Client Case Study: Driving Employee Collaboration Across Geographies
Posted on May 15, 2024 by Minal Joshi Jaeckli, One of Thousands of Team Coaches on Noomii.
Can you relate to Andy? He is a leader with a team across multiple locations who shares his experience working with me and my OpenElevator platform.
The Challenge: Reducing Turnover Through Accurate Employee Assessment
While average tenure at UBS is eight years, reducing turnover has been a key focus for managers looking to reduce costs and improve efficiencies. In particular, UBS Team Head Andy identified team collaboration, from his 2-decades of management experience, as key to the success of his department. Interpersonal issues quickly derail a team’s ability to remain efficient and effective.
Therefore, when inheriting a team of 34 people, Andy immediately wanted to understand the team. He began exploring retention solutions that could help him understand the team dynamic below the waterline, including who works well together, who may be at high risk of quitting, and which issues could be addressed to mitigate conflicts and turnover.
Having taken over an existing team, “I didn’t know them myself, much less how they worked with each other,” explained Andy. “Under the previous head, the team had exceptionally high turnover, which was a source of concern and on top of that, I also had a new boss, and a very short runway to deliver results fast!”
Adding complexity, Andy’s team was decentralized across four locations. “I knew I would lose time, which is normally required for issues to show up before you realize that some people just don’t work well together,” Andy said. Instead, he wanted a solution that would help him understand the team before issues occurred.
The Solution: Employee Engagement Assessment through OpenElevator
The right solution would allow Andy to understand individual level of engagement, turnover risk, and ease of collaboration. Andy prioritized options that would allow for quick implementation with clear, tangible results that help make fact-based decisions to optimize team performance.
The OpenElevator platform stood out to Andy for several reasons including ease of implementation, high level of security, and ability to scale. Most remarkably, unlike other solutions that report on a candidate’s likelihood to be a fit for a position, OpenElevator identifies turnover risk, provides customized guidance for fostering engagement, identifies which retention programs are a waste of money, and unlocks how to structure a team for maximum productivity.
Deciding to move forward, Andy found the platform easy to use. “The process was very simple. Creating the account, completing the assessment, and sending out the invites took no more than 10 minutes. And each team member only had to spend five minutes for completing the assessment. We had zero issues,” shared Andy. Employees receive an email invitation to participate in a short and easy survey designed to elicit honest input for maximum insights.
The Results: Identifying Alignment and Improving Retention Outcomes
With the survey completed by the team, the results were delivered to Andy via an in-depth report, a debriefing session with OpenElevator, and an integrated dashboard. Andy called the results his “cheat sheet” to quickly understand his team’s engagement and dynamic. While people are complex, the insights delivered were strikingly accurate and actionable.
The values alignment revealed 9 out of the 34 employees were at risk of leaving, with the key drivers of engagement for each person (such as growth or job security) that could be addressed to minimize unwanted leavers. “It’s amazing how accurate the data is. It basically saves me hours and hours of “getting to know each other” meetings, and I know immediately who is at risk and where I need to focus,” explained Andy.
With the interpersonal alignment scores “I could gauge immediately how easily (or not) the team members would work together and where to expect friction, a process that otherwise takes weeks or months and requires a great deal of attention,” explained Andy. “The interpersonal scores are highly predictive of collaboration quality, and they helped me know where management intervention was needed.”
After the initial team assessment, Andy continues to leverage the platform. “Using OpenElevator during the hiring process helps me understand whether and how a candidate will fit into the team – which has saved me frustration, increased hiring success and lowered turnover costs,” shared Andy.
The platform is also valuable during the annual review process. “I use the values alignment data for talent and career development,” said Andy. “Team members really appreciate me having the values they prioritize in mind as we discuss their career development. Because at the end of the day, living company values is important for shaping our culture and meeting individuals’ values is key to driving engagement.”
Elevating Talent Retention with OpenElevator
OpenElevator reduces turnover rates for clients by helping them understand existing team engagement and assess potential new hire fit. OpenElevator’s proprietary algorithm delivers data-backed results that give clients unprecedented levels of transparency and predictability for increasing engagement, retention, and cost savings. To learn more and retain your team, contact support@openelevator.com
