Onboarding: The Ecosystem, not the Afterthought
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."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"When you step away as a conflict manager, the conflict often just reignites because the root issues aren’t addressed."
Sylvie Abookire Susan Abookire Caitlyn NalderA Civic Designer's Guide to Mindful Conflict Navigation
November 17, 2022
"The variable sync tool we built is not a commercial product; it’s a utilitarian sync layer to overcome Figma’s limitations and connect design to engineering."
Ryan Matthew Alex KurchevDesignOps without Boundaries: Building More with What You Have
September 10, 2025
"Rosenbot learns from all our books and 1,100+ recordings to answer your UX questions."
Louis RosenfeldYou’ve got Gold! A Rosenverse demo with Lou Rosenfeld
June 9, 2026
"AI reflects dominant hegemonic views, creating virtual worlds where counter views do not exist."
Rachael Dietkus, LCSW Llewyn Paine Nishanshi Shukla David WomackAI: Passionate defenses and reasoned critique [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]
September 18, 2024
"Lived experts are the most innovative voice in the design process, bringing unique and practical solutions."
Samuel MartinCo-Design vs Faux-Design: Navigating the Complexities of Sharing Power in Co-Design
March 27, 2026
"Getting engineers to join usability testing builds empathy and turns skeptics into champions."
JJ KercherA Roadmap for Maturing Design in the Enterprise
June 15, 2018
"Insight practices are just getting more established and are asking questions of higher strategic value, bringing disciplines closer together."
Jemma AhmedConvergent Research Techniques in Customer Journey Mapping
March 31, 2020
"A design ops career ladder can look like a step stool unless you create multiple tracks for growth and specialization."
John Calhoun Rachel PosmanTwo Sides of the DesignOps Coin: Teams Ops and Product Ops
January 8, 2024
"I don’t know what I do day to day to make anything happen, and maybe that means I have to do less."
John TaschekMaking People the X-Factor in the Enterprise
June 15, 2018
