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
Sam Ladner
Methodologies: Beyond the interview [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]
2024 • Advancing Research Community
Sam Ladner
Data Exhaust and Personal Data: Learning from Consumer Products to Enhance Enterprise UX
2016 • Enterprise UX 2016
Gold
Mujtaba Hameed
The new horizon of ethnography: using AI to unlock the full potential of in-person research
2026 • Advancing Research 2026
Gold
Tutti Taygerly
Make Space to Lead
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Reginé Gilbert
Asking the Right Questions: Life, Hope and Moving Forward During the Pandemic
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold
Sam Proulx
Mobile Accessibility: Why Moving Accessibility Beyond the Desktop is Critical in a Mobile-first World
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Dean Broadley
Not Black Enough to be White
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
Mike Davidson
Fireside Chat
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Nathan Reiff
Research, from Unimaginable to Presently Possible: A Future-Casting Sticky-Note Sprint
2026 • Advancing Research 2026
Gold
Stefanie Owens
Optimizing for Outcomes: Transformation Design in Systems at Scale
2024 • Advancing Service Design 2024
Gold
Sarah Williams
A Framework for CX Transformation
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Laura Gatewood
Beyond Buzzwords: Adding Heart to Effective Slack Communication
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Noel Lamb
Cultivating Business Partnerships to Grow Research Ops
2022 • Advancing Research Community
Luke Roberts
Panel Discussion
2024 • Advancing Service Design 2024
Gold
Taiye Akin-Akinyosoye
Amplifying voices and enhancing user research through group interviews
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
Dr. Nikki Smith
Research Strategy: Connecting Insights to Outcomes
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold

More Videos

Gabrielle Verderber

"You don't want to hide away for six months and try to build the perfect documentation. It won't work."

Gabrielle Verderber

Documentation Your Team Will Actually Use

October 3, 2023

Stefanie Owens

"Designers embedded alongside technical teams can spot unseen issues in the spaces between operational silos."

Stefanie Owens

Optimizing for Outcomes: Transformation Design in Systems at Scale

December 4, 2024

Peter Van Dijck

"Model companies post-train models on capabilities by showing them millions of good and bad examples."

Peter Van Dijck

Building impactful AI products for design and product leaders, Part 1: The new product journey

July 16, 2025

Ali Jeffery

"Sustainability is not just about the environment, it’s about community."

Ali Jeffery Sheri Chudow

How DesignOps Helped Enable Wall Street to Work Remotely

October 22, 2020

Deanna Mitchell

"By embedding themselves in environments, the product team underwent a fundamental shift in perspective."

Deanna Mitchell

Designing with culture: Unlocking impactful insights for Product and UX

March 12, 2025

Mark Templeton

"The hardest thing for any tech company to do is move from technology-out thinking to customer and business outcome thinking."

Mark Templeton

Creating a Legacy: the ultimate experience

June 9, 2017

John Maeda

"Money is not an evil thing. Creative people should accept that money is okay."

John Maeda

Making Sense of Enterprise UX

June 9, 2016

Alba Villamil

"If you don’t have a state ID, many social services become inaccessible, showing how resource barriers matter."

Alba Villamil

Stereotyped by Design: Pitfalls in Cross-Cultural User Research

March 30, 2020

Dave Malouf

"We hadn’t really thought about governance up front at all, which is not the ideal way to do something like that."

Dave Malouf Amy Thibodeau

Panel: Design Systems and Documentation

November 7, 2017