Problem
Workstream's legacy onboarding experience couldn't keep up with the restaurant industry's fast pace, offering little guidance to the employee, slowing onboarding time, and leaving a bad impression to new employees, managers, and customers.
Solution
I redesigned an experience that cleared onboarding delays, cut down on manager hand-holding, and gave employees a clearer, more confident path to their first day on the job.
Impact
44%
Decrease in single-session onboarding task dropoffs
70%
Faster employee onboarding completion time
29%
Increase in employee's first-day success rates
Primary platform
Desktop and mobile web
Role
Lead designer
Timeline
June 2022 - Jan 2023 release (7 months)
the problem
Our legacy onboarding experience was wasting our customer's time, and losing their trust.
Employees took an average of 13 days to complete Workstream's legacy onboarding experience. In the fast-paced restaurant labor market, this type of delay in getting employees started led them to apply elsewhere, and made it hard for customer's to see Workstream as a reliable solution.
The high-level onboarding process
discovery
What's causing high employee task dropoffs?
Funnel analysis via Mixpanel revealed that single-session task dropoffs were high across all onboarding task types, and even worse for steps involving legal government forms.
High task dropoffs across the employee onboarding flow (single session dropoffs)
The legacy experience didn't support our user's mobile device preference.
Data showed 82% of onboarding sessions started on mobile as their preferred device, reflective of the large portion of restaurant employees made up of younger adults and students. Conducting a current-state analysis revealed mobile responsiveness and general usability issues that contributed to high task dropoff:
Working with Customer Success and Support teams gave me access to support tickets and messaging logs between employee and employer. Afterwards, I collaborated with the data team to identify common themes that gave us enough insight towards a first solution:
Form I-9 eligiblity confusion
"I'm not sure why you require my marital status?"
"I'm not sure if I am either a Permanent Resident or Alien Authorized to Work. Maybe I need to come into the store?
"I don't have a driver's license to prove my identification, do you take anything else?
Form W-4 tax confusion
"I'm not sure if I will be exempt or non-exempt? Sorry, this is my first job."
"If I claim dependents, do I get those money from taxes back? Didn’t understand the question"
"Hi [employee], as for the tax stuff, we can't give you advice (unfortunately its a rule).
Mobile usability frustration
"The last two documents to sign are so tiny it's not allowing me to sign. Should I be finishing on a computer?"
"I'm having trouble… I don't have a computer is it possible to get these forms printed off instead?"
"I entered my birth year as 2023 by mistake on my phone. Can you please correct this to 2001?"
solution
Improving task dropoffs by addressing design debt
Establishing responsive breakpoints
Using screen resolution data from Google Analytics (82% mobile sessions, 18% desktop sessions), I opted to keep it simple with a mobile and desktop breakpoint that, and defined how layouts and key patterns should adapt accordingly.
Employee onboarding experience · web responsive breakpoints
Systematically standardizing screens, patterns, and components
I worked closely with the tech leads to figure out what we could realistically achieve with the available resources. We decided to focus on optimizing key front-end elements of the onboarding flow that had little impact on the existing back-end to keep the scope manageable. This approach gave us a solid foundation that’s both streamlined and scalable for future product updates and improvements.
Standardized mobile patterns and components
Low-fidelity flow of an employee completing an onboarding task
final design
Transparency on unfamiliar onboarding concepts
Explaining the task's purpose upfront in simple language alleviates the user's confusion and encourages them to complete the following steps to the best of their ability, especially if this is the user's first time completing job onboarding forms.
Building credibility early (authority bias)
Reassuring the user about the product's data security builds user trust when entering sensitive information in the following prompts.
final design
Progressive disclosure and chunking
Tasks associated with high dropoffs and confusion are broken down into digestible steps to reduce cognitive load. Conditional logic is used to shield users from steps that don't apply to them.
Conversational language
Conversational language makes steps clear and approachable, reducing cognitive load and guiding users naturally through the flow.
Embedded help resources
Formal concepts and legal terminology are clarified in the moment to help a large majority of users who are young adults onboarding into their first job.
final design
Preventing errors
Adding a simple screen for employees to quickly review their info before submission reduced the existing the back-and-forth headache between managers and employees trying to fix minor errors and typos.
Highlighting progress (goal gradient effect)
Included progress bars, celebratory visuals, and encouraging language to create a sense of accomplishment, motivating users to move forward in the onboarding flow
final prototype
discovery
Why aren't new hires showing up on their first day— or staying past week one?
As devs focused on implementing the redesigns to improve onboarding task drop-off and completion rates, we investigated a common issue in the restaurant industry: 26% of new employees are late or fail to show up on their indicated first day of work despite completing onboarding tasks, costing employers valuable time and money.
Field interviews with employers and employees helped uncover first-week hiccups the restaurant industry
More often than not, restaurant onboarding fails to prepare their employees for day one, giving employees a poor first impression that slams the brakes on their excitement, and hurts retention down the line.
Insight 1
Busy managers miss key moments
Store managers and employers know that creating a positive new employee experience is key to long-term engagement and retainment, but are often too busy with restaurant operations to set up new employees for success.
"I'm constantly putting out fires in the restaurant - handling angry guests, cleaning, tracking inventory… Sometimes I forget I have new employees starting this week"
Insight 2
A "sink or swim" first day mindset
Logistics, such as where to go, what to wear, or what to bring on the first day, are often not communicated or readily available to new employees, causing job anxiety and hurting show up rates and retention.
"I was scared because I didn’t know what to expect or what I needed to bring on my first day ... I wanted my first day to be perfect."
Insight 3
Lack of team culture
New employees in the restaurant industry are often thrust into work without a team introduction, and struggle with building team relationships that are vital to easing nerves and creating a support system in their new job.
"I just wanted to know my team… it made me less nervous about the first day ‘cause I could see myself working alongside them."
solutioN
Guiding onboarding employees at key moments with a proactive notification system
From our discovery insights, we realized the need for a solution that (1) kept employees engaged through their first week and (2) relieved employers of the communication burden present in the legacy experience.
With this in mind, we mapped key communication moments and prioritized those with the greatest impact on our project goals, either turning them into system notifications or refining the product experience to support smoother communication between employees and employers.
Mapping key moments of communication between employees and employer
Engaging onboarding employees at key moments via brand-aligned email and SMS notifications
SOLUTION
A first-day guide to engage new employees to improve show up rates and retention
Testing the early concept with customers
Using previous discovery insights, I created a rough concept prototype of an onboarding home that welcomed employees and prepared them for their first day. Afterwards, we partnered with Chick-fil-A operators and team members to get early feedback on the first-day guide concept:
Gathering feedback on concept designs of the employee first-day guide
Postive feedback suggested different customization options for the employee's first-day guide
The onboarding home concept strongly resonated with Chick-fil-A, where a positive employee experience is a core principle, and CFA operators and team members eagerly provided input on what they wanted to include in the first-day guide to enhance the employee journey. As a result, we needed to make a decision on level of customization we would provide to employers that balanced impact and feasibility.
Approach 1 · Full employer customization
Approach 2 · Limited employer customization
Balancing impact and feasibility with limited customization (approach 2)
While approach 1's fully customizable first-day guide would meet customer needs, we agreed that it would significantly delay our timeline and introduce edge cases. As a result, we proceeded with approach 2 of limited employer customization to reduce dev time while still easing the employee's anxieties and improve show up rates.
Onboarding home
Celebrating new job excitement
Most of our users were young students, and landing their first job is a huge life accomplishment for them. I spotlighted this accomplishment at every opportunity, motivating them to push through unfamiliar onboarding tasks and the new job anxieties found during discovery.
Familiarity effect
Adding a picture and welcome message of the employee's past interviewing manager connected the hiring and onboarding experience, and gave users familiarity and comfort to continue despite being a new feature experience.
Transparency to prevent first-day hiccups
To tackle the common logistical hiccups uncovered during discovery, proactive tips and reminders were added throughout, letting users worry less about small details, and focus more on things that matter.
A glimpse into their team to ease nerves
Adding a simple list of the employee's new teammates helped alleviate new job anxiety and created a welcoming environment before day 1.
Tips tailored by the employer
Custom tips provided by the employer made the experience flexible to each customer's unique onboarding process.
final PROTOTYPE
Employee first time experience
Product and business impact
30%
Increase in volume of employees onboarded
Employees onboarded grew from 2000 per month in 2022 to 60,000 per month in 2024
+$8M ARR
Increase in onboarding product $ARR
Onboarding ARR increased from $200k in 2022 to $8M in 2024
45%
Reduction in onboarding support tickets
Decreased from .12 support tickets per onboarding employee in 2022 to .06 in 2024
42%
Decrease in single-session task dropoff
Avg across all onboarding tasks
23%
Decrease in onboarding process dropoff
12% employees failed to fully complete onboarding in 2022, compared to 9% in 2024.
70%
Decrease in avg time for employee to complete all onboarding tasks
From 13 days in the legacy experience to 4 days in the redesigned experience.
29%
Increase in employee first-day success rates
From 64% avg in 2022 to 83% avg in 2024
