Telecoms giant Comcast used a locally delivered onboarding process for their business sales news hires by providing a three-week self-directed curriculum of development activities. This included online and field-based activities as well as one to one coaching from their manager. At the end of this 3-week period, new hires attended a face to face Boot Camp for 5 days at corporate headquarters.
However, variable local engagement with the onboarding curriculum meant that new hires were attending Boot Camp with a wide disparity of competence, leading to a suboptimal learner experience. There was no way of measuring management accountability and the impact of Comcast’s onboarding suffered.
Implementing On.Board as part of their onboarding programme tackled the lack of manager engagement head on. On.Board not only hosted all the new hire’s learning content but it took things two stages further, firstly we integrated on-line forms which required completion during shadowing, manager review and coaching sessions, secondly we created a manager sign-off process.
This blended learning solution ensures that experiential learning in the field such as ride-alongs are recorded and tracked via the use of online reflective feedback forms, which help apply learning in the workplace.
Crucially, learning, confirmation of learning and reflective practices were presented to line managers through On.Board for their feedback and approval. This created visible management accountability and consequently drove engagement of both parties and enabled manager support to be measured.
Managers receive email alerts when new hires complete activities requiring their attention and have their own to-do list of activities, making coaching and support convenient. All parties can access On.Board through any mobile digital device using HTML5.
What’s more, each week-long set of activities is gated with a milestone which requires manager authorization to open. This ensures that the structured learning approach is maintained and places accountability on the manager to assess progress and development. The milestones also act as an opportunity for the new hire to demand their manager’s attention if required.
The final result was not only an effective, measurable and accountable onboarding process, but six month after implementation sales revenue per day had risen considerably and attrition had been significantly reduced. Manager accountability is not just good for the new hire experience it is also good for the business.
“Leaners previously onboarded by Fortune 500 companies stated this was their best ever onboarding experience” – Comcast Business Services College
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