Onboarding Re-design Case Study: How I Used ADDIE to Redesign a New Hire Onboarding Program

When Purple’s onboarding experience no longer matched the realities of the workplace, we had an opportunity to redesign the program for clarity, flexibility, and scale.

The original onboarding model had been built for in-person facilitation, but most new hires were now completing onboarding through Zoom. At the same time, the People and Learning teams had limited capacity, some departments wanted employees in role-specific training sooner, and the existing experience was not fully capturing Purple’s culture.

Using an ADDIE-informed approach, we first analyzed the delivery gaps, team constraints, and learner needs. From there, we designed a blended onboarding experience with a shorter synchronous setup session for high-touch tasks and a self-paced LMS path for culture and compliance learning. I then developed the asynchronous curriculum into six culture-focused courses, including content on company history, values, products, benefits, perks, and internal resources. I also designed the visuals, exported the courses, and launched them in the LMS.

The final program included 13 courses total: six revised culture courses, three digital security courses, and four legal compliance courses. The trainer-led portion was reduced to a 1.5-hour setup session, which freed up time for the facilitating teams, while culture onboarding became more flexible for new hires across their first week. The culture-specific time requirement also decreased compared with the original format, helping simplify the experience without sacrificing value. This project is a strong example of how ADDIE can support onboarding program redesign, virtual learning strategy, and a more scalable new hire experience.