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
Sylvie Abookire
A Civic Designer's Guide to Mindful Conflict Navigation
2022 • Civic Design 2022
Gold
Dana Bishop
2022: The Year UX Demonstrates its Business Impact
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Rima Campbell
Increase Productivity and Drive Business Impact
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Sarah Flamion
Complex Problem? Add Clarity by Combining Research and Systems Thinking
2020 • Advancing Research 2020
Gold
Alison Rand
Scaling Impact with Service Design
2021 • DesignOps Community
Louis Rosenfeld
Coffee with Lou
2024 • Rosenfeld Community
Samuel Proulx
Designing beyond caricatures: Embracing real, diverse user needs
2024 • Advancing Service Design 2024
Gold
Matt Stone
Scaling Empathy, A Case Study in Change Management
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Saara Kamppari-Miller
DesignOps for Inclusive Design and Accessibility
2022 • DesignOps Community
Joerg Beringer
Scaling User Research with AI: Continuous Discovery of User Needs in Minutes
2025 • Designing with AI 2025
Gold
Karen McGrane
AI for Information Architects: Are the robots coming for our jobs?
2024 • Rosenfeld Community
Kritika Sony
Moving AI offscreen: Exploring failures, constraints, and recovery in physical game design
2026 • Designing with AI 2026
Conference
Eric Shumake
An AMA on UX's Role in Healthcare
2026 • Rosenfeld Community
JJ Kercher
A Roadmap for Maturing Design in the Enterprise
2018 • Enterprise Experience 2018
Gold
Matt Duignan
Atomizing Research: Trend or Trap
2020 • Advancing Research 2020
Gold
Santiago Bustelo
Bridging the Gap Between Compliance and Design Quality
2026 • Rosenfeld Community

More Videos

Snehal Pendharkar

"AI helped me challenge operational workflows and ask why approvals happen multiple times across systems."

Snehal Pendharkar

Conducting pre-research with AI agent personas: Pressure-testing concepts for expert workflows

June 10, 2026

Steve Portigal

"The core of it is really putting yourself in that other person’s shoes—it’s basic but essential empathy."

Steve Portigal Chris Chapo Kelly Goto Christian Rohrer

Discussion

May 13, 2015

Sohit Karol

"Skipping a song is one of the most common user behaviors and is often assumed to be a bad thing."

Sohit Karol

Designing Delightful Listening Experiences: Mixed Methods Research in the Age of Machine Learning

March 31, 2020

Patrizia Bertini

"If designers are spending time on non-design work, they are not doing design — and that’s the real problem."

Patrizia Bertini

DesignOps + KPIs = Measure your Impact!

January 8, 2024

Anna Nguyen

"We believe the responsibility for the voice of the customer should be shared by everyone on the team."

Anna Nguyen Emily Brogan

Why Our Voice of the Customer is Better Than Yours

March 10, 2022

Uday Gajendar

"These crafted artifacts are quick, dirty, and temporary—they last just long enough to fuel the conversation and decisions."

Uday Gajendar

The Wicked Craft of Enterprise UX

May 13, 2015

George Abraham

"A mature design system needs both UI kits and matching developer component libraries; we provide both out of the box."

George Abraham Stefan Ivanov

Design Systems To-Go: Reimagining Developer Handoff, and Introducing App Builder (Part 2)

October 1, 2021

Jemma Ahmed

"It really matters to researchers’ identities whether they see themselves as user or market researchers."

Jemma Ahmed

Bringing together market and user research

October 17, 2019

Sarah Kinkade

"Design pairs gave strength in numbers, faster turnarounds, and more impact especially when paired with product managers."

Sarah Kinkade Mariana Ortiz-Reyes

Design Management Models in the Face of Transformation

June 8, 2022