Culture is so important to McGarrah Jessee that, in 2016, they created a physical onboarding ritual: Culture Cards.
When remote work started leaving new hires out of the loop, I translated Culture Cards into a gamified digital experience.
I designed the concept, the interaction logic, wrote every line of UX copy, and built the system running underneath it,
directing an outside studio, Makemepulse, through the build.
It opens with a guided tutorial, easing new hires in one screen at a time.
They’ll discover there are three types of cards to collect — Meet, Guess, and Match — 24 in total.
To collect a Meet Card, new hires have to schedule a real conversation with a teammate (via a synced Google Calendar invite with a built-in Zoom link),
so the teammate can give them the password that unlocks the card.
Guess and Match cards are self-directed for them to collect at their own pace.
The deck is split across four weeks, each with its own theme based on the McJ way.
For example, Week 1 is "The way we see it." Week 4 is "The way we celebrate."
Weeks 1 and 2 have more cards to collect and more Meet cards overall,
since that's when new hires are actively getting to know people and their workload is lightest.
Each new hire is paired with a Guide, like an assigned lunch buddy for their first day at a new school. The Guide follows along through automatic notifications when the new hire completes key milestones, and follows up if they're falling behind.
When new hires enter the password, guess an answer, or match correctly, the card flips to reveal another facet of McGarrah Jessee’s culture.
Eventually revealing all the facets, stories, and lore that make McGarrah Jessee, McGarrah Jessee.
