Making Waves: How Survitec Saved Managers 600+ Hours and Boosted eNPS by 76 Points

When your business’s purpose is, “We exist to protect lives,” people matter more than anything. At Survitec, that people-first mindset extends well beyond the products they build. It’s embedded in their culture and how they welcome their new hires to the team.

In this Q&A, we caught up with Kevin Cunningham, Survitec’s global people experience manager, to chat about the onboarding journey they built with Enboarder that won this year’s JOY Award for “Best New Journey.” Integrated throughout the workflow is powerful messaging on Survitec’s mission and values and video welcome messages from the company’s CEO.

Read on to learn how they boosted their eNPS from -8 to +68 and saved hiring managers hundreds of hours through automation.

Tell us about your role at Survitec.

I’m the global people experience manager at Survitec, responsible for onboarding, employee engagement, well-being, development, and retention.

We are the world’s largest manufacturer and supplier of liferafts, Marine Evacuation Systems (MES), and offshore rental PPE, with more than 3,000 employees. We remain a leading supplier of fire solutions to the maritime industry and hold a market-leading position for Pilot Flight Equipment in the aerospace & defence market.

Why did you choose to work with Enboarder?

When we conducted our annual Voice Survey, one of the key opportunities identified was improving the onboarding experience for new hires; this was highlighted by our colleagues as an area we could do better. Onboarding was one of the three focus areas for our global Voice Ambassador team. We brought representatives together to discuss the results and what would make a great onboarding experience. There, we connected with colleagues to hear their experiences firsthand and gather feedback on how we can build a more consistent and supportive onboarding journey across Survitec.

The ultimate goal was to improve that first-year retention and create a sense of belonging. We want new hires to be excited about our employer brand and to start work at Survitec. So we needed a consistent approach – information about values, who we are, a welcome from the CEO, and then the option to build out local journeys from there.

We have a global workforce with colleagues based at sites around the world – some working in offices, some from home, and others, like our engineers and technicians, out on vessels. It was important for us to find a solution that kept everyone engaged beyond their initial ramp-up, especially those harder to reach roles, and ensured we maintained meaningful touchpoints. That’s ultimately why we chose Enboarder.

What results have you seen with your new onboarding workflow?

Before we launched Enboarder, our eNPS was at -8. That’s when we brought our employees into the journey, gathered their feedback, and made sure the new onboarding process would meet the needs of our new hires. Now our eNPS is +68 – so it’s made a huge difference.

One of the great things that we’ve introduced is Connection Cards – we now have more than 430 cards across the business. As part of that, we introduced something called “Pick My Brain.” So the new hire tells us about their skills – such as conflict training or presentation skills – and the system feeds that information back to their manager and other colleagues who are able to filter on key skills to support them in collaborating on key projects or just day to day.

The great thing about filtering by skillset in Enboarder is individuals are not only coming through the onboarding process fully educated on our business through the videos and content, but they’re also creating communities straight away. If I pop into the filter ‘Learning,’ for example, I bring up 50 people who are interested in learning. I then have a community I can work with around a specific topic with those key skills I’m looking for. There’s a lot more to come with that, but it’s really exciting.

How is Enboarder helping managers save time?

We’ve saved managers about 600 hours total in the onboarding process by automating things like IT provisioning and ordering uniforms. During preboarding, new hires are automatically prompted to provide their size, and then it’s forwarded to a key individual who orders the equipment so it’s ready for day one.

We’ve also automated security forms, so new hires provide all their security details during preboarding without their manager having to get involved. That way they’re able to access the site and they’re provided a uniform without any delays.

And if for any reason the manager misses a notification, there’s an automatic response that goes out to our people partners so they can nudge the hiring manager along in the process.

What kind of feedback have you received since launching the new onboarding workflow?

When people are saying, ‘It’s the best onboarding I’ve had,’ that’s really good to hear. In general, people are saying it’s been a fantastic experience and that they feel a sense of belonging before day one, and that means we’re providing the right touch points.

And it doesn’t stop there. We continue our onboarding throughout the first 12 months a colleague is with us, capturing sentiment at key parts of the journey. These include 30-, 60-, and 90-day reviews, as well as six month check-ins with managers and buddies.

That said, if a new hire isn’t engaging, or their manager isn’t engaging, we can see in the data where that drop off is. We have Enboarder dashboards for each of our business units and we have regular meetings where we talk through the data and look at completion rates and form responses. The dashboards are also being delivered at the ELT level, which is fantastic.

What’s next in your Enboarder journey?

One area is around non-connected colleagues. So in one of our manufacturing locations you’ll be able to scan a QR code at a workstation that will bring up a pop up in Enboarder, and it will tell you exactly what’s being done at that point in that factory. It’s really interactive, and it’s not just for new colleagues. I could visit the factory and learn more about what’s going on in this area.