[caption id="" align="alignright" width="370"] Santhosh Abraham sits in his office at Excelsior College on Tuesday, March 29, 2016 in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren / Times Union)[/caption]

Santhosh Abraham, the faculty program director for Excelsior College's School of Business and Technology, moved to Latham in September with his family from Scotland for the position, the only job he pursued.

His university's human resources department, he said, connected him with a group called Talent Connect, a division of the Center for Economic Growth. An employee from that group visited different apartments for Abraham and his family before they moved, reporting back to Abraham with photos of the different places and information on school districts. Excelsior College, not Abraham and his family, paid for the service.

"It's not easy to look when you're overseas," he said. "Her visit made the landlord see we were serious."

In the six months since arriving, that employee has visited the family a few times to check in on their experience in the region so far, Abraham said.

Some employers are investing in programs that will help recent immigrants who moved to the area for their careers transition into the Capital Region. Much of this transition is cultural, taking place outside the hurdles of visas needed to work and green card guidance on residency, and for some businesses, this investment can add up to thousands of dollars each year.

In addition to the housing services, Talent Connect employees will tour a new resident around downtown Troy, Albany, Saratoga or Schenectady, find a pediatrician for his or her child and land his or her spouse an informational interview at another nearby company.

GlobalFoundries offers immigration services, assimilation presentation materials, schools and education coordination, language lesson benefits and employee family day activities to form a community network, spokesman James Keller said, adding that the monetary investment depends on the situation.

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