CoConnect

Meet CoConnect
Onboarding virtually can be tough
We conducted market research & learnt that onboarding was a challenge for new hires & companies in these remote times
We interviewed users & sent out some surveys
Meet our user personae: Ana, the new hire, and Rob, the hiring manager
The 3 key problem areas we chose to tackle
After a lot of brainstorming based on our users' non-negotiables, we narrowed it down to these "must haves"
Our solution is CoConnect
Check out our prototype in the links below. We have one for the new hire screen & the hiring manager screen
Meet the team & stay tuned!

Inspiration

Our inspiration was something we all experienced as part of the new normal or remote work.

New hires face a multitude of concerns associated with social isolation and lack of informal interaction and this inability to connect with people affects their productivity and social well-being. While at the same time, onboarding has proven to be difficult, taxing the hiring manager and requiring them to dedicate more time and effort to get new hires involved.

What it does

Our solution is a web-application that caters to the new hire user needs and the hiring manager user needs along the first 3 months of the new hire’s journey.

The key features we targetted (based on user surveys and interviews) were:

Facilitate new hire integration into team
Regular feedback cadence
Simplify onboarding into manageable chunks

For the new hire, the application is broken down into 3 sections: Connect, Feedback and Onboarding Tasks.

CONNECT enables new hires to reach out to teammates so they start engaging and collaborating with the community. This is the first page the user would land on, as familiarising with teammates is imperative to help a new hire feel connected. FEEDBACK aims at providing and maintaining a record of manager feedback during the onboarding phase, which is vital to the new hire’s success in their role. ONBOARDING TASKS acts as a guide to walk the new hire through just as much as they need at that point in time, without overwhelming them. Coupled together, this aims to achieve increased engagement, better relationships with co-workers (a tough challenge when virtual) and therefore higher retention and productivity.

Similarly on the hiring manager side, the application provides the same 3 sections.

CONNECT aims to guide hiring managers when it comes to helping build and manage their team virtually, with suggestions on activities, resources and quick access to book frequent check-ins.

FEEDBACK enables managers to see how their new hires are integrating into the team and provide an increased level of feedback to support them.

ONBOARDING TASKS helps keep hiring managers on track and accountable, with all items that need to get done, while juggling work and remote team management. This brings relief to the manager since they can confidently lead and connect with all members of their remote team.

How I built it

We started by mapping out each of our user persona’s journey and listing out the key pain points. Based on user survey, user interviews and market research, we picked out the most common ones and listed them out. We then brainstormed a large list of potential solutions/features, ranging from a simple phone call/chat reminder or onboarding checklist app, all the way to a web platform or AR/VR onboarding guide. We filtered this large set of features to come up with the 20% that addressed 80% of user pain points within a reasonable timeline, while maintaining our users’ key non-negotiables: effective means to connect with the team and a feedback loop. Check out the linked Jam Board for the features that stuck. Once complete, we used the Crazy 8's method to brainstorm and iterate on our UI design.

Challenges I ran into

Our key challenge was prototyping, as none of us had any previous design experience. However, we all decided to approach the prototyping piece as a team and use it to learn a new tool & skill set for our product.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

Our biggest challenge was also our biggest accomplishment. Kishi & myself built the prototype from scratch in about 4 hours and with iterative feedback from our team mates, mentor & friends, brought it to its final state. Our team's goal was to keep it simple and straightforward for the MVP & worry about the details for a future release.

One more accomplishment we are all proud of is the fact that we achieved all this from, ideation to an MVP prototype, in under 2 days, across 2 countries and 2 timezones. Amish, Kishi, Neelam & I met through this Hackathon and put our minds together to come up with an idea we felt we could all benefit from in this new normal.

What I learned

This project was our first case study as a remote group of four with support and guidance from our mentor, Adil Chaudhry. The process of creating a solution from scratch and taking it through the product management lifecycle was a valuable lesson for us. This was all of our first time creating a prototype with tools like Figma and Canva, and reporting it in this case study. Although onboarding is an established process, the new normal has definitely forced us to re-evaluate how best to connect new hires with their peers.

What's next for CoConnect

First and foremost, our suggestion would be to integrate the CoConnect platform with existing connectivity tools such as Zoom/Slack/MS Teams, as well as existing HR Portals to enable easy access to employee databases and onboarding information. Secondly, we would like to incorporate a reward system to motivate new hires to attend more social events to engage with the employee community. Finally, a third feature would be to include simple reminders/notifications for both user personae to help keep them on track during this critical period in their journey.

Our team still continues to tackle this challenge at work and we are still passionate about solving this! Stay tuned for what comes up!