Six Sigma Case Study: How to reduce the Training Period of New Hires

I got an interesting question yesterday, and by answering it, I believe it would provide value not just to the person who asked, but to everyone else going through the same predicament. So I’m sharing it here, and it goes like this:

“I have 16 FTE process and team divided into three complexities working on claims.

I am into insurance process and would like to do a Six Sigma Green Belt project on learning curve for the process training.

Currently the training period is for 36 weeks. So if I want to reduce the training period to less than what currently it takes, what all things have to be considered?

How to exactly go about this? Please suggest.”

On a high level, my recommendation is as follows:

Do you have historical performance of the last batch hired and trained? Plot their performance from day 1 onwards and find out at what stage their performance reached your goal.

This can be the minimum target learning curve for the new batch coming in.

But then to shorten that, you need to do root cause analysis to find out what competencies and behaviors have the greatest impact to achieving the result, and how you can repeat that in a quicker way.

Then plot your new learning curve target and have them aim for that.

You might want to assign managers or supervisors accountable for each competency. So they are accountable for finding out why it is or isn’t going well.

For example, if you have let’s say 20 FTEs hired last year in the same process, get their historical data and plot their performance for each of your target metrics from day 1 onwards.

Let’s say your key metric is Quality, and for the last batch, they met the learning curve target for Quality by the 34th week.

That means you can set 34 weeks as your new target and have your upcoming new hires follow that as their learning curve target.

Week on week they should have a target to progressively improve until they achieve the desired goal by week 34.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. If you want to dig deeper to find out how you can shorten that, root cause analysis is required to check what levers you should pull that will move the needle the most.

An example would be to do a Pareto chart to find out what will have the greatest impact to the overall Quality score.

Let’s just say there are 2 key factors that impact 80% of the Quality score – (1) Accuracy of the Pre-Checks, and (2) Proper Documentation of actions.

Brainstorm with your colleagues to find potential solutions to improve each of these, then do pilot testing to see what works and what doesn’t.

Make people accountable for setting up your new hires for success, and for following through to ensure they meet the weekly targets.

Let’s say the training team will be held accountable for implementing and following-through on the action plans to improve accuracy for pre-checks, or those targeted to improve in that aspect.

Same goes with let’s say the supervisors or people managers who will ensure the same for proper documentation of actions.

Finally, document the process for the action items that worked, and set that as a new standard operating procedure that everyone should follow whenever you have a new batch of hires.

That way, you’ll ensure sustainability through consistent, replicable, and predictable results.

I hope you found this case study to be of great value, and that you learned something you can implement straight away.

Now there’s an entire science behind this. So if you want to learn Lean Six Sigma, be Certified, and take your career to the next level, then head over to https://robbieagustin.com/courses and enroll today.

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