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
"Fit is an important question; it just needs to be reframed thoughtfully to avoid discriminatory connotations."
Rebecca BuckMission: Keep Talent in Research Roles!
March 10, 2021
"Measuring ops impact by how much people are using the research and embedding feedback loops is much more valuable than just looking at money saved."
Brigette MetzlerScaling ResearchOps: Helping Researchers do Their Best Work
March 30, 2020
"We have many breaks, and sponsor sessions usually take place during those."
Bria AlexanderOpening Remarks
June 10, 2021
"We developed family-facing intake tools to make the service experience more transparent and equitable."
Shanti Mathew Natalie Sims Natalia RadywylCivic Design at Scale: Introducing the Public Policy Layer Cake
December 9, 2021
"The electric toothbrush started as an accessibility solution but became better for everyone."
Sam ProulxAccessibility: An Opportunity to Innovate
November 16, 2022
"Collaborative journey mapping is about users building out their journey together in primary research using recall and market research techniques."
Jemma AhmedConvergent Research Techniques in Customer Journey Mapping
March 31, 2020
"Disasters are more than the immediate event; they are the legacy of hundreds of years of policy that led to poor outcomes."
Alicia D. JohnsonDisasters and the 21st Century
December 10, 2021
"There is a point where scaling back a workshop too much will make it ineffective and that trade-off must be explicit."
Anne MamaghaniHow Your Organization's Generative Workshops Are Probably Going Wrong and How to Get Them Right
March 28, 2023
"You need to show up as humans first before we show up as employees."
Sahibzada Mayed Lauren LinCultivating Design Ecologies of Care, Community, and Collaboration
October 4, 2023
