Improving Employee Onboarding Processes in the Defense Industry

This thesis utilizes the four frames (structural, human resource, political, and symbolic) introduced by Bolman and Deal’s Reframing Organizations to analyze the onboarding process at Nammo Defense Systems Inc and suggest potential solutions. The document begins by introducing Nammo Defense Systems Inc. (NDS), including information about the company’s history, products and organizational structure. Next, research is provided to show the negative effects that lackluster onboarding programs have on the business and the effects that influence employees to resign early in their tenures. The issues surrounding employee onboarding processes are introduced as the primary contributors to prolonged ramp-up time in engineering staff, prominently being NDS’s lack of training documentation and training program/structure and mismanagement of engineering aids (3D printers). Each issue illustrates a disconnect between leadership and onboarding employees causing costly ramp-up times for the organization and slow workdays for new employees. The four frames are used to explore solutions addressing the underlying issues present in NDS’s traditional onboarding process and to promote more rigid processes in the future. By including descriptions documented in Reframing Organizations, solutions such as organizing an onboarding program were analyzed to correct current shortcomings within NDS. As a result, it is recommended that NDS implement a formalized training program for a minimum of 12 weeks accompanied by reference documents and appointing personnel for asset management of the company’s 3D printer resource.