Hopefully my kids don't read the transcript here today.
But that's not just an anomaly. We are starting to see that more and more. When we ask what the issue is, we're told, “I'm really homesick. I really wish I could talk to Mom and Dad.”
The other issue was perhaps—we admit this—up front being a little bit too hard. What's led to the drop is that now when you arrive at the recruit school, you are met by the entire leadership team. You're not met in the middle of the night. You're met at the beginning of the day by the leadership team. They sit you down and they introduce themselves.
We have actually taken a very different approach, a very relational approach—I know people laugh when I say it publicly—where we start off by saying, “Hey, we love you, and we're really happy that you made this choice, and we want to train to retain you. We are not here to screen you out. We want to screen you in.”
So that starts off from the beginning. We have changed some of the processes. And what I did personally—the buck stops with me—I changed the day that you could leave the recruit school. Up until last April you could leave day one. So if the issue was an issue of culture shock, what he did find out was if you keep people to week five, in all likelihood many will stay. We took the theory and put it into play. Guess what? It worked.
So what we have found is the different way that we work and deal with the recruits, train to retain, in a number of different ways. If you get into the details I am sure you can understand what you've seen in movies and the like. I've kept them to week five. The attrition rate has dropped, over that cultural piece that they're really homesick.
The second thing we've done is we're now connecting with moms and dads to ensure that when you phone home to your parents and you say “they kicked me out of here”, when the truth really is that you left on your own accord, your parents know exactly what's going on.
We've put a program in place where you connect with your parents. We actually put it on the website. You can take a look at it. We are in the process of sending them packages, so they are more informed. We've realized the nature of that family unit has changed and everyone is involved in that decision.
But I have to tell you what's great. I'm passionate about this—I'm sure you can tell. On graduation day we have changed the program, where every week we start with a new platoon. We graduate the platoon. Those parents come and are so very proud of their kids, and so are the kids.
It's not just kids, actually; it's all ages.