Rosenverse

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

Onboarding: The Ecosystem, not the Afterthought
Gold
Tuesday, November 7, 2017 • DesignOps Summit 2017
Share the love for this talk
Onboarding: The Ecosystem, not the Afterthought
Speakers: Russ Unger
Link:

Summary

Onboarding new employees to your team is all too often treated as an afterthought, or best case, as an at-the-moment-thought. Employees deserve a well-thought out experience that includes them from the very beginning–from the creation of the position description—to that time after they’ve become integrated into our teams and organizations. We can trace some of these imperfect scenarios all the way back to the creation our performance profiles or position descriptions, and how they were created. When we understand the entire journey from candidate to employee we see the value of treating onboarding as an ending of a particular process instead of a solitary event in time.

Key Insights

  • Traditional job descriptions focus on tasks rather than measurable performance outcomes, limiting effective hiring.

  • Performance profiles clarify what success looks like and help teams agree on hiring criteria, leading to better candidate matches.

  • Structured interview guides aligned with performance profiles ensure consistent, fair, and relevant candidate assessments.

  • Unpaid design exercises or take-home tasks can exclude qualified candidates with caregiving or other external responsibilities.

  • The candidate experience after the interview and before the start date is often neglected, causing anxiety and disengagement.

  • Maintaining personal contact with candidates post-offer fosters comfort and commitment before they begin.

  • First day onboarding should be treated as a commencement event, not a paperwork marathon, reducing overwhelm.

  • Buddy systems provide critical social and informational support, improving new hire adjustment and retention.

  • Assigning safe internal projects early helps new hires gain practical familiarity without pressure.

  • Onboarding should be considered a multi-touch ecosystem involving ongoing feedback, communication, and adaptation.

Notable Quotes

"If you really care about success, you define it first and hire against performance, not just experience."

"Manhole cover questions belong in the past. Focus on real skills and relevant experience instead."

"Unpaid design exercises are unfair because they don’t take into account people's real-life constraints."

"Waiting and vague communication during hiring is a painful guessing game for candidates."

"The post-offer period isn’t HR’s alone; hiring teams must stay in touch and keep the candidate engaged."

"Day one is a commencement, a graduation from candidate to employee, not a paperwork slog."

"Buddy systems create leadership opportunities and a support network without changing org charts."

"Internal projects give new hires a safe place to learn how the organization functions without fear of breaking things."

"Hiring managers should facilitate hiring decisions but truly rely on the team members who work daily with the candidate."

"Onboarding isn’t a single event or process, it’s an ecosystem with many touchpoints impacting the new employee experience."

Ask the Rosenbot
Catt Small
What's Next for ICs: Exploring Staff and Principal Designer Roles
2024 • Rosenfeld Community
Andrew Michael
Building a Product Insights Team
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Uday Gajendar
10 Years of Enterprise UX: Reflecting on the community and the practice
2025 • Enterprise Community
Clara Kliman-Silver
UX Futures: The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Design
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
Robin Beers
Beyond Insights: Researchers as Organizational Change Catalysts
2024 • Advancing Research 2024
Gold
Bob Baxley
Theme 4: Discussion
2024 • Enterprise Experience 2020
Gold
Dean Broadley
Not Black Enough to be White
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
Lavy Kumar
Future of Work
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Andrew Webster
Scaling Design Capability: How Involved Should You Be?
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Aras Bilgen
Who does the math: A designer’s journey in building an AI-based tutoring app
2025 • Designing with AI 2025
Gold
Jorge Arango
Meeting of the Waters: Designing for Successful Inorganic Growth
2021 • Enterprise Community
Kim Fellman Cohen
Measuring the Designer Experience
2019 • DesignOps Summit 2019
Gold
Alana Washington
(Remote) Service Design: A Transformation Case Study
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold
Joi Freeman
A New Vantage Point: Building a Pipeline for Multifaceted Research(ers)
2020 • Advancing Research 2020
Gold
Spencer L. A. Stultz
Why Social Justice Frameworks are Necessary for Successful DEI/JEDI Initiatives
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Lisanne Norman
Why I Left Research
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold

More Videos

Ellen Chisa

"Think about what your manager is being rewarded for to figure out how to better support them and your team."

Ellen Chisa

The Values of Design

November 29, 2023

Alissa Briggs

"An experiment coach spends about 10 to 20 percent of their time helping the team change mindsets and actions."

Alissa Briggs

How to Coach Enterprise Experimentation

May 14, 2015

Uday Gajendar

"It's hard to think of anything more inherent in embodying the characteristics of enterprise writ large."

Uday Gajendar

Theme One Intro

June 6, 2023

Sam Proulx

"Android’s accessibility tools started later than Apple’s, so the community is smaller and less documented."

Sam Proulx

Understanding Screen Readers on Mobile: How And Why to Learn from Native Users

March 27, 2023

Jill Fruchter

"We are drowning in an endless sea of data yet we are stuck in an insight desert."

Jill Fruchter

Inconvenient Insights: The Researcher's Role is to Stay Curious

March 29, 2023

Ariel Kennan

"We’ll explore tactics to understand systems, points of intervention, and how to redirect power."

Ariel Kennan

Theme 2 Intro

December 9, 2021

Billy Carlson

"Tell a story of design: start with the background, introduce the users, demonstrate how it will work."

Billy Carlson

Tips to Utilize Wireframes to Tell an Effective Product Story

June 6, 2023

Megan Nipe

"This veteran-centric approach gives us a foundation to grow outreach and better serve veterans struggling with PTSD over time."

Megan Nipe Lyndsay Booth

Human-Centered Design for Engagement: Maturing from Newsletterville to Personalized, One-to-One Messaging

December 8, 2021

Aras Bilgen

"Most research presentations bury recommendations under methods; we must lead with what decisions to make."

Aras Bilgen Ari Zelmanow

Research Democratization: A Debate

March 29, 2023