From Scattered Onboarding to Day One: Confident New Hires in Half the Time

New designers were taking most of a year to feel settled. The gap pointed to how they were welcomed, not to their talent.

Organization

Organization

PlayStation · Design operations

Timeline

Timeline

FY23-26

My role

My role

UX Manager, author of the onboarding system

Audience

Audience

New onboarding design org hires

Team

Team

2 Primary Designers

The situation

Onboarding documentation existed in scattered versions, each owned by an individual manager, with little continuity between them. New hires often learned only how their own team worked, which led to confusion and gaps once they collaborated cross-functionally, and to friction for new hires and the colleagues around them. New designers joined a complex, multi-platform space, and in surveys and interviews they reported needing six to nine months or more to feel fully comfortable. Ramp-up depended on whoever had time to answer questions that week. Gathering every version into one place produced a 20-page document, which made it possible to see what content existed and how to organize it.

What I decided

  • Rebuild it, not refresh it. Instead of revising the document, I turned it into a day-one experience in Figma, where designers already work, so it taught the tools and the domain together.

  • Measure confidence, not completion. A finished checklist does not mean someone feels ready, so I tracked how confident new hires felt through surveys and interviews.

  • Design it to outlast me. I handed the next version to the design program managers, because a system that depends on one person does not scale.

3 to 6 mo

Time to confidence, down from 6 to 9 months

How the team carried it

Recent hires shaped each round by pointing out where they got stuck. The program managers took the next version forward.

What changed

Time to confidence dropped from six to nine months to three to six, based on surveys and interviews with recent hires.

Stack

Figma · Microsoft Forms · Google Suite

“She shows up for people and leads with genuine care, from developing a mentorship program to strengthening how people get onboarded.”

Blake Manzo

Design Leadership at PlayStation

What it taught me

The fastest way to grow a team is to make the first week feel like

The fastest way to grow a team is to make the first week feel like

Belonging

Belonging

Belonging

Belonging

Belonging

.

. When people know who’s

.

When people know who's who and where things live, they contribute sooner.

When people know who's who and where things live, they contribute sooner.

who and where things live, they start

contributing much sooner.

Find out about opportunities to work with me and projects I'm currently involved in.

Julie Ahn - UX Consulting Specialist

© 2026 Julie Ahn

Find out about opportunities to work with me and projects I'm currently involved in.

Julie Ahn - UX Consulting Specialist

© 2026 Julie Ahn