Rosenverse
Onboarding: The Ecosystem, not the Afterthought

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
Shreya Dhawan
Making service tangible: the fastest path to higher performance
2025 • Advancing Service Design 2025
Gold
Sam Proulx
Mobile Accessibility: Why Moving Accessibility Beyond the Desktop is Critical in a Mobile-first World
2022 • DesignOps Summit 2022
Gold
Kate Towsey
Participant Recruitment and Management Tools
2026 • Advancing Research 2026
Gold
Shanti Mathew
Civic Design at Scale: Introducing the Public Policy Layer Cake
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Louis Rosenfeld
Day 1 Welcome
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Nicole Wright
Democratizing Research at HoneyBook
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Sam Proulx
SUS: A System Unusable for Twenty Percent of the Population
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Luke Roberts
Panel Discussion
2024 • Advancing Service Design 2024
Gold
John Paul de Guzman
10k Screens Later: How We Became a Data-Driven Design Organization
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Chloe Amos-Edkins
A Cultural Approach: Research in the Context of Glocalisation
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Patrizia Bertini
Pushing DesignOps’ Influence into New Global Markets
2022 • DesignOps Summit 2022
Gold
Mark Templeton
Creating a Legacy: the ultimate experience
2017 • Enterprise Experience 2017
Gold
Alla Weinberg
Design Teams Need Psychological Safety: Here’s How to Create It
2022 • DesignOps Summit 2022
Gold
Alexia Cohen
Increasing Health Equity and Improving the Service Experience for Under-Served Latine Communities in Arizona
2024 • Advancing Service Design 2024
Gold
Changying (Z) Zheng
Practical DesignOps: From Ideas to Tools That Teams Actually Use
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Snehal Pendharkar
Conducting pre-research with AI agent personas: Pressure-testing concepts for expert workflows
2026 • Designing with AI 2026
Conference

More Videos

Kathleen Asjes

"If you have to choose between doing bad research or no research at all, you’re better off not doing it — Lisa Reichelt."

Kathleen Asjes

Research Democratization: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

March 10, 2022

Adel Du Toit

"We enable employees to provide unlimited comments which we analyze with Amazon Comprehend for sentiment."

Adel Du Toit

Get Your CFO To Say: 'Our Strategic Goal is User Obsession'

June 10, 2022

Laura Gatewood

"The words we use should enable clear paths of understanding so recipients know their role, what to do next, and why both easily and quickly."

Laura Gatewood Laine Prokay

Beyond Buzzwords: Adding Heart to Effective Slack Communication

September 23, 2024

Husani Oakley

"We are making things for human beings, and we too are people who must own that responsibility."

Husani Oakley

Bias Towards Action: Building Teams that Build Work

June 14, 2018

Ebru Namaldi

"Artificial intelligence is reshaping our workflows. Our roles are shifting."

Ebru Namaldi

Designing the Designer’s Journey: Scaling Teams, Culture, and Growth Through DesignOps

September 11, 2025

Sahibzada Mayed

"You need to show up as humans first before we show up as employees."

Sahibzada Mayed Lauren Lin

Cultivating Design Ecologies of Care, Community, and Collaboration

October 4, 2023

Prerna Makanawala

"Design talent is the most valuable asset; empowering them to be part of decisions retains and motivates them."

Prerna Makanawala

Achieving Balanced Design Consistency

June 9, 2021

Sarah Flamion

"Marketers don’t try very interesting things when their confidence in data is low, which can create a downward spiraling reinforcing loop."

Sarah Flamion

Complex Problem? Add Clarity by Combining Research and Systems Thinking

March 31, 2020

Ned Dwyer

"Piloting modules first helps avoid rip-and-replace thrash and eases change management."

Ned Dwyer Jadyn Aguilar

The Future of DesignOps is Tool Consolidation

September 23, 2024