Technology-enabled onboarding for a global aircraft manufacturing customer
Summary
Aviation mechanics at a premium
64% of aviation executives expect their companies will hire mechanics over the next three years to expand their workforce, while 72% expect this search for qualified candidates to get much harder.
The need for specialised engineering mechanics in the aviation industry is at an all-time high when the pool of qualified candidates is at an all-time low.
A need for companies to not only attract but also retain this talent to meet the critical and time-sensitive projects they have in their pipelines was growing.
Our customer, a global aircraft manufacturing company, manages a critical programme for the British government, DAFCS, and needed the talent to perform regular maintenance on the Chinooks at several Royal Air Force bases.
The challenge
Unburdening and engaging crucial talent
Attracting and retaining this talent is crucial.
We needed to ensure this talent completes the necessary aviation and UK and US government onboarding and background/regulation checks.
The talent needed to be kept engaged and not burdened by the completion of these tasks.
How we helped
A technology to manage onboarding and candidate care
Our team conducted a thorough assessment of the existing process, recommended and implemented a central Document Management System to manage both onboarding and candidate care for the customer.
A key success factor of the new tech-enabled process was building it in a non-linear fashion which allowed for parallel processing of multiple onboarding steps.
This ultimately eliminated process roadblocks candidates encountered before and improved their overall experience.
Additional value-adds of the Document Management System solution included:
- Mobile capabilities to allow the “on the move” workforce to be able to complete the process conveniently
- Pre-population of forms to increase data accuracy and candidate experience
- Bundling of onboarding documents to more easily distribute and extract for both Pontoon and customer needs
- Intel capabilities including a variety of intelligent and relevant reporting and analytics to the customer around this workforce and their onboarding
Our implementation and adoption from both the customer and the engineering mechanics workforce has allowed for a quicker and simplified onboarding process that meets the deadline-driven nature of this work.
Impact
Lean process that delivers results
By the partnering with our customer and understanding their challenge, we were able to design and implement a highly effective and modular solution to digitize their process.
Clear results in both the speed to talent and satisfaction levels of both the hiring managers and candidates were realised.
Tangible results included:
- A 75% reduction of onboarding lead time from 16 weeks down to four weeks
- Reduction of handoffs in the process – down to only three
- A 50% reduction of Pontoon FTEs to manage processes
