Onboarding Experience
improved designer’s onboarding experience by minimizing stress and increasing sense of belonging and confidence
Overview 💥
User focus: My UX Consulting team at Oracle
Involvement: Conducted research, user interviews, synthesized findings, came up with solutions, and measured outcome
Status: currently being used by other teams to onboard their designers
Summary: When I first started here at Oracle, I was so confused. There were so many moving parts. I didn’t know where to find resources and who to go to for help. I thought I was the only one confused but after talking to some of my co-workers I realized many of us were on the same boat. I was really interested in learning where exactly this confusion happens so I decided to interview my co-workers. What started as a passion project turned into an onboarding experience that is now used beyond my team – other design teams across Oracle.
Discovery 🔎
To get more insight into onboarding, I did some research on employee experience and onboarding. I also conducted some interviews with my teammates to learn more about their experience.
Step 1 – Research
I did some research into employee experience, specifically onboarding and its importance. I found some really great articles on the importance of humanizing onboarding. A lot of times, the first couple of weeks are very overwhelming because there is information overload. Too many times information is thrown at employees without context and without interactions with team members. It is really important to provide all the information in a digestible and timely manner and to make onboarding interactive.
Step 2 – Interviews
I was able to interview 6 designers on my team. I asked questions like “what emoji would you use to describe your first day? What was frustrating? what did they enjoy? How long it took them to get comfortable?”
The responses varied from one person to another but many of the themes were quite similar across the board. It was really eye-opening to hear different people’s experiences and how they actually felt throughout their time here and specifically during their first 3 months.
Step 3 – Defining Current Journey
After talking to everyone I realized that there was a pattern. The people who started at the beginning when our team was first built had a really overwhelming experience compared to the designers who started a year after. I was able to identify what has improved like “feeling like a part of the team” and what continues to be a struggle. I compared those to where we want the onboarding to be “future,” where the information is a little less overwhelming and the designers have great resources at hand.
Detailed journey for the “current experience” and how designers felt doing the different tasks. This helped me identify the specific areas with painpoints.
Action Items 🎬
Based on my interviews and the research I was able to identify certain areas we can improve and create an action list. Some of those were digital files and organizing information while others were team building activities.
Action 1– Create a New Hire Welcome File
One of the main things I identified was that new hires don’t know what they need to do, where to find resources, and may feel isolated especially working remotely. So I created a welcome file that briefly goes over everything they need to know in their first week. I included welcome notes from other team members, a map showing where everyone on the team is located, an overview of our design philosophy, a first week checklist, useful links (design related, meeting related, and benefits related), and some how-tos (PTO, status updates).
This has been received really well by the new designers that joined our team. Many of the other design teams are also customizing this file for their new designers.
Action 2 – Redesign Confluence Space
Our confluence space is where we document everything and anything. All the resources designers and managers would need. It was one of the main pain points people were talking about. It is really hard to navigate and find what they need. Being a consulting team we also needed a page where product teams can learn about how we can help they implement human-centered designs to their products. With those two goals in mind, I created a confluence space that was easy to navigate and had pages dedicated to design resources and others dedicated to engaging with our team.
Action 3 – Encourage More 1:1 Chats
Working remotely is hard so one of the things I suggested we incorporate is more 1:1 between designers, new and continuing designers on the team. It allows our team to get to know each other, feel more comfortable, and supported. It also takes away all the awkwardness.
Action 4 – Host Welcome Meetings and Team Building Activities
I came up with different activities we can have during our weekly team meetings that’ll make it more fun and enjoyable.
Action 5 – Team Charter
Knowing expectations, goals, and roles is really important. I helped create a charter that included our goals, focus, and highlighted important aspects of our role. This charter really helped ensure everyone is on the same page about our mission, goals, expectations, and impact. This charter was not only great for our new team members but the existing team members and the product teams we work with.
Success ✅
Survey Feedback
To assess how well this new onboarding experience is, I create 2 surveys, one at the end of the first week (typically when new hires feel overwhelmed) and the second one at their 3-month mark (typically when a new hire on our team completes their first project). Here is some feedback I received:
Outcome
This project really started off as me trying to improve other designer’s experiences. I had initially struggled during my first couple of months here at Oracle so I decided to talk to some of my co-workers to learn more about their experience. My curiosity resulted in me creating an onboarding experience that made designers feel more welcome and empowered. The work I’ve done has also significantly improved existing designer’s abilities to locate resources. This work was recognized by Oracle’s IT orientation department and I’m currently helping them redesign their New Hire presentations to make them more engaging and meaningful to employees.
This experience taught me a lot about taking initiative and the importance of improving processes within teams :)