asfar has already tried to answer these questions for NOA in recent years in his PhD research and he will now have a successor in the person of Nathan Kaye.

Dan Asfar's research focused on what provides the best opportunities for the successful integration of refugees. He developed an implicit instrument to measure integrity, which can be used, for example, to predict whether people will successfully integrate into their new environment.

Nathan Kaye is now going to follow up on that. In his PhD research, he will mainly focus on the factors that determine successful labour participation. Information that can support both the people and their future employers and increase the chances of success at work.

For Nathan Kaye, the PhD position offered by NOA together with VU Amsterdam came at exactly the right time. "My previous position stopped and I didn't have any new plans when I received a message from my graduating professor Marise Born. She pointed out the vacancy of this position and asked me to apply because the research question was a good fit with my graduation project and my interests. I did that and with success."

Nathan Kaye's research started last fall and he now works four days a week as a researcher and one day a week as a junior advisor for NOA. Both positions fit well together because in his work for NOA he describes items for the adaptive capacity test. "That fits in perfectly with my PhD research, because I eventually have to describe items for that too. My goal is to develop an assessment that can be used to achieve better labor participation of refugees. It is a nice follow-up to my master's thesis in which I investigated the extent to which cultural identity influences the completion of assessments. I developed a measuring instrument for this, a scale. So I'm really in the right place here," he says with a laugh. "And NOA is also a nice place because tests are developed here that are culture fair. I would like to contribute to that."

Nathan is from England, but wanted to see more of the world. After reading an article about how more and more English students are coming to the Netherlands to study, he soon came to the Netherlands for a week to see the big university cities (and to have a nice holiday in Amsterdam!). He fell for Rotterdam where he studied organizational psychology at Erasmus University. Nathan: "Rotterdam is not only a big city, but also culturally very diverse, there is a real work ethic and you can also go out nicely. All factors that appeal to me, so I really feel at home there."

But there is more than work and study. "Perhaps the best thing is the Rotterdam Public Transport Museum, where I have been working as a volunteer since 2020. Last year, it was as a tram driver on the historic tram that runs through the city in the summer. It is great to drive through Rotterdam with such an old means of transport and tell everything about the city. And very good for my Dutch. So I have lost my heart to Rotterdam, I will certainly continue to live there."