Cartographers and Collaborators: A Social Learning and Play Based Approach to Employee Onboarding.

Lead Author: Hira Javed

Additional authors:

Timetable: ,

Description:

Participants are invited to test and reflect on a newly designed board game called ‘Cartographers & Collaborators’, created to support employee onboarding through the lens of social learning theory. The session positions learning as a social, participatory and identity-forming process, that unfolds as new employees interact with multiple communities of practice (CoPs) and embark on their own learning trajectories within the company. New employees do not simply ‘learn on the job’, they move across the complex constellation of practices (the landscape), gradually developing knowledgeability, the ability to recognize what matters, who to learn from, and how to act legitimately in different contexts.

Grounded in the ‘Landscape of Practice’ framework by Beverly and Etienne Wenger, the board game functions as both a play-based learning tool and a research artifact, making visible how newcomers navigate boundaries, negotiate meaning, and develop relations within complex organizational contexts.

The session begins with a brief theoretical framing of the key concepts, such as landscape of interrelated CoPs, boundaries, brokering, knowledgeability, identification and learning trajectories. The theoretical grounding sets the state for understanding the design intent of the game.

Participants then break into small groups (4-6 players) to play the board game, taking on the role of a newly hired employee entering a fictional organization. The game board represents the landscape of interconnected practices, with each region reflecting its distinct competencies, practices, norms, language, and membership pathways. The connection between communities varies in permeability, with some requiring boundary objects (e.g. shared tools, meetings, reports) and brokering (e.g. people who translate across practices). Players must move between practices and develop their own learning trajectory. Success depends on building relationships and developing knowledgeability, rather than mastering a fixed body of content.

After the gameplay, the session transitions into a facilitated debrief. Participants are invited to reflect on their experiences, provide feedback, and draw explicit connections between the game and their own professional contexts. Discussion prompts focus on questions such as: What did it feel like to be ‘new’ in the game? How did social interactions shape learning? Where did power, legitimacy, or confusion emerge? How did the game surface aspects of onboarding that are often invisible or taken for granted? This reflection component is essential, as it consolidates learning and links embodied experience to conceptual understanding.

The session concludes with a collective discussion on implications for practice. Participants explore how game-based approaches grounded in social learning theory can complement or challenge traditional onboarding programs. The board game is presented not as a finished product but as an invitation to rethink onboarding as participation in a living landscape of practice. By testing the game firsthand, participants will gain insights into both the potential of play, experiential learning and the the deeper social processes that shape how people become competent, confident members of organizations.

References, web links and other resources:

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Wenger-Trayner, E., Fenton-O’Creevy, M., Hutchinson, S., Kubiak, C., & Wenger-Trayner, B. (2014). Learning in Landscapes of Practice: Boundaries, Identity, and Knowledgeability in Practice-Based Learning. Taylor & Francis Group. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/utoronto/detail.action?docID=1753258