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
"Make an uncredible experience credible. That was the directive from organizational resistance to UX."
Dan WillisEnterprise Storytelling Sessions
June 3, 2019
"Silent leaders are people who prefer action over words and advocate in more intimate settings."
Briana ThomasThe Quiet Force: Uncovering Hidden Leadership in High-Impact Design Teams
September 24, 2024
"Leadership believing it’s about people and skills, opening up and unlocking talent—that was really beautiful."
Jaskiran KangWhy Community is Key to Professionalizing Design
October 28, 2022
"The linguistic shift from we have AI to we’re redesigning how we work signals maturity."
Bethany BrownRewiring operations with service design and AI
November 20, 2025
"I literally would have to jump up in meetings to introduce myself as the director just to be recognized."
Lisanne NormanWhy I Left Research
March 27, 2023
"We developed a list of 47 common touchpoints for B2B journeys based on extensive past research."
Sean DolanA Practical Look at Creating More Usable Enterprise Customer Journeys
October 31, 2019
"Research run rampant — anyone feeling empowered to do research can sometimes cause quality challenges."
Nalini P. KotamrajuTwo Jobs in One: Being a “Leader who is a Researcher” and a “Researcher who is a Leader"
March 10, 2021
"Our CEO Brad Smith said, I’m all in on Design for Delight, but no new content — it has to reinforce what we already do."
Kaaren HansonStop Talking, Start Doing
June 9, 2017
"We thought she was in great shape and we were thrilled, then found out she didn’t know to BCC 500 customers—this still stresses me years later."
Elizabeth Sklar Jessica ShengCo-creating research enablement with your tech org: a case study
March 10, 2026
