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
Greg Petroff
Everything is About to Change: Software as Material
2016 • Enterprise UX 2016
Gold
Sofía Delsordo
Public Policy for Jalisco's Designers to Make Design Matter
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Milan Guenther
A Shared Language for Co-Creating Ambitious Endeavours
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
Michael Weir
Mixed Methods and Behavioural Science
2023 • Rosenfeld Community
Alla Weinberg
Cross-Functional Relationship Design
2022 • Design in Product 2022
Gold
Tim Frick
The journey of building a sustainable design practice
2025 • Climate UX Interest Group
Frances Yllana
DesignOps Exposed: What do our peers really think of us?
2025 • DesignOps Summit 2025
Gold
Louis Rosenfeld
How AI will Change DesignOps Tooling
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Max Gadney
Assessing UX jobs for impact in climate
2024 • Climate UX Interest Group
Kristin Skinner
Group Activity: A Deep Dive Into Value and Outcomes
2019 • DesignOps Summit 2019
Gold
Laura Weiss
There is No Playbook: Leader as Coach During Challenging Times
2024 • Rosenfeld Community
Kristin Wisnewski
Measuring What Matters
2019 • DesignOps Summit 2019
Gold
Billy Carlson
Tips to Utilize Wireframes to Tell an Effective Product Story
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
Ellen Chisa
The Values of Design
2023 • Design in Product 2023
Gold
Alana Washington
Theme 3 Intro
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Dr. Jamika D. Burge
Theme 3 Intro
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold

More Videos

Justin Entzminger

"Post-its give everyone an equal playing field, preventing dominant voices from overshadowing others in community conversations."

Justin Entzminger Terrance Smith Tracy M. Colunga Mai-Ling Garcia

Risk and Reward: How to Diversify the Field of Civic Innovators and Designers

November 17, 2022

Jon Fukuda

"Different ops functions have different incentives; aligning those incentives could make leaps and bounds in collaboration."

Jon Fukuda Jake Burghardt Jose Coronado Natalie Dunbar Denise Tilles

All the Ops: Successful cross-functional collaboration

September 10, 2025

Rebecca Gimenez

"Ambiguity is totally normalized here and there’s a baseline acceptance that the business is kind of unknowable."

Rebecca Gimenez

Work in Progress: Service Design at Airbnb

December 3, 2024

Ash Brown

"Education is the foundation upon which we build a more sustainable future."

Ash Brown

Silver Linings: What DesignOps Learned in the Shift to WFH

October 23, 2020

Samuel Martin

"Power is more than authority; it involves influence, privilege, and communication styles that shape dynamics."

Samuel Martin

Co-Design vs Faux-Design: Navigating the Complexities of Sharing Power in Co-Design

March 27, 2026

Sarah Alvarado

"Getting everyone to agree on what research should answer and in what order is where the fruitful back and forth happens."

Sarah Alvarado Nalini P. Kotamraju Anne Mamaghani Peter Merholz

How to make UX research leadership more effective [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]

October 26, 2023

Shreya Dhawan

"We are all more service design facilitators, bringing the right people together to create the right outcomes."

Shreya Dhawan Victor Udoewa Xènia Viladas Florian Vollmer

Making service tangible: the fastest path to higher performance

November 19, 2025

Katie Hansen

"Meta-analysis reveals overarching patterns that might otherwise be hidden within isolated studies."

Katie Hansen

Finding the unknown in the known: Harnessing meta-analysis and literature review

March 12, 2025

Ian Swinson

"People care about titles way too much. I had a guy whose business card said star-bellied sneak—love that."

Ian Swinson

Designing and Driving UX Careers

June 8, 2016