Page 249 - Successful Onboarding

230 • Successful Onboarding

Performing a diagnostic analysis provides the onboarding change agent
with a baseline against which to measure progress—essential for obtaining
buy-in for ongoing investment. Development of a complete onboarding solu-
tion cannot happen at one pass; typically it requires a staged implementation.
To obtain permission (and budget) to progress to the next stages, change
agents need to show the great distance the firm has traveled thanks to onboard-
ing relative to an initial position. And if onboarding is not bringing progress,
simply knowing as much empowers you to revisit your onboarding design and
figure out where it is going wrong. You need to activate a set of metrics
during this diagnostic phase and establish a very clear baseline. As discussed
in the last chapter, we recommend that these baseline measures capture
numerous inputs (satisfaction levels, retention rates, etc.) for the appropriate
segments of your new hire population (by level, business unit, race, gender,
etc.) and from the perspective of both new hires and hiring managers.
To understand just how helpful information gleaned during the diag-
nostic can be in assuring both intelligent design and institutional accept-
ance, consider the following scenario involving a national health care
firm with which we’ve worked. In discussions with the company, we dis-
covered that attrition for the commercial side of their business—the sales
and customer service departments—was slightly better than the industry
average of 12%. Initial management commentary around discussion
of attrition amounted to, “We do well here—just look at the industry
average.” Digging deeper, we started to discover some very interesting
nuances. First, the firm experienced great regional disparity in attrition.
Some regions experienced 4% attrition, whereas some were at 22%. That
suggested that some regions were doing an exceptional job and some a
poor job at onboarding new employees. When we examined the picture
closer, we also discovered that the region that had the highest attrition
was the same region of the country that was experiencing the highest
rate of unemployment (at the time, 2008, the national economy was in
recession). And here’s the real kicker: The highest three attrition regions
were also the ones experiencing the greatest customer turnover. Not only
was attrition costing the company in labor expense, but it was also cost-
ing the company in customers and revenue.
Additional analysis revealed that customers’ frustration with service per-
sonnel turnover was contributing to account churn. Moreover, effective
practices in certain regions had cropped up, and these could be applied to