Case Report: Creating Commitment In Home Services
THE SITUATION
A fast-growing solar installation company had recently merged with another firm and turnover among crew members who "go up on roofs" was accelerating and costing money and opportunities. During exit interviews, departing employees told the Human Resource manager that their new jobs were paying $0.25 more per hour - but the HR manager knew there had to be more to it.
OUR APPROACH
The company had an existing relationship with a local non-profit workforce development organization that supported them by providing a pipeline of well-trained job candidates. WORC partnered with them both to find out what was really going on and discovered that employees hadn't yet integrated following the recent merger – they simply didn’t feel committed to the new organization.
WORC activated the scientific evidence base using the Job Quality Maps, developed for the National Fund for Workforce Solutions by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis and WORC, and identified frontline job characteristics that could be improved to build employee commitment. The robust body of evidence on employee commitment pointed to strong relationships between how supported employees feel, how formalized HR practices are, and how committed they are likely to be.
THE OUTCOME
Together, we made an evidence-informed "onboarding check-in survey" to identify opportunities for expanding loyalty
The organization had been hard at work building HR infrastructure and the HR manager had recently formalized onboarding practices for new crew members
WORC collaborated with the company and their non-profit partner to create an "onboarding check-in survey" designed to convey concern for new hires' experiences and provide a way for them to offer feedback that will enable the company to support them effectively.
The survey will be administered one week after new hires' start dates and again after 30 days on the job. The data will help the company find opportunities to improve the onboarding process and create feedback loops to provide new hires with the support that can help them integrate into the organization and grow their levels of commitment.
