Page 280 - Successful Onboarding

Driving Implementation—From Blueprint to Impact • 261

At Booz Allen, the implementation team developed a compelling “road
show” presentation that brought the message to key local offices once the
team had secured buy-in from the organization’s key stakeholders. The
presentation was given in person at around a dozen offices with large pop-
ulations of incoming new hires and by webinar at an additional 14 offices.
“The road shows provided crucial early buy-in from stakeholders and sen-
ior leadership across the business,” notes Holmes. “However, and perhaps
more importantly, these sessions also served as a means for establishing an
essential channel for ongoing communications and feedback with our
regional counterparts across the country.”

Results

Within a year from the start of the diagnostic phase, Booz Allen’s program
was off the ground and running. The firm had established a new welcome
portal to foster pre-arrival activities, revamped its firmwide orientation,
and initiated internal efforts to get diverse stakeholders behind onboard-
ing. With these measures in place, the program had already met several
of its goals and business objectives. Results from new hire surveys and
interviews indicated that the online portal and the enhanced program cur-
riculum were contributing to increased levels of new hire job readiness
and engagement. More than 95% of survey participants acknowledged the
program’s positive impact on their impression of the company, reinforc-
ing their decision to join Booz Allen. New hires note that they feel “fully
prepared to do business with clients and co-workers and fit into the Booz
Allen culture after coming through this course.” A full 96% of participants
rated the enhanced onboarding curriculum, ROI, instructors, and pro-
gram logistics higher than comparable components of the firm’s legacy
onboarding program.
The firm also saw productivity gains associated with increased new hire
job readiness levels. Doug Carter, Senior Vice President at Booz Allen,
remarks that “new hires emerging out of this new onboarding program are
some of the most prepared I’ve seen in years. Their understanding of the
complex Booz Allen structure, our service offerings, and our methodolo-
gies and approaches ensures that we are able to deploy them swiftly to client
engagements with the assurance that they will be able to effectively meet
client demands.” A four-hour instructor-led orientation class was converted