Optimising Onboarding

The Challenge

At the time of my project (Sept 2016) Mouchel wanted to improve their induction, their organic headcount growth was pivotal to the business and they had some ambitious growth targets. By their own admission, they had a disjointed and ineffective induction deemed to be not fit for purpose.

Voluntary turnover was c15% so there was an emphasis on quality recruitment and employee retention.

Additionally there was no budget available to make any fundamental changes, I could only make improvements to what was already available.

Project Delivered

My initial work was to obtain feedback on the current process from both line managers and new starters. From both groups, concerns were expressed including key information not being available, online induction portal links broken, IT equipment and logins not being in place, and delays in the process.

I worked with key stakeholders from various functions (Resourcing, Shared Service team, IT, Internal Comms) to implement changes and improvements to provide a coherent onboarding process for new starters.

Outcome

Key outcomes achieved were:

• New starter page set up on company intranet providing useful information for new starters and line managers

• Line manager checklist

• Updating existing online induction portal to ensure all worked correctly and signposted current information

• Automatic correspondence to new starters and line managers from Resourcing software (Talent Link) at the point of offer, providing onboarding information to both and employee brochure to new starters

• Renegotiated KPI’s so Shared Service team sent offer and welcome packs without pre-existing delays

• Improved Shared Service processes so IT requests triggered by employee system (Connect / SAP) much earlier in the onboarding process

• Ensured internal distribution lists updated weekly with new starters

 I achieved all of the above within 2 months of working with Mouchel and whilst maintaining open communication with Senior Leaders around timeframes and expectations.

 Overall, the onboarding process was transformed and Mouchel saw a significant increase in positive feedback from both line managers and new starters.