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Innovating New-Hire Onboarding for Leaders

Customer Story: Global Healthcare Provider

Moving from One-Size-Fits-All to Individualized Learning Pathways

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About the Company

One of the world’s largest retail healthcare companies, offering high-quality products and services in several specialty areas across the globe. They provide comprehensive care and complex chronic condition management to patients in North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia-Pacific, and Africa at all stages of their disease. The entire company has over 300,000 employees working in over 100 countries.

Healthcare professionals working together

Challenges and Objectives

A key leadership training program in the U.S. involving over 2,500 clinical site managers was put to the test during the pandemic.  The increased pressures and demands put on new and existing site managers exposed and amplified the inefficiencies in new hire training and upskilling for the clinical leader role.  The onboarding process was one-size-fits-all and needed to be reimagined to keep up with the ever-evolving demands of business operations. The targets for transformation were:

Varied backgrounds

New hires enter with very different knowledge sets -- some being promoted from within, some coming from a similar role at a competitor, and some coming from non-healthcare backgrounds but with managerial competencies.

One-size-fits-no-one

Despite the variation in prior knowledge, the existing onboarding training program was one-size-fits-all with no allowances for prior knowledge or experience levels.

Inflexible schedule

Each new hire (or newly promoted employee) would follow a 24-month regiment with their start-group cohort regardless of experience level, resulting in longer than necessary training times and many inefficiencies.

Complex learning needs

Required learning that covered a broad range of skills from clinical medical care to business operations to human resources tended to leave too many new hires feeling overwhelmed and at times less than confident

Burnout and Turnover

The challenges of performing in their new leader role while also doing extensive skills training over an extended period was resulting in the higher-than-expected turnover rates.

Adaptive learning needs

The organization set out to find an adaptive solution that could help them individualize as much of the learning as possible to generate more engaging, relevant, and optimized learning to yield more confident better performing managers with longer tenure in their role.

Two doctors examining x-ray charts

Related

The Solution

The L&D design team worked with Realizeit to architect a new training program enabling new hires to complete their formal training 25-50% faster integrating learning modalities blending individualized learning with all-important face-to-face events. Not only did Realizeit enable personalized, adaptive learning, but learners now had a Learning GPS with journey maps for each new hire incorporating all modalities used throughout the program. All stakeholders now have visibility into each new hires’ learning journey and progress.

Individualized learning pathways

Individualized learning pathways optimize speed to competency based on how much prior knowledge a new employee holds.

Real-time analytics

Real-time analytics assure management that each new hire or promoted employee is achieving the requisite levels of competence germane to the role.

Blended learning done right

Training is more engaging, relevant, and digestible regardless of learning modality. 

Agency to learners

New-hire leaders have more agency over their learning path and speed of progress.

Shrink onboarding time

Efficiencies from adaptive learning will allow the learning circuit to be completed in 12 to 18 months versus the legacy 24 month training window, saving 25-50% in overall onboarding time.

Upskilling

Upskilling is not a separate process but will become integrated for all leaders.  Existing leaders will reap the same benefits as they cover new management skills identified because of the COVID-19 pandemic and more.

Why Realizeit?

Prior to Realizeit, the legacy training was falling out of favor due to its one-size-fits-all approach that could not factor in employees’ prior knowledge or experience. The journey for new hires into the clinical leader role was complex, covering two years and a blend of business, operational, and clinical skills. 

Providing a framework across all skills that enabled self-study, classroom instruction, virtual training, and coaching was important. In addition, how the system adapted to the learner’s progress in an individualized way while guiding each new leader with a learning map that gave them agency over their exact path was critical.

A more engaging journey

Making the journey more engaging and bringing all training modalities into a visual map (Learning GPS) that would adapt to each learner’s existing knowledge was critical.

Directly addressing pain points

Technology and team know-how with adaptive learning provided solutions to onboarding challenges that directly addressed the company’s pain points.

Instilled confidence

Realizeit instilled confidence in the transformation through its understanding of the learning challenges and quickly built a working prototype that exceeded expectations.

The vision for success

The Realizeit team created the vision for how to architect a 12-to-18-month learning path encompassing deep skill building and multiple training modalities.

Streamlined

The solution streamlined multiple programs for clinical leader training into a single program that could be individualized, achieving the benefits of personalization with reduced overhead.

Results Expected

One-size-fits-all training is being abandoned for a more targeted approach, allowing those with prior knowledge to bypass topics they can demonstrate they already know well.  The planned benefits include:

  • Providing a coordinated and blended journey map for all skill-building topics and learning modalities that will guide the new leaders on a comprehensive path to success.
  • Improved time to competency, anticipating a 25-50% reduction in calendar time for the onboarding process.
  • Reduced stress on learners by eliminating the sensation of "drinking from the firehose" with too much to know by providing a manageable and clear GPS for the entire program.
  • Better support for newly hired leaders through the real-time visibility of progress and struggles during the onboarding journey which allows for more supportive and productive check-ins 
  • The learner is supported through live training and coaching interactions that are fully blended and integrated into the learning map. 

An increase in learner engagement is anticipated as the journey is visible and prior knowledge Is respected, resulting in reduced stress around the learning process and lower turnover.

Mockup of a Realizeit panel asking a question

Conclusion

Realizeit provides the solution to personalize learning for faster speed to competency by adapting to each learner’s prior knowledge.  Without that personalized connection, new hires especially at a leadership level can become frustrated and disengage from the training, with the result being that their performance suffers in the new role.

The visual path to a longer-term learning journey builds confidence and buy-in from the learning leader.  The system also provides an anchor of important knowledge to return to as a performance support resource.  When newly learned skills must be used on the job, the leader can return to the visual learning map and access the relevant learning content with ease.  The multi-modal experience that is delivered as a familiar GPS learning map is more engaging, and the overall result is a more efficient onboarding process and a more engaged workforce equipped to provide better leadership and care for patients.

Want to learn more?

To discover more about how Realizeit can be your guide to personalizing learning for performance through its adaptive platform, contact us to get in touch.

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