Hiring and onboarding · working file
Persona set: three journeys through hiring
Composite characters built from the interviews and the survey. Each one is a journey the design has to survive, and a persona that does not change a design decision is cut.
The first-job school leaver
Context. A first ever job, with the family in the loop on the paperwork. No bank account, tax number or photo identification yet.
Goals. A job close to home; a clear next step; parents satisfied the process is legitimate.
Pains. The form asks for information the family does not have yet; identity checks become slow without photo identification; the parental-consent form expires after seven days; no human anywhere in the loop.
Design response. A minimal-ask conversation that works on a phone; guided document capture; a human review lane; the parental-consent flow runs before anything else proceeds.
The returning crew member
Context. Worked in the network before, left, and is coming back, sometimes to the same franchisee group and sometimes to a different one.
Goals. Pick up where they left off; training and credentials carry over; no repeated paperwork.
Pains. Treated as a brand-new applicant; the work-rights check and the onboarding form repeated pointlessly; records never off-boarded, so the system does not know they left.
Design response. A re-hire branch at the application stage: the same franchisee group skips the work-rights check and the onboarding and transfers the record; everyone else runs the full workflow with new records.
The manager hiring inside a full day
Context. Carries recruitment inside a day of shifts, paperwork and peaks.
Goals. Fill shifts with good people, fast; admin in minutes, not hours; see candidate status without chasing.
Pains. Re-enters candidate data across systems; texts candidates to arrange interviews; discovers wrong documents at pay time; unreachable candidates are never closed off.
Design response. A review queue with an auto-scheduled interview calendar; automated offers, reminders and employee setup; unreachable candidates dispositioned after ten days without action.
How the personas behave in the design
| Persona | Maps to | Measures |
|---|---|---|
| The first-job school leaver | Apply, accept and onboard stages; the parental-consent and work-rights flows | Application completion; assisted-capture success; consent expiry rate |
| The returning crew member | The re-hire branch; employee-record transfer | Re-hire onboarding time; training carryover verified |
| The manager in a full day | Interview, offer and start stages; the review queue | Admin minutes per hire; interview confirmation time; disposition rate |
Working file from employment at KFC South Pacific, anonymised: no restaurant, colleague or vendor is named, and the figures are the ones the case study states. Back to the case.