Your Chief Virtual Learning Architect

Learning to Performance

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Custom Design & Delivery

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Predictive Evaluation

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Enterprise Learning Strategy

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Dave Basarab Consulting has elevated the training experience, offering an end-to-end comprehensive approach that includes training strategy, instructional design, development, delivery , post program training transfer, and evaluation (via the unique Predictive Evaluation methodology). Virtual Chief Architect Dave Basarab has combined all of these individual training elements with his user-friendly, comprehensive Learning to Performance approach, which significantly increases companies' training ROI.

Why we are different

Innovation: Our primary focus is creating learning programs using a Learning to Performance approach.
Expertise: Dave offers the depth and breadth of his experience, including working internally at prestigious companies (Motorola, Ingersoll Rand and Pitney Bowes) as well as his knowledge and expertise as a highly-respected, sought-after consultant.
Partnership: Basarab collaborates with companies, serving as their own Chief Learning Officer whenever they need to plan, strategize, or implement training initiatives.

Training Services

Enterprise Learning Strategy

Enterprise Learning Strategy

At Dave Basarab Consulting, we're experts in creating Enterprise Learning Plans. We work with you to develop your company's learning strategy and direction.

Custom Design, Development, & Delivery

Custom Design, Development, & Delivery

Custom training is an effective way of developing the capability required to execute your strategy. We are a custom design house that creates programs specific to your business.

Learning Burst Development

Learning Burst Development

We can create and deliver your courses via our unique Learning Burst Method - keeping your employees at their jobs while receiving world-class training.

Predictive Evaluation

Predictive Evaluation

We predict the ROI for your courses and establish success gates. We then evaluate the course against the success gates to show value realized and continually improve results.

Leadership Development

Leadership Development

Turn-key virtual custom leadership development program that combines world-class leadership speakers/educators with post-event personalized coaching to provide you with a cadre of highly skilled leaders.

Predictive Evaluation

Measuring the long-term impact of onboarding on retention

Onboarding is often judged by what happens in the first few weeks: completion rates, orientation attendance, system access, and manager check-ins. Those measures confirm activity, but they do not show whether new employees become capable, connected, and committed enough to stay.

A stronger approach follows the employee journey beyond initial training. It examines early productivity, role confidence, manager support, belonging, internal mobility, and voluntary turnover at meaningful intervals. This creates a clearer view of how the onboarding experience influences retention over six, twelve, or even twenty-four months.

For organizations investing in enterprise learning, the goal is to connect onboarding outcomes with business results. Measurement should reveal which parts of the experience accelerate contribution, which barriers increase flight risk, and where targeted intervention can improve workforce stability.

Why onboarding deserves a retention lens

Employees rarely leave because of a single orientation session. Their decision is shaped by the cumulative experience of unclear expectations, weak relationships, limited feedback, poor role fit, or a lack of development. Onboarding can address many of these factors before they become reasons to resign.

Long-term evaluation also helps distinguish correlation from useful evidence. A new-hire cohort may have high retention because of favorable labor conditions, strong compensation, or an excellent manager—not necessarily because the onboarding curriculum was effective. Comparing cohorts, roles, locations, and manager groups produces a more credible assessment.

Define outcomes before collecting data

Retention should be treated as one outcome within a broader performance chain. Early indicators might include time to proficiency, quality of work, confidence using critical systems, participation in team routines, and completion of required practice. Later indicators can include performance ratings, promotion readiness, absenteeism, engagement, and voluntary departure.

Each measure needs a clear definition and collection schedule. For example, “time to proficiency” should identify the behaviors or results that demonstrate independent performance. “Successful retention” might mean remaining in the role for twelve months while meeting agreed performance standards, rather than simply being employed at the measurement date.

Choose measures that reveal durability

A practical measurement model combines leading indicators with lagging outcomes. Leading indicators show whether employees are building the conditions associated with commitment and effectiveness. Lagging indicators confirm whether those conditions translated into sustained performance and retention.

The schedule should be consistent enough to identify patterns without creating excessive survey fatigue. Short pulse checks at thirty, ninety, and one hundred eighty days can be paired with manager observations, operational data, and exit information.

Measurement point	Useful signals	What it can reveal	Possible response
First 30 days	Role clarity, connection, access, confidence	Friction during entry	Repair communication, tools, or manager support
60–90 days	Practice quality, feedback, time to proficiency	Whether learning transfers to work	Add coaching, job aids, or targeted learning bursts
Six months	Performance, belonging, workload, intent to stay	Emerging commitment or disengagement	Address role barriers and development needs
Twelve months	Voluntary retention, productivity, mobility	Sustained onboarding impact	Refine the experience by role or population

Link learning evidence to business results

Retention data becomes more useful when it is connected to operational consequences. Replacing an employee involves recruiting, vacancy time, onboarding effort, lost productivity, and pressure on experienced team members. Poor adoption of the behaviors taught during onboarding can also create quality, compliance, and customer-service costs. Organizations can explore these consequences through training adoption costs.

A business-linked evaluation might compare the retention and productivity of employees who received a revised onboarding pathway with those in a previous cohort. It can also examine whether improved onboarding reduces time to independent work, manager escalation, rework, or early absence. The analysis does not need to claim that learning caused every result; it needs to show a defensible relationship supported by multiple sources.

Use predictive evaluation to act earlier

Traditional evaluation often reports what happened after a program ends. Predictive Evaluation adds a forward-looking dimension by estimating whether training is likely to be adopted, applied, and connected to desired results. That perspective is valuable in onboarding because organizations cannot afford to wait twelve months before discovering that new hires were poorly prepared.

A predictive model can combine learner readiness, manager reinforcement, workplace opportunity, instructional quality, and early behavior data. If employees understand the content but lack access to the right systems, the solution is not another information-heavy module. If managers do not reinforce expected behaviors, leader enablement may have a greater effect than curriculum expansion. The Predictive Evaluation approach supports this kind of targeted decision-making.

Build a measurement routine that managers use

Measurement becomes sustainable when it fits existing management practices. New-hire reviews, one-to-one meetings, performance conversations, and workforce planning sessions can provide natural opportunities to discuss capability and commitment. Dashboards should highlight exceptions and trends rather than bury leaders in completion statistics.

The design should also protect employee trust. Explain why data is collected, separate development conversations from punitive surveillance, and report patterns at an appropriate level of privacy. When managers understand how evidence informs practical support, response rates and usefulness tend to improve.

Practical ways to strengthen retention evidence

A focused measurement system can begin with a small number of business-relevant indicators and expand as data quality improves.

Track retention by cohort, role, location, manager, and onboarding pathway.
Pair employee pulse surveys with manager observations and operational performance data.
Define proficiency using observable behaviors, not course completion alone.
Review results at thirty, ninety, one hundred eighty, and three hundred sixty-five days.
Use predictive signals to intervene before disengagement becomes resignation.

Organizations seeking a deeper foundation for this work can also review the book’s endorsements for perspectives on evaluating learning as a business investment.

A durable onboarding strategy treats retention as an outcome that can be influenced, measured, and improved. Begin by mapping the behaviors new employees must demonstrate, the support managers must provide, and the business results leaders care about. Then establish a longitudinal baseline, monitor the earliest warning signals, and use the evidence to improve the experience continuously. Dave Basarab Consulting can help connect onboarding design, learning adoption, and workforce outcomes through a practical evaluation strategy.

Learning to Performance

Learning to Performance, a complete training approach, gives companies world-class training to drive significant return. This approach includes upfront work (Impact Mapping, design), training (for staff and company executives), and post-training efforts to ensure training transfer. This unique recipe - the key for successful training and adoption - is changing the way companies implement training. This methodology could work with any content for organizations in any industry.