Rethinking the First 90 Days for a 130K+ Employee Organization
A leading pharmaceutical and medical technology company needed a scalable, personalized onboarding experience that worked across geographies, job roles, and work arrangements. The current onboarding process was fragmented, manual, and inconsistent—driving confusion, support requests, and delays in productivity.
We led an independent UX research and concepting initiative to uncover systemic issues, define requirements, and provide a vision for “Onboarding 2.0.”
Approach
Conducted surveys with 167 new hires across sectors and job types
Conducted 1:1 interviews with new hires and managers from diverse business units and geographies
Mapped onboarding experiences across three key personas:
New Hire
Manager
Content Publisher
Created journey maps, UX concepts (desktop/mobile), and a modular onboarding blueprint
Proposed system and personalization architecture using Unily and Workday integration
Key Findings
System Access Delays: Many users lacked credentials for days or weeks, preventing access to onboarding tools
Scattered Information: Key tasks were buried across email threads, spreadsheets, Teams messages, and SharePoint docs
Lack of Personalization: Checklists were static, unprioritized, and not aligned to user attributes like region, job role, or function
No Progress Visibility: Managers couldn’t track onboarding completion or identify where new hires were stuck
Inconsistent Support: Users weren’t sure who to contact for issues, leading to ad-hoc phone calls or support tickets
Recommendations Delivered
Personalized, attribute-driven onboarding journeys powered by Workday and SSO data
Dashboard-style onboarding app built within the existing Home environment using Unily
Sequenced checklists with task tracking, prerequisites, and filtering
System-wide role-based permissions for decentralized content management
Integration with JAIDA (digital assistant), Summit, and other enterprise tools
Structured progress visibility for both managers and new hires