1

CARDINAL HEALTH, INC.Onboarding

Onboarding: A Global Fortune 500 Health Care Services Provider Reduces Leaders’ Transition Times for Accelerated Success

Healthcare costs over the last decade have skyrocketed. The Affordable Healthcare Act together with an aging population has brought new concerns to any company that serves healthcare providers. Cardinal Health, Inc. is a global Fortune 500 health care services company based in Dublin, Ohio.

Ranked number 19 on the Fortune magazine’s list of the 500 largest US corporations, Cardinal Health generates $87 billion in annual revenue and employs over 34,000 worldwide, having grown substantially through acquisitions since its founding.

Connect The DotsCase Study

Company NameCardinal Health, Inc.www.cardinal.com/

Solution Highlights‣ Provided a consistent

experience and process for all new leaders and hiring managers

‣ Defined metrics that indicated what successful onboarding is at Cardinal Health

Key Benefits‣ Defined roles and

responsibilities provided each leader with what they needed for success.

‣ The new VPs at Cardinal Health decreased their time to deliver effective performance.

‣ The HR Business Partners and leaders have supporting tools in a central location

Key Benefits‣ Defined roles and

responsibilities provided each leader with what they needed for success.

‣ The new VPs at Cardinal Health decreased their time to deliver effective performance.

‣ The HR Business Partners and leaders have supporting tools in a central location

Key Benefits‣ Defined roles and

responsibilities provided each leader with what they needed for success.

‣ The new VPs at Cardinal Health decreased their time to deliver effective performance.

‣ The HR Business Partners and leaders have supporting tools in a central location

Quick Shot

IndustryHealth Care Services

Key Challenges‣ No formal support

system to integrate new leaders

‣ Inconsistent onboarding or transitioning periods that varied according to the hiring manager

Solution and Services‣ Created a four-month

process that began with a PreStart phase

‣ Built a branded, web-based tool for the HR Business Partners to use for managing their new leaders through the process

2

They have been extremely successful in meeting the challenges of these changes and staying competitive despite economic pressures. The firm specializes in distribution of pharmaceuticals and medical products, serving more than 60,000 locations to over 100,000 pharmacies, hospitals, and surgery centers and physicians offices every day.

The Challenge: Leadership Needs a Strong Support System to Meet the Organization’s Fast-paced Environment

Cardinal Health is a fast-growing organization that demands its leaders to understand and navigate swiftly its complex structure, processes, and culture. Leaders have to be able to make critical decisions quickly and accurately in order to support the ever-changing demands of the businesses.

New leaders are especially vulnerable to missteps and mistakes that often lead to failure if not corrected early. There was no formal support system to integrate these new leaders. Cardinal Health needed a solution to get them up to speed so that they could contribute quickly to the business for which they were hired.

Depending on their roles, these leaders

experienced unique onboarding ‒ or transitioning

periods ‒ with mixed results. Some were fortunate to have engaged Human Resources business partners and actively involved hiring

managers, while others were left to a “sink or swim” approach.

The Cardinal Health Human Resources team needed help developing an onboarding process that provided an “even playing field” of information, relationship building and feedback for these new leaders. They reached out to Connect the Dots (CTD) for a solution. The first leaders to use this new process were all Vice Presidents and above, hired by the corporate office in Dublin, Ohio.

The Solution: Onboarding that Gives Key Leaders the Tools to Produce Maximum Performance

The HR leadership team knew they needed to create a systemic onboarding process so their HR Business Partners could facilitate the process for their new leaders and the hiring managers in their business units.

The solution focused on following key points:

• Provided a consistent experience for all new leaders with an emphasis on integrating into a complex culture while learning

• Created a process led by human resources business partners with a strong partnership from both the hiring managers and new leaders

• Defined metrics that indicated what successful onboarding is at Cardinal Health

3

• Developed a process that gave the leaders:

❖ Critical knowledge of Cardinal Health, their business units, and their individual roles

❖ A strategy to build key relationships with various business leaders in order to deliver business results

❖ Feedback about how they were being perceived by their teams, boss and peers as they transitioned into their new roles

CTD worked with the senior leaders and the HR leadership team to create a four-month process that began with a PreStart phase (that started upon acceptance of the job) to a Process Completion phase that enabled the new leaders to transition to Cardinal Health’s performance management and leadership development processes.

CTD built a branded, web-based tool for the HR Business Partners to use for managing their new leaders through the process. It delivered all the action items and supporting resources in a just-in-time manner using RoadMaps and a 90-Day Onboarding Plan.

A Clear, Consistent Process Equips Leadership for Stronger Relationships and Gets Fast Results

Following a consistent process with clearly articulated roles and responsibilities provided each leader with the knowledge, relationships and feedback critical for success. The new VPs at Cardinal Health decreased their time to deliver effective performance.

New leadership team members now have a clear set of objectives, an understanding of the complex Cardinal culture, and have the ability to give and receive feedback throughout their onboarding process.

Additionally, it allows the HR Business Partners to manage easily the onboarding of their new leaders with the supporting tools in a central location. They can integrate the onboarding activities into their regularly scheduled meetings and interactions with the leaders so the process is simple to execute. This early interaction creates a stronger

relationship ‒ that is faster for the HR Business Partner and his/her new leaders.

http://www.connectthedotsconsulting.com/contact.htm

Our coaching and feedback processes give your leaders and teams "real-life" situations to work through. We apply your organization's needs to our approach which takes the guess-work out of the how to translate new ideas and behavior changes in a real world setting. Contact us to get started.