The 36-Month Tenure Model

Most employee benefits are transactional. The employer pays a recurring cost. The employee receives an ongoing service. There is no structural connection between the benefit and the employee's tenure with the company. If the employee leaves, the benefit simply transfers — or stops — without consequence to either side.

Employee Home Advantage (EHA) is structured differently. EHA is a 36-month tenure-based retention program, and that tenure structure is the entire reason the model produces measurable retention outcomes.

How the Structure Works

When an employee enrolls in EHA, they begin a 36-month engagement period during which they work with a dedicated coach toward homeownership. Throughout that period, the employee receives credit optimization guidance, homebuyer education, and access to optional employer-funded down payment assistance. The standard DPA range is 3.5% to 5% of the eventual home purchase price, but the amount is customizable based on the employer's retention strategy and can be stacked on top of any existing DPA sources the employee may already qualify for through state, local, or federal programs.

The down payment assistance is the structural anchor. It is offered to the employee as a benefit they can use toward a home purchase — but the assistance is fully earned only after three years of continued employment with the sponsoring employer. No repayment is required after the three-year tenure milestone is reached. The benefit vests through tenure.

This creates an alignment between the employee's homeownership goal and the employer's retention goal that no other benefit structure delivers. Every month the employee remains employed is a month of progress toward earning the full housing benefit. Every month they stay engaged with their EHA coach is a month they are working toward a milestone that requires them to remain with their employer.

Why This Works Where Other Retention Tactics Fail

Wage increases solve short-term cash flow issues but do not address the underlying instability that drives turnover. A raise gets absorbed into rising rent, longer commutes, or relocation pressure within months. The employee stays exactly as housing-insecure as they were before — and as likely to leave for the next marginal pay bump.

Homeownership is different. A homeowner has put down literal roots. They have signed a 30-year mortgage, established a primary residence, and committed to a community. The cognitive and financial cost of leaving is meaningfully higher than for a renter. Homeowners are statistically far less likely to relocate or leave for a marginal competitor offer.

EHA's 36-month tenure structure does not just help employees buy homes. It uses the path to homeownership as a structured retention mechanism that produces measurable workforce stability over a defined timeframe.

The Documented Impact

The retention effect of employer-sponsored homeownership is well documented across the broader employer-assisted housing category, with comparable programs reporting documented retention gains north of 50 percent over their measurement periods — a structural improvement that would be difficult to achieve through any other single retention intervention.

For employers facing chronic turnover in skilled trades, manufacturing, healthcare, and logistics, EHA's 36-month tenure model offers something rare: a benefit that is both measurable and durable. The retention is not a hope. It is built into the structure of the program.