NEO MAP

New Employee Orientation – Mergers & Acquisitions Program

A targeted onboarding experience designed to help newly acquired employees understand the organization, leadership, and operating model—while preserving trust, clarity, and momentum during change.

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NEO MAP addressed one of the most sensitive moments in the employee lifecycle: joining an organization through acquisition.

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Context

Audience
Employees joining the organization through mergers and acquisitions, often with different cultural norms, systems, and expectations.

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Business Need
Acquired employees needed to quickly understand who the organization was, how it operated, and what was expected of them—without feeling overwhelmed, disconnected, or displaced. Traditional onboarding approaches did not adequately address the emotional, cultural, and operational complexity of post-acquisition integration.

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Problem

• Acquired employees lacked clarity on leadership, structure, and business priorities

• Cultural and operational differences created uncertainty and hesitation

• Existing onboarding materials were not designed for the M&A context

• HR teams needed a consistent, repeatable way to support integration

Design challenge: Create an orientation experience that balanced clarity, empathy, and business alignment during a period of organizational change.

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Solution

NEO MAP was designed as a purpose-built orientation experience specifically for employees joining through acquisition.

The program focused on:

• Establishing a clear understanding of the organization’s presence, business, and leadership

• Creating a welcoming and respectful introduction to the company culture

• Providing essential context without overwhelming learners

Rather than treating M&A onboarding as an extension of standard new hire orientation, NEO MAP addressed it as a distinct learning and change moment.

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My Role

I owned NEO MAP end-to-end, including:

• Orientation strategy and experience design

• Instructional design and content architecture

• Scriptwriting and video production

• Visual design and learner experience flow

• Stakeholder alignment and iteration

• Implementation and administration on LMS

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Instructional Design Approach

NEO MAP was designed using a human-centered, context-aware instructional design approach.

Key design principles included:

• Emotional and cultural awareness as core design inputs

• Clear narrative structure to reduce uncertainty and cognitive load

• Video-led learning to humanize leadership and messaging

• Modular design to allow flexibility and reuse across acquisitions

• Alignment between business priorities and learner experience

 

Design question guiding decisions:
“What do M&A acquired employees need to understand and feel in order to move forward with confidence?”

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Learning Experience Structure

The experience was structured to provide clarity without overload, including:

• Short, focused modules addressing who the organization is and how it operates

• Video segments introducing leadership, business context, and operating model

• Visual storytelling to support engagement and comprehension

• A clear progression from orientation to next steps

This structure supported faster alignment while respecting the complexity of the transition.

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