REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. (Aug. 12, 2016)--With every challenge comes an opportunity. Nothing could be truer for the Army Contracting Command-Redstone Arsenal contracting center here. The center is closing in on $20 billion of obligations for fiscal year 2016--about an 11 percent increase from last year.
However, ACC-RSA has experienced significant attrition as the demand for contracting professionals has outstripped the supply. Approximately 930 people support the center's contracting efforts.
With attrition rates at 20 percent last fall, Executive Director Becky Weirick decided to take drastic measures.
First, she reviewed employee survey data to try to understand what employees were thinking. Based on the analysis, the center staff designed a comprehensive leadership program to address relationship problems between management and employees.
The other initiative was to shock the personnel pipeline by bringing on close to 100 developmental contract specialists at one time. While the return on investment may not bring immediate results, it ensures people are available to get trained and offset attrition.
ACC-RSA also planned and executed multiple human capital strategies.
Attrition research analyses confirmed preliminary attrition figures. A one-question survey was added to the exit process to find out quickly why employees were leaving the center. Another product, a stay survey, was developed and will be deployed in fiscal year 2017. The stay survey is designed to survey employees with four or more years of ACC-RSA service to learn what those invested in the center are thinking.
The center also employed speed mentoring, an event where participating employees had the opportunity to select mentors. Nearly 100 employees signed up.
ACC-RSA also rolled out a speed coaching initiative. Employees desiring career coaching were paired with supervisors who led the employees to create and write a career action plan. More than half of the participants committed to create a career plan.
The leadership program was rolled out at the end of March. Surveys to date have exceeded 95 percent positive feedback. The program is supposed to strengthen relationships and trust between managers and employees. The desired end result is to foster a positive culture, thereby allowing for better employee buy-in and reduced attrition. Individually, efforts have been clear and they have been positive. Collectively, they are much more.
The first group of developmental contract specialists hired came on board in February. Leadership knew onboarding such a large number was going to be difficult, but sponsors and trainers were identified for onboarding. We received anecdotal evidence that onboarding efforts were less than smooth. A roundtable meeting with new employees in April further revealed there were obvious problems with onboarding.
The last of the first group of DCSs came on board in May and they were brought on with the exact same process. I held a roundtable meeting with this group in June. Based on my observations from the first roundtable, I was ready for quite a number of either complaints or suggestions.
What I began to realize was, first, everyone spoke up. This was very different from the first roundtable. Next, everyone was positive -- everyone. No one gave a single negative. Everyone gave three or four positives. They were naming supervisors, team leads, contracting officers, trainers, sponsors and all in a favorable light.
All of a sudden the entire cultural landscape appeared to have changed. What caused it?
It was apparent about three-quarters of the way through the meeting the only thing that changed was the rollout of the leadership training at the end of March. Afterwards, surveys to those managers of the DCSs confirmed the assumption. The leadership training brought new principles of leading others to center managers. The leaders then took what they learned back to their offices and staff. What I heard described by the DCSs was fantastic. To the center, this was a landmark event. There was a cultural shift. We expected positives from the leadership training, but not this fast and not this wide of an impact!
Taken hand in hand, the leadership training and the onboarding process have taken on an entirely new dimension. Onboarding has previously been looked at as a process, or a system, all unto itself. It usually included a trainer who may or may not have wanted to train, a sponsor, and a supervisor, who may or may not have wanted to spend the limited time they have on new employees who were not going to give them products in the near future.
If the supervisor or director is investing time into his or her people, that flows down -- all the way to new employees. What type of multiplier effect must that be? The conclusion is that onboarding is actually a community event. It's not just a "2 or 3 people approach and cross your fingers that it works."
Speed coaching, speed mentoring and attrition research are all focused on ACC-RSA employees. Combined with the leadership training, it turns into a continuous system of onboarding and engagement. The onboarding doesn't stop as it blends with engagement. It is like a systems engineering approach with a continuous feedback loop.
The bottom-line is that ACC-RSA has seen a glimpse of its future. There is still much work to be done. More training modules are planned and have to be executed. Fiscal Year 2017 will bring more opportunities for new employees, onboarding, engagement and the other factors discussed. But that glimpse into the future is bright. It is very bright.
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