Improving employee onboarding experiences through building empathy and clarity
Role
Service Designer
Company
BC Public Service
Team
Solo project under guide of supervisor
Skills
User interviews
Workshops
Facilitation
Affinity diagrams
Service blueprints
Presentations
Report writing
Problem space
A division within the BC Public Service was struggling to effectively onboard new employees and was experiencing a high volume of turn over. The onboarding process was unclear, making it difficult for supervisors to navigate. This often lead to long administrative delays, miscommunications, and confusion. The lack of a clear onboarding process coupled with the high volume of turn over resulted in an inconsistent and confusing experience for new hires.
Research
To understand how to improve the onboarding process within the division, I conducted a variety of research methods.
Literature review
Research questions
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What are the aspects of a strong onboarding procedures
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Why is onboarding important
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Onboarding in an agile product development environment
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Onboarding best practices
4 aspects of onboarding
Administrative processes
Job specific requirements
Organizational culture and values
Social connections
Environmental scan
Onboarding resources created by the Public Service Agency (PSA), other ministries, and within DDS were reviewed. Resources available through the PSA were explored to identify what corporate resources are available and understand the limitations of these services. Various ministries’ intranet sites were reviewed to see identify what types of onboarding resources are being used. Finally, the DDS exit interviews were reviewed to determine if the onboarding experience has impacted an employee’s decision to leave DDS.
Stakeholder interviews (9 interviews)
I conducted structured interviews with supervisors, hiring managers, and other roles involved in the hiring of staff to understand the current onboarding processes. Participants were asked about their current process, pain points, and opportunities for improvement.
Research goals
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Understand the current onboarding process within DDS
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Identify the pain points within the current process
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Identify what support and resources are available and missing
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Explore opportunities to improve the process
Analysis
I analyzed the feedback from each interview using affinity mapping and then summarized the data into key themes.
"I would like to have clarity on what an employee needs to know at each level"
Supervisor
New hire interviews (7 interviews)
Structured interviews were conducted with new hires to address the research goals identified above, with additional questions about initial expectations and overall impressions.
"I felt there wasn't much intention around onboarding. No one on my team was assigned to onboarding"
New hire
“The time that people take to sit down and explain the organization, even just like a little bit, can go a long way”
New hire
Service blueprint workshop
A workshop with 8 supervisors was conducted virtually to develop a service blueprint of the current DDS onboarding process. The findings from the interviews were also shared to build empathy for the new hire experience.
A preliminary blueprint was created prior to the workshop based on the interview data. This blueprint was expanded and edited by participants to clarify some processes and fill in any gaps.
The workshop was also an opportunity to create alignment among the leadership team in terms of the scope and impact of the project as well as provide an update on the progress and create buy in for future activities.
Codesign workshop
I planned, coordinated, recruited participants, and facilitated a 2 hour hybrid (in person and online) workshop with 10 participants.
Activity 1 - "Dear DDS"
Using advice columns in magazines as inspiration, I designed an activity where participants are asked to give advice on common problems and frustrations that new hires often face. The purpose of this activity was to familiarize participants with the topic of onboarding and reflect on their own experiences.
Activity 2 - Visualizing how your work fits into the bigger picture?
Participants were asked to create a visual to explain how their teams fit into the boarder organizational structure and business areas. Participants worked in small groups and then shared back to the other participants.
Activity 3 - Imagining the ideal onboarding process
This activity explored what would make an ideas onboarding process. Participants created a "cover story" with quotes to highlight the most important aspect of a positive onboarding experience.
Workshop findings
I analyzed the information gathered during the workshop and identified key themes. I compared these findings with the outcomes of previous research and found significant similarities which further supports the validity of this research.
Synthesis
I used affinity mapping to consolidate the findings from each research phase. I identified four main themes from the research findings.
Information management
Support
Workplace
Culture
Working in an agile environment
Prototyping
For each of the four themes, I created a list of recommendations and ideas on how the challenges could be addressed. These were compiled in a final report.
Additionally, I created 3 new resources to address the research findings.
1. Checklist for new hires MURAL board
I created an interactive MURAL board to track a new hire's onboarding progress. It included
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a checklist of tasks, organized by type
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ability for team and supervisor to view progress (improved transparency)
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helpful links
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information about the organization
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team member introductions (inspired by this article)
2. Onboarding guide for supervisors
I created a detailed onboarding guide that included
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instructions for key administrative tasks
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the ability to track progress
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connections to existing onboarding guides provided by the BC Public Service Agency
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additional recommendations and best practices
3. Onboarding wiki
I created a repository of information so that there was a unified location for relevant onboarding links and information. It included information for both new hires and hiring managers.
Evaluate
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I presented the research, recommendations, and prototypes at a section meeting to get initial feedback
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The onboarding resources were tested with 2 new hires and were iterated on based on their feedback
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Feedback from the new hire was positive, and they were using the new resources
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I presented this work the broader leadership team across the division to further the reach of this work.
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Following this presentation, the Onboarding guide for supervisors was adapted for use across the division. This shows the efficacy of this initial draft.
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"I LOVE the wiki pages for staff and supervisors. The information is accessible to everyone on the Section channel, staff are no longer searching for files and/or keeping their own documents with information and links. I can’t wait to go through it myself."
Feedback from staff member