February 10, 2023 3 min read
FM Firm Slashes Turnover; Reduces Costs by $1Million+
Industry:
Solution:
The Challenge
A major global facilities management firm was struggling to hire qualified maintenance techs and to retain those new hires. In the previous year, they had hired 2,000 techs, only to see 60% of those new hires leave the organization within a year—at an estimated cost of 2 million dollars.
| Year Before New Training Program Began | |
|---|---|
| New Hire Churn Within First 12 Months Employment | Cost of New Employee Churn |
| 60% | $2,000,000 |
The expense of hiring and training employees who left so quickly was becoming prohibitive, affecting the firm’s ability to provide excellent service to existing customers, and making it hard to grow. During exit interviews, departing employees often said they were leaving because there was no defined training program and no clear path for career advancement within the organization.
The Choice
The learning and development department decided to create a multi-level, in-house maintenance tech certification program including on-the-job training, mentoring, skills assessment, and defined career pathing. To accomplish this, they partnered with Vector Solutions, making use of our Vector Learning Management System (LMS), online training courses, and the Vector Assessment tool to determine the skills of job applicants before hiring and, once those applicants were hired, before and after training.
| Six Elements of the Firm’s Training Development Initiative | ||
|---|---|---|
| Onboarding Program | Internal Tech Certification Program | Career Advancement Program |
| Helping new hires with technical aptitude become ready for entry-level positions. | Improve motivation for learning and developing skills with six-level maintenance tech certification program. | Online skills assessment and career-planning tool combined with goals, mentoring, feedback, and continuing education. |
| Skills Assessment | Federal Resources | Recruiting and Outreach |
| In-the-field assessment and verification of real job skills. | Finding and making use of federal funding opportunities for job training/career development. | Aligning needs of maintenance/technical leaders with efforts of human resources professionals involved in recruitment and hiring. |
Vector Solutions’ mobile-responsive training, which makes online courses display correctly on any device, was especially helpful for these workers, who most often work at remote locations.
The Change
The customer implemented Vector Assessment to pre-screen job applicants and identify the best candidates. Once hired, new employees were enrolled in a tech entry apprentice program. Vector LMS then used results from the earlier skills assessments to automatically assign personalized training assignments to each new hire to help close their skills gaps. The training activities were in a blended-learning format, and employees could access many of the activities using mobile devices while on the job.
The rate of new hires leaving the organization within a year quickly dropped from 60% to 20%. Additionally, employee morale, engagement, and confidence to do the job increased, and the organization’s customers reported improved job performance and significant cost savings.
| Benefits of The Training Program | ||
|---|---|---|
| New Hire Churn | Yearly Cost of New Employee Churn | |
| Before New Program | 60% | $2,000,000 |
| 1 Year After New Program | 20% | $667,000 |
In addition to the entry-level training, the customer worked with Vector to build an entire technician succession planning model, providing training and career development support to help technicians develop advanced maintenance skills, progress through levels of an internal certification program, gain specialty certifications, and even receive training in leadership. Employees have been receptive to the program and results, while early, have been promising. The facilities management firm and Vector Solutions continue to partner together to achieve goals and complete additional phases of the training program.
“The certifications promote career growth and skill development because the different levels of certification demonstrate to a manager the employee has a specific skill set and a commitment to growth.”
Technical Workforce Development Program Manager
