Page 265 - Successful Onboarding

246 • Successful Onboarding

Booz Allen’s cross-functional working team (with participants from each
of the business units and from different levels within the enterprise) was
divided into six separate teams, each responsible for drafting its own ver-
sion of what an improved onboarding experience would look like. As a
result of this approach, the organization minimized a rush to “group think”
around possible answers, thus expanding the number of fresh ideas and
approaches. Each team represented deep company expertise as well as
unique experiences relevant for tackling the opportunity. Although the
teams performed some external benchmarking, they put far more energy
into understanding Booz Allen’s operating conditions, culture, resources,
and business plan than to mimicking what other firms had done with sim-
ilar programs.
The teams presented their ideas to each other and created a process for
selecting the best ideas and designing a cohesive story line for the new
hire. A plan was created—the program blueprint. In general, program
blueprints provide the overarching design architecture documentation for
an onboarding program, enabling all design and stakeholder participants
to coordinate along a single, comprehensive design. Possessing a single
design ensures that all elements support the intended objectives. In our
experience, the most successful system redesign efforts start with a clear
plan and vision of what the future state will look like. They also articulate
a timeline and demonstrate how the organization will meet its goals.
The blueprint defined onboarding for the new hire and the hiring
manager and determined the timeline for onboarding. It included a detailed
outline of all new hire activities, tools, technologies, and resources the firm
would offer as part of onboarding. It also explored how onboarding would
integrate, in a systemic fashion, with other human capital programs and
the firm’s overall business processes. An outline of resources required
was included, as was a detailed budget and straw man overview of roles and
responsibilities. Aimee George-Leary, Director of Learning & Development
at Booz Allen, spearheaded the blueprinting activity. “A comprehensive
blueprint enabled the team to gain a shared vision of the future state of
onboarding while also acting as a tool to allow our stakeholders visibility in
the program goals and objectives.” The blueprint described the findings
from the diagnostic and connected each of the pieces of the new onboard-
ing program to specific objectives and evaluation metrics. This blueprint
was then socialized outside of the working team to secure early buy-in and