A major manufacturer with multiple facilities across North America was experiencing a large amount of workforce turnover. Beyond the direct costs associated with additional hiring and training, turnover was negatively impacting other areas of the business:
- Leadership effectiveness reduced from excess time training and covering positions
- Crew morale reduced covering for staffing shortfalls and gaps
- Improvement initiatives failing to fully deliver promised benefits because staff capacity needed to maintain ongoing operations
- Increased safety risk attributable to the previous three impacts
- Low productivity due to a constant inflow of new and inexperienced employees
RLG partnered with a client team to assess the issue, develop solutions, and implement actions to reduce turnover across the company.
Project Highlights
- This project, and the resulting new process, looked at four phases, each with its own needs, stakeholders and solution. These were Recruiting, Selection, Onboarding and Leading
- Average cycle time from first contact to start date dropped from 46 to 21 days
- New hire retention at the 6-month mark rose from 66% to 90%
- Total turnover, the issue that started this initiative, cut in half
“The new process helped us get a better result, faster … A solid group of candidates which I got to know in a way that helped me understand how they work and how they would fit with my team.”
SHIFT SUPERVISOR