Canadian Nuclear Site Uses Kolbe RightFit™ to Reduce Turnover

Kolbe Certified™ Consultants, Colin and Catherine Newton used Kolbe’s Proven System to help a large Canadian nuclear site diagnose and reduce department turnover by more than half.

Chalk River Laboratories, Canada’s largest science and technology complex, was on a mission to revitalize and transform themselves into a world-class, state-of-the-art facility, but they had a personnel problem they couldn’t figure out.

The Safety Department Manager called Kolbe’s Certified Consultants, Colin, and Catherine Newton, about high employee turnover. This department’s job is to make sure radiation levels in the facility stayed below set standards but they had employee turnover of 20% each year for their technicians, while the rest of the company only saw 12% turnover.

20% Department Turnover

New technician hires were intelligent and highly qualified, but shortly after joining the organization, they were routinely applying for different and higher-level positions.

Kolbe’s Proven System

First, the Kolbe Certified Consultants obtained Kolbe A™ Index results for existing staff to identify the natural strengths of the team and discover trends among high performers. From these results, they discovered that the company had been hiring people who were predominantly very detailed, specific, and structured, and who did not naturally use their hands to create solutions.

Then, by using Kolbe RightFit™ software to identify the requirements of the Technician role, the team came to an important discovery.

The RightFit profile for the position prescribed someone who has natural strengths in being hands-on and who didn’t have the same strong need for specificity, structure, and detail, like many on the existing team.

So, they decided to recruit new candidates, give each of them a Kolbe A Index, and compared their results to a Range of Success™ that was developed for the position. Each candidate received a letter grade based on their natural fit, and eight people ended up getting hired.

Lasting Results

Two years later, the turnover rate was cut by more than half and all personnel hired using Kolbe’s Proven System and RightFit hiring software, were still on the job.

20% turnover rate reduced to 8% using Kolbe RightFit

The cost of training and development for this position was greatly reduced and the turnover rate has remained low. The previous percentage of 20% saw a drastic drop, and was now much lower than the company average of 12%. The RightFit system had correctly identified the deficiencies of the department’s hiring process, and had transformed it into one of the most efficient parts of the entire business.