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
Sam Proulx
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Screen Readers
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Sarah Williams
A Framework for CX Transformation
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Husani Oakley
Bias Towards Action: Building Teams that Build Work
2018 • Enterprise Experience 2018
Gold
Dan Willis
Enterprise Storytelling Sessions
2018 • Enterprise Experience 2018
Gold
Maish Nichani
Sparking a Service Excellence Mindset at a Government Agency
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Jeff Gothelf
Who does what by how much?
2025 • Advancing Service Design 2025
Conference
Maggie Dieringer
Cutting through the Noise
2020 • DesignOps Community
Dan Ward
Failure Friday #1 with Dan Ward
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Shanti Mathew
Civic Design at Scale: Introducing the Public Policy Layer Cake
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Caroline Vize
The State of UX: Five Lessons from 2021 to Accelerate Digital Experience in 2022
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Emily Danielson
“I mean, I can lift a shovel”: Design Skills in Disaster Response
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold
Angy Peterson
More Than Technology: Personalized Public Sector Experiences
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Alexandra Schmidt
Why Ethics Can't Save Tech
2022 • Civic Design 2022
Gold
Billy Carlson
Tips to Utilize Wireframes to Tell an Effective Product Story
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
Jemma Ahmed
Theme 2 Intro
2024 • Enterprise Experience 2020
Gold
Lada Gorlenko
Theme 1: Discussion
2024 • Enterprise Experience 2020
Gold

More Videos

Rachel Posman

"We created separate tracks so people can self-organize, leverage the right skills, and grow their careers in focused ways."

Rachel Posman John Calhoun

A Closer Look at Team Ops and Product Ops (Two Sides of the DesignOps Coin)

November 19, 2020

Adel Du Toit

"My team’s focus is to make sure employees have all the digital products and services they need to work effectively and have a great user experience."

Adel Du Toit

Get Your CFO To Say: 'Our Strategic Goal is User Obsession'

June 10, 2022

Jenny Price

"Invest in brand unification as a strategic tool to build stakeholder confidence and increase engagement."

Jenny Price

From Tradition to Transformation: Unlocking Startup Agility in a Legacy Enterprise

September 10, 2025

Jake Burghardt

"Insights can have impact years after the fact if properly activated."

Jake Burghardt

Stop wasting research: Unlock more value from research insights

June 24, 2025

Jeff Gothelf

"You want to move from ‘make me a thing’ to ‘change customer behavior.’ That’s where the magic is."

Jeff Gothelf

The Intersection of Lean and Design

January 10, 2019

Husani Oakley

"How is information stored, found, and used — these are foundational questions IA answers."

Husani Oakley

Theme Two Intro

June 6, 2023

Dan Willis

"I thought I had this whole being a designer thing figured out until I touched 2,000 images and saw giant black bars across all my buttons."

Dan Willis

Enterprise Storytelling Sessions

June 8, 2016

Shawna Hein

"Designers contribute experimental patterns back to the design system early, making their work visible even before full validation."

Shawna Hein Kevin Hoffman

Create a Cohesive Civic Design Practice Across Agency, Vendors, and Contracts

November 17, 2022

Dane DeSutter

"Look at your old data again with a new lens; reanalyzing can save money and be less extractive."

Dane DeSutter

Keeping the Body in Mind: What Gestures and Embodied Actions Tell You That Users May Not

March 26, 2024