My Remote Onboarding Experience: Joining SAP Labs as a UX Designer
Starting your first job can be an exciting, and at times, a nerve-wracking experience under normal circumstances. These sentiments would only seem to be compounded by the complications of an ongoing global pandemic. Having been onboarded entirely remotely, here’s my experience of joining SAP S/4HANA Industries UX team as a UX Designer in Bangalore, during the COVID 19 pandemic. The team, spread across 3 countries, works on designing the user experience for projects critical to SAP S/4HANA Industry Solutions.
It was in March that I received my offer letter and, having previously completed an internship at SAP, I was excited to return to campus as a full-time employee. Unfortunately, with the onset of the pandemic in India and the lockdown that followed, I was informed that the onboarding was to take place remotely. Despite the initial disappointment, I was looking forward to getting started.
Meeting the Team
On the first day, with the help of the IT department, my personal laptop was set up with VPN and other necessities for working from home. In a coffee corner session the following morning, I was introduced with a fun ice breaker game, to the team members who were welcoming and friendly. These morning coffee sessions, an everyday affair, have been a refreshing way to begin the day and have been vital in getting to know the team better. I was also introduced to my German colleagues in the team over a ‘Corona Talk’ session which has been an ongoing weekly informal check-in to discuss our lives and challenges while working remotely. Over the following days, I completed the onboarding formalities and found my way around the online tools for employees with the help of my assigned onboarding buddy who was very supportive.
New Beginnings
Stepping into a new project in the Oil and Gas Industry, I was briefed on the context and participated in the customer calls and delved into understanding the forward logistics processes along with my colleagues on the project. Based on the information collected during the remote workshops and weekly calls with the customer consortium, we developed a detailed user journey and mapped the needs, challenges and touch points at each step during the journey. Following internal discussions with the product team, we developed the personas to focus on and also defined their POVs and identified who they would interact with and later validated the same with the customers before proceeding with the design of the applications.
While transitioning into the design phase of the project, it was important for me to revisit SAP Fiori, SAP’s enterprise design system and the SAP Fiori Design Guidelines to brush up my memory from the time that I was an intern. The SAP Fiori Elements Newsletters and the internal SAP Fiori Design Alignment meetings helped me get up to speed on some of the newly available features. To begin with, we created low fidelity mockups by recreating SAP Fiori templates of the floorplans suitable for the requirement on MURAL, the online collaborative tool. We invited our customers into the MURAL to view and leave their comments on the designs before incorporating their feedback and finalizing the design. Following this exercise, we created high-fidelity mockups on Axure RP 9.
Working on the user research and design for a project of this scale was a first time for me. Collaborating with experienced UX colleagues on the project, was an excellent learning experience on framing the right questions, analysing user input and feedback and also in planning, prioritising and preparing for virtual sessions with customers.
Bridging the Gap
Through the course of my first 3 months, several events were conducted online such as the SAPPHIRE NOW conference and the SAP User Experience Summit. Some sessions were organised specifically to boost morale and encourage engagement amongst the new joiners, such as the Careers Over Coffee live casts. These sessions have helped in understanding the resources available for the employees and provided opportunities for networking. They have also helped in getting a sense of the company’s culture and diversity, even while working remotely.
The regular meetings conducted for the UX community within SAP to share ideas, project work, and discuss the application and limitations of SAP Fiori elements, have been interesting to be a part of. They provided insight into the discussions on SAP Fiori in the larger context with conversations that shape how it changes and what to expect in the future.
The Ups and Downs
There were a few challenges along the journey as well. The spontaneous and quick interactions which would, under regular circumstances, have helped in getting acquainted with colleagues and the work environment, is not easy to replicate in a virtual set up. Being dependent on my faulty personal laptop to carry out the daily work was a challenge up until the office equipment was delivered home a couple of months after joining.
That said, there have been a lot of positives as well. The regular team meetings, check-ins and activities have helped me in finding a sense of belonging in the community and has made the whole experience of this sedentary working lifestyle better. They continue to be an important reminder that we aren’t isolated in this experience. While attempting to overcome the pitfalls of remote work, there have been several online tools such as Teams and MURAL, that we have quickly adapted to, which bring their own set of advantages to the collaborative work that we perform on a daily basis.
Despite the curveball thrown at us this year, the experience of getting onboarded has been smooth, thanks to SAP’s remote onboarding facilities. Being a part of the team has been delightful, for which I’d like to thank the entire team. Particularly, Alexandra Matz, Monisha Pattanaik, my onboarding buddy and Muktha Hiremath, my manager, for being extremely supportive and understanding through this entire process and for being incredibly fun to collaborate with.
