Summary
Quite bluntly, all of you are fierce competitors — for design talent. From start-up to established companies, we're all feeling the effects of the Great Resignation. But what happens when it's discovered that internal processes sandbag efforts to acquire designers, onboard, promote, and retain them? Join us as we uncover some cringe-worthy problems and share practical takeaways for outsized success. Dante won’t be offering cookie-cutter solutions since, as he puts it, “many eggs were cracked in this messy process. This is not for the faint of heart — dirty laundry could be aired!” Takeaways How to hire, onboard, and retain designers How to tackle dysfunction in your org as a decentralized practitioner
Key Insights
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IBM grew its design staff from a few hundred to over 3,000 designers globally before the pandemic reversed this trend.
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During the pandemic, IBM experienced unprecedented design talent loss, with some hires departing within eight months.
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Candidate experience suffers from extended recruiter silence and complex, opaque application platforms.
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Most recruiters are optimized for technical hiring, making it challenging to source and assess design talent properly.
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Onboarding at enterprise scale often results in checklist overload dispersed over multiple systems, creating confusion and overwhelm.
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Gallup research shows only 12% of employees strongly agree their onboarding is excellent, and only 29% feel fully prepared after onboarding.
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Effective onboarding requires pacing knowledge transfer over months, not compressed sprints, to prevent burnout and loneliness.
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Peer coaching and mentorship programs drive designer growth, engagement, and cross-team networking beyond usual circles.
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Engagement is the common denominator across hiring, onboarding, and retention success; low engagement fuels talent churn.
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Design Ops value comes from connecting dots between people, ideas, and teams often outside their direct control through empathy and collaboration.
Notable Quotes
"My superpower is to connect the dots between people, places, ideas, and opportunities."
"We don’t have all the answers; we’re in the thick of it all and actively learning just like you."
"Extended radio silence to candidates was unnerving and one of the unpleasant truths we heard from teammates."
"Recruiters are often optimized for technical hiring and design is only one percent of the company’s population."
"Information overload with checklists on top of checklists does not create a great onboarding experience."
"Gallup says only twelve percent strongly agree their onboarding is great; that’s an abysmal metric."
"Onboarding is a marathon, not a sprint; knowledge needs to be spread out over a feasible timeline."
"Fifty percent of our designers were already active in coaching or mentoring, yet there was a call for a different mentorship flavor."
"An engaged designer is a retained designer."
"The hardest lesson: being comfortable when you’re uncomfortable and figuring out how to create the most impact."
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