UXPA 2023: Start Strong - Lessons learned from associate programs to platform junior staff for excellence & lasting success

Start Strong
Lessons learned from associate programs to
platform junior staff for excellence & lasting success
Craig Peters
CEO - Awasu Design

Meet Alex
She’s a Business Operations
Associate at a Large Tech
Company.
After 1 year, she takes pride in
her growth and is optimistic
about the future.
Alex
Business Operations Associate
Large Company

Meet Lola
She’s a Stylist at a hair salon.
In her seventh year with the
salon, she mentors junior
stylists while building her
leadership skills. She’s making
plans to open her own business.
Lola
Hair Stylist
Small Salon

Alex & Lola both completed
a training program at the
start of their careers.

Programs have a defined
structure, a timeline, and
concrete expectations of
growth outcomes.

“A great deal of skills development happens day to day on
the job. Coaching and apprenticeship can maximize this
effect. Our research suggests that the first few years of a
career are foundational, and the same is true for the first
year in any new job.”
Human capital at work: The value of experience
McKinsey
The first few years
are foundational

“Everyone I’ve met who has done
the program looks back and says…
that was such a highlight for me
and an amazing two years.”
“
Alex
Large Company

Google
LinkedIn
Uber
Coinbase
Twitter
Schmidt Futures
Microsoft
Lyft
Salesforce
Meta
Indeed
Capital One
Atlassian
Visa
Intuit
Spotify
Instacart
Yahoo
Chase
LinkedIn
Microsoft
Many companies run programs for early
professionals today

Google
LinkedIn
Uber
Coinbase
Twitter
Schmidt Futures
Microsoft
Lyft
Salesforce
Meta
Indeed
Capital One
Atlassian
Visa
Intuit
Spotify
Instacart
Yahoo
Chase
LinkedIn
Microsoft
But only a handful have programs for
early UX professionals

We conducted primary research to inform how we
design our own program

We identified four areas of investment opportunity
Onboarding
Mentorship & Coaching
Feedback
Upskilling & Learning

Research shows you can capture significant ROI
Increased productivity
Increased retention
Increased innovation
Accelerated employee development
Reduced cost per employee
Elevated company culture, belonging & fulfillment
Greater company adaptability & agility
Reduced burnout

People who say they had a great onboarding
experience were 3x as likely
to say they had a great job
Essential Ingredients for an Effective Onboarding Program
Gallup

Unfortunately, only 12% of new employees feel this way
Huge Opportunity!

What contributes to a poor
onboarding experience?
● Too short
● Just HR stuff
● Overloaded
● Lack of culture
● Thrown into the deep end
● Not measured
● Not memorable
● No future pathway

1. Think Longer
2.Make it Memorable
3.Establish Connection & Culture
4.Involve Managers
5.Measure Success
6.Create a Closing Experience

According to Gallup, new employees typically take around 12
months to reach their full performance potential within a role.
Plan to ramp up exposure, skills, and responsibility steadily
over the course of the elongated year-long onboarding.
Gallup
1. Think Longer

“This term ‘drinking from the fire hose’...
actually getting in tune and aligned
with your job, that can be six months
to a year.
People say ‘Oh, I'm still learning about
my job and the ecosystem’ cause it's a
huge global company with so many
different acronyms and different titles
and teams that it takes a while for that
part.”
“
Sam
Customer Success Associate
Large Company

2. Make It Memorable
You know what they say about first impressions…. make yours
remarkable with an active, organized, and supportive first week.
Plan activities for connection, learning, and inspiration.
If you can, fly-in remote team members—newcomers and
seniors. Hold an offsite. Involve managers, executive leadership,
and subject-matter experts.

“Ours was virtual, but it's a combination
of bonding activities – virtual escape
rooms, cooking classes, a bunch of
different Zoom events. Two trainings
on SQL, led by some of the business
operation leaders.
We did sessions with leaders in biz ops
to inspire us, Q&A sessions, and fireside
chats. We did an Excel onboarding
session and a storytelling-with-data
session—how to create a good
presentation.”
“
Alex
Large Company

23
Going to lunch on the first day is not enough. Feeling
connected to the company culture is essential for
successful performance of the new employee.
Newcomers want to feel a sense of belonging and that
they’re accepted by their new colleagues.
Include activities specifically focused on getting to
know each other, assign peer mentors, and create
time and space for interpersonal interaction.
3. Establish Culture & Connection

“One of my favorite parts of onboarding
that we do is called Seven Minute
Stories. You show a photo that is some
part of your life, and you tell a very deep
story about yourself.
It's led by the class above us. So, it's a
really emotional, cool way to start off
‘cuz it's definitely a bonding experience,
and people really open up, which is
special.”
“
Alex
Large Company

Formal onboarding is not just an orientation session,
but a six-month to one-year period that should involve
a thoughtfully created journey. Organizations can
provide the tools for a running start, including a
manager committed to delivering coaching and
facilitating connections.
Human capital at work: The value of experience.
McKinsey
4.Involve Managers

Distribute surveys after first, third, and sixth months of employment.
Likert-scale questions
- My manager has taken an active role in my onboarding
- I have confidence I can find the information needed to
deliver on our customer promises
Open-ended questions
- What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?
- What could we change or add to improve our onboarding process?
5.Measure

Make sure onboarding is intentional by having a clear
start and end. Create a rite-of-passage moment for the
completion of the onboarding period, even as simple as
conspicuous recognition.
Consider bringing an onboarding class together to
share their experiences, get recognized for high
performance, and receive certificates of completion.
Gallup
6.Create a Closing Experience

Mentoring; one pebble &
thousands of ripples
Why Can't Companies Get Mentorship Programs Right?
The Atlantic
“One of the most impressive things about an effective
mentoring program is how far the positive ripple effects
reach. Mentoring benefits an organization by improving
job satisfaction and retention, and aids in the personal
and professional development of the mentee. Moreover,
mentors themselves seem to gain just as much.”

● Bolsters recruiting
● Boosts employee engagement
● Helps train future company leadership
● Increases diversity
● Raises rates of loyalty and retention
Improve Workplace Culture With A Strong Mentoring Program
Forbes
The impact of successful
mentoring programs

● Another dreaded HR program
● Seasoned employees resent the process
and find it a burdensome
● New recruits don’t see the value and just
go through the motions
● Executives aren’t supportive
But getting it wrong has
significant consequences

The Right Way to
Promote Mentoring

1. Create Safety
2.Provide Choice
3.Make it a Priority
4.Offer Multiple

“The system recognizes that the immediate boss is not the mentor, and
that the mentor is appointed somewhere else. And the boss is aware that
the employee has a mentor. And so the there's a lot of ethics involved,
where the mentor does not talk to the boss about the issues being
discussed. And the only time the mentor breaks the confidentiality is if
there isn't a legal problem. They have to provide psychological safety
so that the mentees don't feel judged.”
Eliza Quek
via Nikhil Raval’s podcast Gen Z as Emerging Leaders – Need for
Coaching and Mentoring
1. Create Safety

“So, I felt like I had a BFF inside my team.
I could rely on her. I could message her
really quickly for a team meeting… ‘what
does that mean?’ Or ‘what's this meeting
that we have to go to?’ So, it was someone
that I could rely on, trust, and be
vulnerable with.
And I think, yeah, if I didn't have it, I would
feel more lost and not as open and able to
feel like part of a team at the beginning.”
“
Sam
Customer Success Associate
Large Company

2. Provide Choice
“Some organizations use algorithms similar to those used by dating
services, while others go for more random methods. The most
effective programs give participants some input or choice—for
example, suggesting three possible mentors and then letting the
employee choose.”
Tammy Allen
Improve Workplace Culture With A Strong Mentoring Program,
Forbes

“The mentorship element has definitely been
like one of my favorite parts of the program.
You get a peer mentor, which is someone the
year above you, and I met with my peer
mentor every single Friday, like my entire
time in the program. And he would give me
advice on managers' projects, like when I was
really struggling with a project or pushing
back or deciding a new rotation, all of that. Or
just to talk about life. He was always there.
So that was really comforting.”
“
Alex
Large Company

3. Make it a Priority
“Establish a cadence for communication. Most mentors want to keep up
with major developments in their mentees’ work, but dislike unscheduled
phone calls or a flood of emails for minor issues. We avoid this by telling
mentees we will meet in person monthly to discuss issues in depth. If an
unexpected or time-sensitive issue arises outside of this meeting, we
expect an email or call that is on-point, with questions framed to facilitate
“yes” or “no” answers. For this to work, the mentor and mentee have to
be disciplined about keeping their scheduled meetings.”
6 Things Every Mentor Should Do
Harvard Business Review

“Sometimes, especially in a work
environment, you know, some of the
questions you maybe don't want to ask
about people in your team, or sometimes it's
good to have this sort of like a third party
that would kind of provide feedback.”
“
Angela
UX Research Lead
Mid Size Company

4. Offer Multiple
PEER MENTORS
Mentors that have very
recently gone through the
same experience can create
special connections that can
be hard to replicate with
others at more advanced
stages of their careers. Peer
mentors can help navigate the
team culture and help
generate camaraderie.
SENIOR MENTORS
Senior mentors can help
Juniors navigate career
decisions, provide advice on
navigating the professional
world of relationships, decisions,
and problem solving.
AFFINITY MENTORS
Some new hires might want to
connect with others who have
experienced society and
professional environments
through a particular contexts,
gender, diversity, race, ability, etc.

Mentoring &
Coaching Resources

ADPList
The Mentoring
Club
Mentor Cruise
Hexagon

“Feedback culture is an environment where individuals feel free,
safe, and encouraged to share and receive feedback. Feedback
culture can exist in a workplace, a classroom, or anywhere else
where people are empowered to communicate their perspectives
and evaluations of situations without fear of retribution. Feedback
can be aimed at other individuals, teams, superiors—or at processes
and the workplace itself.”
Dara Fontein
Feedback Culture: What It is and How To Build It
What does it mean to create a
feedback culture?

Statistics on the importance of employee feedback, OfficeVibe
● Employees are 3.6 times more likely to strongly agree
that they are motivated to do outstanding work when
their manager provides daily (vs. annual) feedback.
● When employees strongly agree they’ve received
“meaningful feedback” in the past week, they are almost
4x more likely than other employees to be engaged.
● 78% of employees said being recognized motivates
them in their job.
How Fast Feedback Fuels Performance, Gallup
A strong feedback culture is a
business superpower

“By acknowledging that mistakes are inevitable, organizations allow
employees to experiment and take risks without fear of punishment or
embarrassment. This encourages creative problem-solving, collaboration,
and innovation — all essential components of successful businesses.
Creating spaces where employees feel safe to try something new and,
crucially, to make mistakes without fear of repercussions or judgment
helps to encourage them to step outside their comfort zones, learn from
their experiences, and develop innovative solutions that help propel the
organization forward.”
Ben Laker
Embrace Mistakes to Build a Learning Culture
MIT Sloan Management Review
In a feedback culture, it’s okay to mess up,
mistakes are celebrated

The Right Way
to Create a
Feedback Culture

1. Fast > Flashy
2.Make a Plan & Stick With It
3.Check Your Vibe
4.Up the Ratio
5.Optimize for Remote Work
6.Forward-Focused FTW

“...feedback is often a lengthy employee-manager discussion that requires
pre-work for managers to rate the employee's performance over recent
months. In today's fast-paced world, this scenario is impractical,
ineffective and difficult to execute. A more meaningful way to give
feedback is quickly and frequently, which is why organizations might find
it helpful to rebrand their approach to "Fast Feedback.”
How Fast Feedback Fuels Performance
Gallup
1. Fast > Flashy

“Yes, I definitely try to make sure that the girls know
that they're doing a good job. And like whenever
they finish something, I always make sure to tell
them that it looked good. And that they did a great
job. And I help the other apprentices too… I make
sure to tell them, ‘That looked great, good job, it
was better than last time,’ but I still critique and
tell them what they can do better.
And I think I just kind of say it in a little bit of a nicer
way than she did. Sometimes she could make you
feel a little dumb if you didn't get something and I
don't want to make anyone feel like that.”
“
Lola
Hair Stylist
Small Hair Salon

2. Make a Plan & Stick With It
Fast, ad hoc feedback has its place, but deliberate feedback that’s
delivered at a regular cadence is important too.
Project work has a way of filling up everyone’s calendars, pushing
development to “later.” This is an investment. Prioritize it when
planning workloads and allocation.
Pre-scheduled feedback meetings, templates and organizers, and
a structured discussion go a long way.

“
Alex
Large Company
“Asking for feedback and receiving
feedback… if you don't have an explicit
template or time set to do that, it can
be challenging or it can sometimes be
forgotten in the midst of other
meetings and other priorities and when
things can get crazy at work.”

3. Check Your Vibe
● Promote dialog by starting with listening, clarity, and context.
● Your employees are vulnerable—help them be courageous by
creating an environment of safety.
● Non-verbal communication is critical. Be thoughtful to deliver
feedback with positivity, directness, and support (not just with
your words, but also with your body language, facial expression,
tone, and pace).

“And so all of our feedback was just for our own
learning and development. It wasn't being fed
into the promotion cycle or I guess it's used to
dictate our full-time roles. Like my reviews were
used in the interview process to help me get my
offer, but I felt my feedback sessions with my
managers were super honest and they were
just looking out for me in my best interest
because it was all about learning and exploring.
And so I really enjoyed that, especially out of
college, like my first job. I wanted it to be more
about learning. And so I thought that really
helped it.”
“
Alex
Large Company

4. Up the Ratio
Positive feedback serves as a crucial buffer when it comes to delivering
constructive criticism. Negative feedback provides improvement & growth
while positive feedback instills motivation, confidence & increased
productivity. Strictly serving one without the other has minimal impact.
Employees should be receiving more pieces of positive feedback compared to
negative. Certain practitioners say 3:1, others 5:1, others 6:1.
These ratios don’t have to be prescriptive – find which one works for you (as
long as positive > negative).

“
Lola
Stylist,
Hair Salon (former apprentice)
Anna
Analyst
EU Bank
“At one point I was receiving so much
negative feedback that I felt really
overwhelmed and not confident in showing
up every week and writing my analyses. So
that was like a little bit disheartening.
I’m in the process of learning what I’m
doing. I don't appreciate receiving so much
negative feedback because it just feels that
I'm doing a bad job, even though I'm not
doing a bad job.”

5. Optimize for Remote
Remote work reduced the amount of feedback that junior engineers
received (in the form of comments on their code), and some of the
junior engineers were more likely to quit the firm.
The effects of remote work, in terms of declining feedback, were
especially pronounced for female engineers.
Goldberg & Casselman
What Young Workers Miss Without the ‘Power of Proximity’
New York Times

6. Forward-focused FTW
● When giving feedback, don’t stay too long on diagnosing past
performance. Move to designing future performance.
● Empirical evidence: focusing on future performance promotes
intentions to act on the feedback.
● People need summary feedback comparing progress to goals in
order to adjust their efforts and strategies to reach those
standards or goals.

“Creating a culture of learning in the workplace has been shown to
encourage employee engagement, promote a team-wide growth
mindset, drive innovation, inspire continuous improvement, and
attract and retain top talent—all significant benefits that can
directly impact companies’ bottom lines.”
6 tips for Creating a Strong Corporate Learning Culture in 2023
MIT Open Learning
Learning at work…
it just works

The gain was mainly due to increased productivity due to a focus on
the essential soft skills the modern workplace requires, like
knowledge, flexibility, and resilience. Adaptation and resilience
likely are two of the most valuable skills workers can possess. In
addition, interpersonal skills such as critical thinking,
communication, and collaboration are crucial.
A study by MIT Sloan School of Management
found that a 1 year workforce training program
focused on soft skills delivered 250% ROI within
eight months of completion.

● 65% of US workers said learning new skills is an extremely or very
important factor in deciding whether to take a new job
● 61% said it was extremely or very important in deciding whether to
stay at their current job.
● Demand for social and emotional skills along with higher
cognitive skills will grow, as will demand for both basic and
advanced digital skills.
American workers are demanding more
upskilling and training
Human capital at work: The value of experience
McKinsey

● Companies < 100 employees gave their workers only
12 minutes of training from their manager every six
months
● In organizations of 100 to 500 employees, training
was halved to 6 minutes
But the supply ≠ demand
Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2018
via How to Mentor Young Workers in a Remote World
The Atlantic

The Right Way to
Support with
Upskilling &
Learning

1. Cover All Your Bases
2.Declare & Commit
3.Provide Multiple Experiences
4.Create “Enough” Structure

CRAFT SKILLS
Observable, more concrete, expect-to-see aspects of
doing the work. Design. Research. Product
Management. Leadership.
DOMAIN KNOWLEDGE
The industry, space, and background knowledge that
your craft is applied to. Education. Banking.
Aerospace. Renewable energy.
HUMAN SKILLS
How you communicate, set expectations, manage
emotions, collaborate, and get into a state of flow.
THE WAY
Your org’s values, behaviors, process, philosophy, and
proprietary methods.
1. Cover all your bases

Team Levels Framework
Peter Merholz and Kristin
Skinner
Org Design for Design Orgs
Peter Merholz on Progression
CRAFT SKILLS

Onfido Framework
Mark Opland
https://onfido.progressionapp.com
CRAFT SKILLS

Research Skills Framework
Research Ops Community
Researchers researching
researchers: a project by the
ResearchOps Community
CRAFT SKILLS

Lola
Stylist,
Andrew
UX Research Associate
Large Company
“The biggest obstacle is that our industry is very
difficult because there's a ton of vocabulary that
no normal people know on daily basis. The many,
many, very, very difficult words that I still don't
know what they exactly mean.
They are simply directly connected with shipping
industry, with logistics, transportation, and so all
the stuff that my company is doing. I would say
that was like one of probably the main source
of chaos…”
“
DOMAIN KNOWLEDGE

Human Skill Index
Research Ops Community
Researchers researching
researchers: a project by the
ResearchOps Community
HUMAN SKILLS

5 Ways to Build Inner Agility
McKinsey
What is agile?
McKinsey
1 Pause to move faster
2 Embrace your ignorance
3 Radically reframe the questions
4 Set direction, not destination
5 Test your solutions – and yourself
HUMAN SKILLS

Human Skills
Awasu Design
THE WAY

2.Declare & Commit
“A learning philosophy is a codification of what the organization believes
about learning, including its value, the responsibilities of each person
related to learning, and the methods by which the organization will
support its employees to learn and improve.”
Build a Strong Learning Culture on Your Team
Harvard Business Review

“There's a huge sheet with eight or something
different categories. So, there's strategic skills,
analytical capabilities, people skills, business
communications, growth mindset, citizenship, like
these different categories.
And then you rate yourself on a skill from one to
five and then provide like comments on what you
did that contributed to that score or opportunity
areas.
And then there's a summary at the end where
you say your biggest strengths and biggest
opportunity areas.”
“
Alex
Large Company

“
Lola
Stylist,
Annie
Analyst
Large Company
“We really don't have a ton of super structured
training throughout either, which I think can
definitely be improved. It's more like voluntary,
like you'll get an email or something about some
training that's going on and you can sign up to sit
in on it.
It also becomes tough because since we're very
much project based and like staffing and things
like that, if you're on like a tough project, it
becomes a lot harder to do those more upskilling
things.
And since we don't have a super structured
schedule with training, you can't really tell
someone on your team like, Oh, I like need to step
out for this training because it's not mandatory.
So, it tends to like fall by the wayside, I would
say.”

3.Provide Multiple Experiences
COURSES
Provide budget and time for employees to attend
courses. For large organizations, this might include
internal proprietary courses. If not, outsourced
options abound.
WORKSHOPS
Workshops facilitated internally do triple duty.
Juniors learn. Experts deepen their understanding
while practicing leadership. Organizational culture
of learning is strengthened.
GROUP DISCUSSIONS
This is the lowest cost and overhead of all the
options. Create groups based on team, capability, or
cohort.
SELF-PACED
Consume material from books, articles, and talks.
Individual conversations with others.

4.Create Enough Structure
● Write it down—can be as simple as list
● Build on fundamentals step by step over time
● Track progress
● Allocate time
● Integrate with evals
● Encourage reflection

Final Thoughts on
Making it a Program

Benefits of cohorts
Cohorts provide additional opportunities for camaraderie; emotional
connection and support; efficiency; critical mass for relationships;
and group ownership of the experience.
The Neuroscience of Trust; Management behaviors that foster employee engagement, Paul Zak, Harvard Business Review

“When you join the program, you can choose one
of three teams, the social committee, the learning
and development committee, and the recruiting
committee. The learning and development team
is responsible for coming up with some sort of
session at least every other month or every three
months.
So, we'd have them sprinkled in as well. It's fun
‘cuz it makes you accountable and everyone is
then invested in the program ‘cuz you're
responsible for a part of it. Also being able to
actually choose the chats and the people who
come in type of thing.”
“
Alex
Large Company

Invest in the whole person
When managers set clear goals, give employees the autonomy to reach them, and
provide consistent feedback, the backward-looking annual performance review is no
longer necessary.
Managers can ask questions like, “Am I helping you get your next job?” to probe
professional goals. Assessing personal growth includes discussions about work-life
integration, family, and time for recreation and reflection. Investing in the whole person
has a powerful effect on engagement and retention.
The Neuroscience of Trust; Management behaviors that foster employee engagement, Paul Zak, Harvard Business Review

Thank you.
Craig Peters
linkedin.com/in/craigpeters
Presenter
Ari Pearl-Butler
linkedin.com/in/arielpearlbutler
Researcher & Strategist
Coco Ramgopal
linkedin.com/in/coco-ramgopal
Researcher & Strategist

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UXPA 2023: Start Strong - Lessons learned from associate programs to platform junior staff for excellence & lasting success