Overview
Problem: High attrition of designers caused frequent resource gaps, missed deadlines, and inconsistent design quality across multiple concurrent projects.
Objective: Reduce downtime from designer turnover, maintain delivery quality and schedules, and create a reliable pipeline for permanent hires.
My Role
Design Director: Defined strategy, built operational model, recruited and onboarded contract designers, coordinated with product and engineering stakeholders, tracked outcomes, and iterated.
Strategy
Create a centralized Designer Pool of pre-vetted contract designers who could be rapidly assigned across teams and projects as needs arose.
Standardize onboarding and handoff procedures to enable designers to become productive within days.
Implement a rotating assignment model to circulate pool designers among product teams (2–4 week stints) to balance continuity with broad exposure.
Track performance with simple, consistent metrics and gather qualitative feedback from team leads.
Execution
Sourcing & Vetting
- Built a shortlist of contract designers via referrals and targeted recruiting.
- Standardized portfolio review to validate skills.
Onboarding & Tooling
- Created an onboarding process that included design system access, file conventions, sprint cadences, and stakeholder contacts.
- Prepared templated Figma files and component libraries.
Assignment & Rotation
- Weekly capacity check-ins with product leads to prioritize placements.
- Assigned designers for 2–4 week blocks with clear scope and success criteria.
- Standardized transition at the end of each rotation to preserve knowledge.
Performance & Conversion
- Identified high performers for conversion, interviews and permanent roles.
- Measured ramp time, delivery quality, ticket throughput, and stakeholder satisfaction.
Outcomes
- Downtime reduced from ~1 month to <1 week for replacing a designer.
- Faster ramp: average time-to-productivity reduced to days (vs. weeks).
- Delivery stability: fewer missed milestones and more consistent design output across projects.
- Talent development: designers gained broader exposure; many became more well-rounded generalists.
- Hiring pipeline: high-performing contractors were converted to full-time roles, reducing future hiring cycles.
- Stakeholder feedback: product managers reported smoother sprints and clearer handoffs.
Key Metrics
- Average replacement downtime: 30 days → <7 days
- Average ramp time: 14 days → 3–5 days
Lessons Learned & Best Practices
- Invest in lightweight onboarding artifacts — small up-front effort multiplies across hires.
- Standardize transitions (artifacts + component libraries) to make rotations efficient.
- Short rotations broaden skills but keep minimum overlap to maintain project continuity.
- Use contract periods as extended interviews: performance in-context is the best predictor of fit.
- Maintain a small bench size relative to demand to control costs while ensuring coverage.