The Importance of Optimizing the Onboarding Experience.Surveys show that more than 60% of Gen Z employees lack effective career guidance at the beginning of their careers, which not only affects their career adaptability but also leads to an increase in employee turnover in organizations. Therefore, optimizing the onboarding experience for Gen Z women not only improves employee satisfaction but also strengthens the culture of diversity and inclusion.

Characteristics of Gen Z. Gen Z has often been labeled with many stereotypes and generalizations. The truth is, Gen Z is not an entirely different "breed" compared to other generations, but they do approach the workplace differently. To understand what specifically sets Gen Z apart, consulting firm Deloitte surveyed 1,531 Gen Z individuals. The results show that money and salary are important to Gen Z, but they place less emphasis on salary than other generations. At the same time, Gen Z values other benefits from employers, such as work-life balance, flexible working hours, and perks. In terms of core values, Gen Z is particularly interested in a company's ethics, practices, and social impact, with a focus on policies related to DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion).

Differences Between Gen Z Women and Gen Z Men in the Workplace.There are important correlations and interactions between gender and generational variables. They suggest that both gender and generational factors influence value priorities, and therefore when exploring people's preferences and value orientations, researchers should consider gender differences in conjunction with generational cohorts, rather than looking at the two in isolation.
Compared to Gen Z males, Gen Z females were significantly more focused on (coworkers, supervisors, and atmosphere), having a desired career (i.e., alignment of personal preferences with job content), opportunities for career advancement, acquiring new experiences through their work, and being recognized (appreciated) for their work accomplishments. This may stem from persistent gender discrimination, stereotypes, and women's weaker social status in the workplace.

The principle of empathy in service design requires designers to start from the users' point of view and gain an in-depth understanding of their needs and emotions. To this end, we first collected the real experiences of 14 Gen Z female employees with bachelor's degrees or above in the process of joining the workplace through qualitative interviews, which revealed the main problems they faced during the joining stage. In addition, we collected the views of 7 male Gen Z employees on DEI policy, including the policy for female employees, and 2 HRs from medium to large companies, who were asked about the current management system for new hires at the onboarding stage and what the company's policy is for female employees.

Both Gen Z women and men valued the company's DEI policy, and based on the findings from the interview, a persona and user journey map of Gen Z women was created, which revealed that Gen Z women were prone to self-doubt, lack of a clear career path, and difficulty adapting to the company culture.

The task of this phase is to generate and develop solutions based on the problems and insights identified in the exploration phase, and to make the generated solutions comprehensive and sustainable. This required in-depth summarization of participant discourse and the design of a Gen Z women's persona and user journey for the currently existing onboarding process, which needed to encompass and reflect their needs, motivations, and expectations, as well as the potential opportunities that could be generated by a series of touchpoints in the process.

 We used a service roadmap to map out the full picture of the system. The service roadmap divides the onboarding journey into three key stages:
 Pre-Onboarding, Probation Period, and Post-Probation.

We empower Gen Z women to confidently navigate their professional journeys by providing innovative tools, supportive networks, and mentorship opportunities.
Through personalized development platforms, advocacy initiatives, and practical guidance, we create equitable and respectful work environments where their potential is fully realized and celebrated.

Before joining the company, the employee receives a pre-orientation e-mail containing a questionnaire that is used to understand the employee's career goals and individual needs. The questionnaire is based on the Holland Code Questionnaire, which is based on American psychologist John L. Holland's theory that “a person's career preferences are in some sense an implicit expression of an underlying personality”. The AI system generates a personalized mentor based on the questionnaire results and matches it with a real career mentor to ensure that the new employee receives clear guidance and support before he or she is officially hired.

During the probationary period, the AI Buddy and the human mentor work together, with the AI Buddy providing real-time feedback and resource suggestions, while the human mentor provides emotional support and career guidance through regular communication. With this dual support, employees can adapt to their new work environment faster and clarify their career goals.

At the end of the probationary period, employees receive two-way feedback from their mentor, a 360-degree assessment of their performance, and advice on future career development, and AI Buddy continues to support their professional growth with customized skills training and task management tools. In a few years, when new employees become veterans of the company, they can become the next mentor. We want this system to be a continuous cycle.

In the course of our practice, we encountered some challenges. Our project also had some flaws at the beginning, such as not enough participants in the research part leading to a relatively small sample size and not enough detailed feedback collected. Especially the balance between the personalization of the AI mentor system and the diverse needs of employees. Some Gen Z female employees were dissatisfied with the feedback mechanism of the AI Mentor System, believing that the advice provided by the system was too generic and failed to effectively address their specific dilemmas in career development. As the project did not have enough time, we only completed the front-end prototyping, and the back-end needs to be encompassed if it is to be put into a real-world environment as a way of determining whether our project is feasible or not.

In our future plans, we are adding personalized data analytics to enable the system to provide more specific advice and support based on each employee's performance, feedback, and career goals. the image and tone of AI Buddy also needs to match the company's culture. Most importantly, feedback on the system is collected on an ongoing basis to improve the overall service.