Northstar Healthcare — a Circle under strain.
1,850 employees across Netherlands and Belgium. This is illustrative data for a fictional organization, shown exactly as the platform would present it.
Executive summary.
Needs attention
Weighted by emotion, effort and engagement
Coherence across the eight moments
Promise versus reality
Effort carried by employees
Effect on retention, performance, wellbeing
- Your biggest strength
- Attract (72). The employer promise lands well and the pipeline is healthy.
- Your biggest risk
- Move (29) combined with Grow (37). Colleagues who want to stay cannot see a way forward, so they leave the organization instead of the role.
- The most urgent opportunity
- A five-day service standard for internal applicants. Low effort, high impact, immediate signal.
- The highest-impact intervention
- Publish progression criteria per role family and hold managers accountable for development conversations.
Data, interpretation and recommendation stay separate.
- Data used
- Circle Scan responses (n=964, 52% response rate), 24 exit interviews, ATS internal application data, learning platform usage, onboarding pulse.
- Interpretation
- Grow and Move fail together in the same directorates, which points to management behaviour rather than to the learning offer.
- Assumption
- Span of control is treated as a driver. This has not yet been tested against workforce data.
- Recommendation
- Validate the span-of-control hypothesis before investing in a new learning platform.
Select a segment to read the diagnosis.
Move
- What this means
- Internal mobility, career transitions and the way the organization handles movement — including departure.
- Why this matters
- Retention of knowledge and capability — and visibility of internal opportunity. When this moment fails, the cost appears elsewhere in the Circle.
- Potential risks
- Managers who hoard talent · Internal candidates treated worse than external ones · No process for a graceful exit
- Recommended next steps
- Make internal candidates a first-class process
- Reward managers for exporting talent
- Design the last 30 days as deliberately as the first
- Owner
- Talent / HR
Sixty-four cells. One obvious pattern.
Expectation is consistently high and experience is consistently lower. That distance is the Circle Gap. Select any cell to drill down.
Promised experience versus actual experience.
Grow
44Promised“Personal development is at the heart of working here.”
ActualDevelopment conversations happen for 41% of employees; learning time is the first thing cut.
Likely causeDevelopment is owned by L&D but delivered by managers who are measured only on output.
EvidenceEngagement survey Q3 · 24 exit interviews · Learning platform usage data
Move
37Promised“Build your career with us — in many directions.”
ActualInternal applicants wait longer than external candidates and are rarely given feedback.
Likely causeNo service standard for internal mobility; managers can informally block transfers.
EvidenceATS internal application data · Focus group, nursing directorate
Belong
32Promised“You are part of the team from day one.”
ActualOne in three new colleagues has no workstation or system access in week one.
Likely causeOnboarding hand-off between recruitment, IT and facilities has no single owner.
EvidenceOnboarding pulse (first 30 days) · IT ticket analysis
Comments clustered into themes.
Qualitative feedback is clustered and mapped back to the moments it affects. Individual responses are never shown to managers.
Manager communication
High impactColleagues describe managers as well-intentioned but unavailable. The pattern concentrates in teams with a span of control above 25.
BelongPerformThrive148 mentionsDevelopment promised, not delivered
High impactDevelopment is a decisive reason for joining and a recurring reason for leaving. Language in exit interviews mirrors recruitment language almost word for word.
GrowMove121 mentionsAdministrative load
Medium impactDuplicate registration across three systems is the most frequently named source of daily frustration.
PerformJoin96 mentions
Every finding becomes an owned action.
Actions are scored on impact and effort, so the sequencing argument is settled before the meeting starts.
High impact / low effort
Do now- One named owner for day-one readiness
- Internal candidates answered within five working days
High impact / high effort
Plan deliberately- Workload as a standing item in directorate reviews
Low impact / low effort
Delegate- Route exit themes into the quarterly Circle Gap review
Low impact / high effort
Decline- No actions in this quadrant.