Page 38 - Successful Onboarding

The Business Case for Onboarding • 27

Knowledge Transfer: The Case of Reliance Industries,
Nagothane Manufacturing Division (India)

To hasten the learning speed of new engineers at its chemical plants,
Nagothane trained fifty-one mentors and embedded them with younger
engineers for periods as long as nine months. The firm matched mentors
and protégés based on the compatibility of their respective training
and learning styles. Employees noted their progress on an online portal
monitored by senior executives. The result: Time-to-readiness has plum-
meted from a year to six months. Nagothane also supports a separate
online learning portal on which employees can report lessons learned as
a result of their experiences. On one occasion, knowledge shared on this
$60,000 portal allowed the company to avoid a plant shutdown, saving it
$4.3 million.

Source: ASTD 2008 BEST Award. T D, October 2008.

Now that we’ve looked at some key improvement objectives for effec-
tive onboarding programs, let’s briefly consider some of the business
impacts firms can see when these objectives are realized. Figure 1.2 has
already evoked the kinds of substantial productivity gains strategic
onboarding can bring. Productivity is critical—and we’ll spend more time
exploring it in a minute—but there is a lot more to achieve. With a strate-
gic program in place, firms find themselves better able to meet human
capital demands to realize their business plan. Attrition improves (in both
level and mix). Labor and recruiting costs also diminish, as do onboard-
ing administration costs. Of course, business impacts don’t correspond
one-to-one with the program objectives; many objectives, once attained,
can lead to several positive business outcomes, and business outcomes can
in turn arise out of the attainment of many of the program objectives listed
on the above Table 1.1.