Why Your Design Team Is Quitting, And How To Fix It
Summary
We’re on wave three of the great resignation. Job opportunities abound for designers of all stripes, and loyalty is at an all time low as we reassess our changing professional needs and ambitions in this new world. Liam Thurston leads a team of 55 designers and researchers at Loblaw Digital, building commerce, loyalty, and healthcare products for all Canadians. Thurston’s team weathered the great resignation with resilience and thrived in the face of change; it left them even stronger. In this talk, Thurston will teach you practical tools and processes for creating a Design Practice North Star, skills matrix, and an inclusive set of cultural rituals to build trust and create safety for your team, especially within a large organization. If you're looking to level up your leadership practice in order to acquire and retain incredible talent who generate outstanding outcomes, this talk is for you!
Key Insights
-
•
The pandemic accelerated rethinking team retention and work culture, especially in UX teams.
-
•
About a third of Liam's UX team left early in the pandemic, highlighting retention challenges.
-
•
Creating a clear career path with a transparent skills matrix significantly improves retention.
-
•
Soft skills such as communication, leadership, and influence are as critical as hard skills in career growth.
-
•
Involving the entire team in co-creating purpose statements and competencies leads to higher buy-in and clarity.
-
•
Low-pressure ambient workshops spread over several days facilitate better engagement and richer input.
-
•
Aligning UX team purpose and career frameworks with the company's mission is essential to coherence and retention.
-
•
Cultural rituals like bi-weekly shoutouts and rotating work-in-progress show-and-tells build stronger team bonds.
-
•
Collaboration with HR during role redesign and career framework creation is critical for organizational alignment.
-
•
Iterative testing, feedback loops, and allowing teams to customize tracking tools drive adoption and meaningful improvements.
Notable Quotes
"Being intentional about how we spend our time is the purest manifestation of our values and our value."
"If your team sees a clear path of mastery in your organization, they’re much more likely to stay."
"Mastery is achievable, whether you have 10,000 hours or not—it’s about building that portfolio and case studies."
"All your team wants to do is win at career Bingo or career Snakes and Ladders, hopefully more ladders."
"Soft skills often are a multiplier on your hard skills—they’re just as valuable, if not more so."
"We ran ambient workshops so folks could contribute on their own time and remove the friction of synchronous meetings."
"Our skills matrix became the center of gravity for our practice—it started writing job descriptions and guiding recruitment."
"Building a great culture means caring for individuals and creating rituals like recognition and shared learning."
"Cross-functional relationships often matter more to output than relationships within the immediate team."
"When your team sees themselves in your North Star and structure, they feel safe, secure, and inspired to stay."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Slides are hitting a brick wall; video clips make findings much more interactive and engaging for stakeholders."
Taylor Jennings Joe Nelson Alex KnollRepository Retrospective: Learnings from Introducing a Central Place for UX Research
March 9, 2022
"We have a role to play in democratizing the future and amplifying more visions of what that future can hold."
Nicole AleongFuture Orientations to Everyday Life: Futures Anthropology as a Methodology
March 26, 2024
"Disruptive innovation doesn’t happen overnight; you have to practice, fail, learn, and have patience."
Jeff GothelfInnovation Studios: the Engines of Enterprise Experimentation
May 14, 2015
"By designing products through the lens of edge cases like disabilities first, they often become better products for everyone."
Saara Kamppari-MillerDesignOps for Inclusive Design and Accessibility
May 26, 2022
"Our culture has diminished a lot of the other things in life that are supposed to give us meaning and put infinite pressure on work."
Tess DixonC'mon Get Happy
September 29, 2021
"Building a great culture means caring for individuals and creating rituals like recognition and shared learning."
Liam ThurstonWhy Your Design Team Is Quitting, And How To Fix It
June 10, 2022
"Innovation is about being fearless, breaking rules, and refusing to stop at the way things have always been done."
Ian SwinsonDesigning and Driving UX Careers
June 8, 2016
"At Atlassian, many confident non-researchers were already doing lots of research, which was an opportunity and a challenge."
Leisa ReicheltOpening Keynote: Operating in Context
November 7, 2018
"Without a design ops function, teams make their own flavors that dilute brand and accessibility."
Rachael Greene Alison DavisBuilding a Design Ops Practice that Really Works (Most of the Time)
October 2, 2025
