Town of Oro Valley Reduces IT Onboarding Rework By 57% With GLSS
Home Âŧ Case Study Âŧ Town of Oro Valley Reduces IT Onboarding Rework By 57% With GLSS
Arizona
Government
IT
57%
PROJECT SUMMARY
- Problem:Â Each month, an average of 2.8 new hires require rework by the IT department, causing lost productivity and disruption to operations.
- Root Causes Discovered:
- The IT System & Equipment Access Form is completed incorrectly
- Onboarding tasks are routed incorrectly within the department
- Providing required and requested equipment is delayed
- Solutions:
- Improve the IT System & Equipment Access Form interface
- Enable Town departments to provide their own software
- Results:
- The number of new hires impacted decreased from 2.8 to 1.2 per month (57% improvement)
Over the past year, the IT department for the Town of Oro Valley, a growing community of 47,000 people located a few miles north of Tucson, Arizona, received internal customer complaints that new employees have not been set up with accurate systems access and hardware by their first day of employment. In addition to several days of lost productivity for the new employee and their department, this also results in rework for the IT staff. If this issue continues, the IT department will lose credibility among its internal customers and, most importantly, the Oro Valley community will be negatively impacted.
To the Town of Oro Valley, this is an opportunity. The Town government is committed to improving the ways in which they serve the community and continually look for process improvement opportunities. In 2018, the Town of Oro Valley launched its Lean Six Sigma based program, OV Peak Performance, an initiative aimed at improving daily operations, organizational efficiency, and internal and external customer experiences. Since then, with the support of GLSS Training & Certification, the Town has trained staff throughout the organization and implemented numerous process improvement projects.
In November 2022, The Town of Oro Valley received the âCelebrating Innovation in the Workplaceâ award from the Society for Human Resource Management of Greater Tucson (SHRM-GT) for their OV Peak Performance program.
To address the ongoing onboarding process issues, a team was launched consisting of Sara Newlin (Continuous Improvement Analyst), Jorge Aguilar (IT NetOps Manager), Misti Nowak (Communications and Marketing Administrator), and Cathy McCarthy (Business Systems Analyst). Sara, who led the project team, thought this issue would make for an excellent GLSS Green Belt Training & Certification project.
Like the Town of Oro Valley, the project team is passionate about continuous improvement. Misti says, âI felt it was valuable to be personally invested and model the leadership support. I wanted to build relationships outside my department because relationships build efficiency within the organization. That is a huge bonus of continuous improvement.â
Cathy says, âFor me, it was personal. I wasnât receiving the request tickets to give people access to some of the systems they needed to do their jobs. Then Iâd get an email a week or two later stating, âHey, our new hire doesnât have access to the system, theyâve been here for two weeks, and they canât do their job.â I was tired of getting those emails.â
Jorge, the project sponsor, was also eager to launch the project. Jorge says, âFor the IT team, the problem is not just that the new hires donât have access, it also triggers a tremendous amount of rework.â
When the team looked at last yearâs data, they discovered an average of 2.8 new hires required rework each month.
Sara says, âImagine a person has just come on board with the Town and theyâre so excited to be here. But when they arrive at their department to start training, they discover they donât have access to any of the programs and systems they need. Thatâs not a great first impression and it causes a lot of frustration for not just the new employee but also for those who are tasked with training them. This issue has been such a pain point that two separate departments submitted the idea as a process improvement initiative via the OV Peak Performance program.â
The onboarding process touches all Town departments, functions, and the wide variety of services provided to the community. With an operation this complex, most organizations would not know where to begin implementing a process improvement initiative. But the Town of Oro Valley knew the GLSS Green Belt Training & Certification program would help them take the challenge head-on and guide them to a successful resolution.
âWith an operation this complex, most organizations would not know where to begin implementing a process improvement initiative. But the Town of Oro Valley knew the GLSS Green Belt Training & Certification program would help them take the challenge head-on and guide them to a successful resolution.â
One of the first tasks the team learned in their GLSS training was to do a Process Walk, which is an investigative tour of the process. The goal is to identify waste and other clues that can lead to improvements. They found it eye-opening and powerful.
Cathy says, âWhat caught me off guard is, without knowing all of the individual onboarding processes for each department, itâs hard to craft a one size fits all process.â
Jorge adds, âOften, departments have either specialized software or specialized accesses that must be assigned. Itâs more than just having someone show up and start their assignments. I thought some of the more complicated work tickets would be the ones that were having problems, but that turned out not to be the case. For example, our Police department has a very complicated setup, but they were not having problems with onboarding.â
Using the insights gained from the Process Walk, the team performed a root cause analysis using the Fishbone Diagram and 5 Whys learned during GLSS Green Belt Training & Certification.
When their investigation was complete, three root causes of the problem became clear:
- The IT System & Equipment Access form had incorrect or missing info
- Tasks were being routed incorrectly
- Equipment was delayed due to shortages
During their careful investigation to confirm root causes, the team was surprised to learn a commonly held assumption turned out to not be true. It was originally believed that the bulk of the rework was caused by onboarding requests being submitted late. However, the evidence showed no meaningful delays in submissions. Using the process-focused, fact-based approach from their GLSS training, the team avoided chasing false assumptions and wasting resources solving a problem that didnât exist.
âUsing the process-focused, fact-based approach from their GLSS training, the team avoided chasing false assumptions and wasting resources solving a problem that didnât exist.ââ
The teamâs first-hand discovery of the root causes led to simple and elegant solutions.
Cathy says, âWhen we realized that the majority of our errors were due to missing information, it became apparent that the most obvious thing to do was to change how we obtain that information.â
The identified solutions included:
- Creating clear form instructions
- Including pertinent information for the position and department to address unique needs
- Incorporating required fields on the form to simplify and error-proof the process
The team decided to improve equipment management in a future project and first focused on quicker, less costly solutions.
Jorge says, âWe were able to fine-tune the solutions, realizing itâs not complicated. Part of the solution was to have the departments address their unique and specific needs. I anticipated resistance getting the departments to take on part of the process but once we showed them the new process and what was triggering the problems, it was a five-minute conversation. It was almost anticlimactic that the solution ended up being so simple.â
After implementing the changes, the team anticipated a 25% decrease in the number of new hires requiring rework. However, the simple solutions lead to a more significant impact, reducing the number of affected new hires by 57% and therefore significantly reducing the pain points in operations.
Jorge says, âHaving a work culture that recognizes the value of Lean Six Sigma leads to more acceptance. People have heard about our OV Peak Performance program, and they know the Town is investing in Lean Six Sigma and process improvement initiatives. Either they have been involved or know colleagues who have been involved in the GLSS training and certification and have worked on successful process improvement projects.â
Misti adds, âContinuous improvement is not only a priority but an expectation across the organization. The staff knows that thereâs support to dedicate time and energy to these process improvement projects. Participation in the OV Peak Performance program has even been added to our annual evaluations; thatâs the level of commitment from the top.â
Finally, Sara says, âWeâre excited to see where the journey takes us next. By connecting employees with Lean Six Sigma training and tools, weâre able to help create a culture of continuous improvement at the Town. And through the OV Peak Performance program, every employee is empowered to share their process improvement ideas, take ownership of those processes, and affect positive change within their departments that then directly impacts the success of the Town as a whole.â