Five Weeks to Go-Live and 31% Attendance
A 2,400-employee insurer is consolidating three claims systems into one. The program is 14 months in and five weeks from go-live. Training was scoped as four hours of e-learning plus a quick-reference guide, delivered in the two weeks before launch. Attendance is voluntary and currently 31%. Claims supervisors say their teams are already behind on backlog and cannot spare people. A pulse survey shows 58% of claims staff believe the new system will slow them down. The program sponsor wants you to make training mandatory and add a quiz.
1. Diagnose what is actually driving the low attendance and the belief that the system will be slower.
Read the worked answer
This is not primarily a communication problem, and it is not primarily a motivation problem. Read it as a readiness gap across ability, motivation, and environment.
- Environment and capacity: supervisors are accountable for backlog. If releasing staff for four hours worsens a metric they are measured on, they will rationally withhold staff regardless of what the sponsor says. Attendance is a supervisor signal, not just an individual choice.
- Motivation and belief: 58% expect slower work. That belief is likely built from prior system rollouts, hallway rumor, or a demo that showed the new screens without the practice needed to regain speed. Beliefs like this are changed by experience, not by a quiz.
- Ability and timing: training two weeks before go-live, with no practice environment, will decay before use. Four hours of e-learning builds familiarity, not fluency.
- Diagnose further: interview six supervisors and a sample of claims staff, and check whether a sandbox exists.
Name the real constraint: people are being asked to absorb a change with no slack and no chance to test it.
2. The sponsor wants mandatory training plus a quiz. What do you advise, and how do you sequence the five weeks?
Read the worked answer
Separate what mandating can fix from what it cannot. Mandatory attendance is legitimate for access, security, and compliance reasons and can signal priority. It will not fix backlog pressure, supervisor incentives, or the belief that the system is slower. A quiz tests recall, not readiness.
Advise a package:
- Make a small core mandatory - system access, security, and the three highest-risk transaction types - and say why.
- Get supervisor commitment in writing to release staff and to temporary backlog relief during the training window. Without this, mandatory attendance will be gamed or resented.
- Move training closer to go-live and replace part of the e-learning with sandbox practice on real claim scenarios.
- Address the belief directly with a short side-by-side demo and peer voices, not a slide asserting the system is faster.
Five-week sequence: weeks 1–2 supervisor alignment, sandbox access, and peer champions identified; weeks 3–4 practice-based training by team; week 5 floor support, quick-reference reinforcement, and hypercare coverage at go-live.
3. How do you influence a sponsor who has already announced his preference?
Read the worked answer
Start from the shared goal - a clean go-live - and use his language: risk, rework, and cost of delay. Do not argue about whether the quiz is a good idea; reframe what it will and will not accomplish.
- Agree with the intent. He wants readiness and accountability. Say so.
- Bring evidence briefly. 31% attendance with a backlog constraint, and a 58% belief gap, are facts he can act on. One page, not a deck.
- Offer options with tradeoffs, including his: mandatory plus quiz alone, and mandatory plus supervisor release and practice. Let him choose with the consequences visible.
- Enlist the operations leader who owns backlog as a co-sponsor, since the constraint is in their system.
- If overruled, implement the best version of his decision - keep the mandatory core, and add practice and floor support around it. Document the risk you flagged, without relitigating it.
Influence here is about protecting the go-live, not winning the argument.