In my master’s project, I explore onboarding as more than just an introduction to a new job. I investigate how the structures surrounding the transition into working life can be designed to support safety, belonging and lasting employment. My project is guided by the following research question:

How can the structures surrounding onboarding in the transition to work be designed to support safety, belonging and lasting employment?

I chose this topic because I became interested in onboarding as a critical phase in the transition to work. This interest grew out of my own three-month internship at NAV’s national office, where I experienced onboarding from the inside. It was also shaped by my own experience of having a gap after finishing my bachelor’s degree and struggling to find relevant work. As I looked further into the topic, I found that more than 100,000 young people in Norway are outside work and education, which made the relevance of the project even clearer.

Initially, my project focused more directly on vulnerable transitions into work. Through the process, however, I came to see that a stronger design approach may be to create a more inclusive and universally designed onboarding structure. This can support a wider range of people entering work, while still addressing needs that are often most visible in vulnerable transitions.

For me, the relevance of the project lies in the fact that the first period in a new job is often shaped by unclear expectations, uneven follow-ups, and responsibilities that do not always align. Through my research, onboarding has appeared not only as an internal HR process. It is also a vulnerable in-between space between the new employee, the workplace, and the actors surrounding the transition. This has also made it clear that onboarding cannot be improved through one single solution alone, but may require smaller interventions across different stages, actors, and moments in the transition.

I have developed the project through a qualitative and design-driven process. My main methods have included semi-structured interviews, user journey mapping, visual mapping, and thematic analysis. Grounded in systemic design, I explore onboarding as part of a larger interaction between actors, responsibilities, and relationships. Rather than developing one solution for one narrow target group, I aim to explore how onboarding can be designed in a more inclusive and coherent way for people entering working life through different starting points.