Stargate Employee Onboarding Flow
Stargate is Axpos’ Next Generation Service Portal. We have developed a completely new flow to help hiring managers onboard new employees to Axpo.
Company: Axpo
Date: 2025
Role: Initiative & UX Lead
Format: Web Application
Overview
At Axpo, onboarding was broken. Hiring managers struggled with scattered resources, unclear responsibilities, and overly manual processes. There was no central guide—no source of truth—leaving managers to navigate a fragmented system alone. The result? Delays, missed steps, inconsistent experiences for new hires, and weak first impressions.
We set out to solve this by designing a user-centered, scalable onboarding tool for hiring managers—one that ensures consistency, removes friction, and improves employee integration from day one.
Our focus was not just on better UX—but on creating a tool that delivers real operational value and improves employee integration from day one.
Discover – Deep Understanding Through Research
To start, we took a design thinking approach—emphasizing empathy and discovery. Through cross-departmental interviews, contextual inquiries, journey mapping, and diary studies, we gained a clear understanding of current frustrations. We also dug into support tickets, audit logs, and behavioral data.
What We Found:
No progress tracking – Managers couldn’t see what was done or pending.
Disjointed experience – Steps were scattered across disconnected systems.
No single source of truth – Tasks lived across platforms with no guide.
No clear ownership – Responsibilities were spread with little coordination.
Manual & time-consuming – High effort, error-prone, and duplicative.
We collaborated closely with product, engineers, HR, and Stakeholders from other departments to align on the core user need and business opportunity:
Streamline onboarding for hiring managers to ensure consistency, speed, and a better new hire experience.
Define – Clarifying the Opportunity
We synthesised insights into clear, actionable personas and journeys. The primary user is busy mid-level managers who hire infrequently and are often overwhelmed by ambiguous processes.
Problem Statement
Hiring managers lacked a clear, centralised, and trackable onboarding process, leading to inconsistent new hire experiences and operational inefficiency.
We defined measurable goals & Success Metrics:
Reduce time-to-onboard by 30%
Increase onboarding task completion rates
Improve satisfaction scores from managers and new hires
Reduce internal support requests related to onboarding
Ideate – Co-Creating Concepts
With the problem framed, we moved into ideation. We ran cross-functional design sprints with HR, engineering, and hiring managers. Ideas ranged from intelligent checklists and role-based flows to integrated approvals and contextual help.
Key Concepts Explored
Dynamic, role-specific onboarding checklists
Integration with existing HR and IT systems (even without full APIs)
Smart guidance (in-line tips, nudges, progress tracking)
Automated alerts and reminders
We embraced divergent thinking—intentionally pushing beyond the obvious. Critically, we co-created from day one, building alignment and shared ownership. We translated the top ideas into low-fidelity prototypes. We built multiple iterations to validate assumptions with users.
Test & Iterate – Listening and Refining
We translated the top ideas into low-fidelity wireframes and high-fidelity interactive prototypes. We built multiple iterations to validate assumptions with users.
Design Decisions & Rationale
Checklist format: Familiar, scannable, and trackable.
Modular content: To support localisation and customisation across 30+ markets and various divisions.
Integrated touchpoints: Even without APIs, we built lightweight integrations (e.g., email triggers, deep links) to reduce friction.
Mobile-friendly UI: Recognizing that managers often multitask on the go.
Accessible components: WCAG-compliant from the start.
Version 01
Version 02
Version 03
We conducted usability tests across five departments in three countries. We learned a lot—particularly around language clarity, information hierarchy, and edge cases in international contexts.
Iteration Highlights
Simplified language for non-native English speakers.
Use of expendables for a streamlined and guided process
Integrated Progress markers (mix of Automated and Manual actions)
Finalising the Design
With the problem framed, we moved into ideation. We ran cross-functional design sprints with HR, engineering, and hiring managers. Ideas ranged from intelligent checklists and role-based flows to integrated approvals and contextual help.
Key Concepts Explored
Dynamic, role-specific onboarding checklists
Integration with existing HR and IT systems (even without full APIs)
Smart guidance (in-line tips, nudges, progress tracking)
Automated alerts and reminders
We embraced divergent thinking—intentionally pushing beyond the obvious. Critically, we co-created from day one, building alignment and shared ownership. We translated the top ideas into low-fidelity prototypes. We built multiple iterations to validate assumptions with users.
Build & Launch
Despite technical constraints (missing APIs), we collaborated closely with engineering to deliver a performant MVP. And leave sections to be completed manually by the users.
Onboarding Step 01
Onboarding Final Step
Onboarding Dashboard
Impact – Measuring What Matters
We ran a pilot with 12 teams before gradually rolling out starting in Switzerland, followed by Spain.
Quantitative Results (3 Months Post-Launch)
-36% time-to-onboard (avg. time to complete onboarding tasks)
+48% task completion rate by hiring managers
-52% onboarding-related support tickets
+41 NPS from hiring managers (up from 3 pre-launch)
“This is the first time I’ve felt confident onboarding someone.”
This wasn’t just a UX win. It was a business one. We transformed a broken, manual process into a scalable, user-centred experience that helped managers onboard faster, better, and with confidence.
By staying close to users, collaborating deeply across functions, and advocating for a user-centred approach, even when timelines pressured us to cut corners, we delivered a product that’s already changing how managers do onboarding and new hires experience their first days at Axpo.
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