Rethinking Employee Onboarding
When a design consultancy suddenly needed to increase their team size for a multi-million dollar telecom client contract, their ad-hoc onboarding process became a critical business vulnerability. With designers being embedded client-side, poor onboarding wasn't just an internal issue—it risked damaging a major client relationship
Employee Interviews
“It was very…ambiguous to me. I kind of learned as we moved a long. I would shadow one of the UXAs and sort of learned the ropes, and that was my on boarding.”
! designed a multi-method research approach combining in-depth interviews and diary studies to track the employee experience, and shadowing sessions with hiring managers to understand both sides of the onboarding relationship. Three critical experience gaps were identified that were affecting both employee satisfaction and time-to-productivity…
1. the Information Gap (inconsistent and confusing communication)
2. the Materials Gap (ineffective resources)
3. the Support Gap (insufficient post-onboarding transition support).
Diary studies were supplemented for those that chose to forego interviews.
Qualitative analysis
An experience map reflects employee sentiment.
Design Workshops
Once we had an understanding of the employee experience, we used those insights to guide conversations with stakeholders. I designed and facilitated a multi-day collaborative service blueprint workshop, bringing together stakeholders from HR, operations, and design leadership. Using specialized exercises to bridge employee and organizational perspectives, a unified vision of the ideal onboarding journey was realized.
Service workshop process.
Final service blueprint of the onboarding experience Sentiment from employees, HR, and hiring managers is highlighted.
My Role
• Interviews
• Diary Studies
• Design Workshops
• Qualitative analysis
• Research artifacts