Case study: arden university

Improving People Team Processes

 
 
 

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.

 
““Catherine provided consultancy to my teams on process and service improvement over a number of months. Catherine is logical, organised, proactive, reliable and professional. She has exceptional technical HR knowledge and she delivered significant benefits to my organisation. I’d have no hesitation in recommending her and very much hope to work with her again in the future.””

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.

““Catherine joined us in December 2021 for three months....and stayed for a year! As a fast paced, high growth business and start up People function, she proved invaluable in the support she gave the team and business across a wide range of projects including, but not limited to; IR35 guidance and process mapping, transitioning of payroll and reviewing and defining policies and ways of working across multiple functions.
Catherine is pragmatic, solution focussed and highly experienced and knows her craft. Catherine is best in class and I would hire her as a consultant again in a heartbeat.””