Revenue: 3.5+B
Employees: 3,500
UX Lead; Research, Strategy & Design
Product Managers (2)
Software Engineers (7)
Support Specialist (5)
Copy & Legal Writers (2)
Feb 2024 - Oct 2024
TL;DR
I'm still working on this case study, but here is the main summary:
Overview
Support teams been receiving an overwhelming volume of tickets from HR/ Benefits admins about struggling to assign tailored benefits to employees.
This Benefits Admin feature has been in maintenance mode following a company re-org.
Problem
The legacy system discouraged Admins to assign benefits eligibility to multiple workers at once easily and had to assign on a one-by-one basis.
Ultimately resulting in delays, compliance risk, and a poor user experience.
With the problem in mind, we asked:
How might we help Benefits Admins assign customized benefits to their workers at scale - quickly, confidently, and without compliance concerns?
Research, design hurdles & decisions:
With no researchers assigned for this project - I read through the NPS, customer emails, and formed weekly team meetings with 5 supports to understand (sadly horrible) anecdotes about admins' pains/goals when assigning benefits to employees.
I audited current users flows, came up with shared analogy to that ended the continuous "which comes first: classes or eligibility?" debate. The same analogy also aligned the team to help clear through tech debt, confusing benefits jargons, and compliance laws.
I influenced the design and product direction by convincing the team that it's more intuitive to start a new user flow than trying to frankenstein by combining existing features - which led to sunsetting two archaic logics flows for better user experience.
I designed for admins' compliance-driven mental models (it was nearly impossible, so I aimed to cover 80% of common use cases, and design the rest as edge cases after release) while working through existing design system constraints and desired project timeline.
Half-way through the project, I gave a screen flow walk-through to the engineering team half-way in the design process, so that they can start working on re-architecting back-end logic as I am still working through the exact UI details on the screens.
I gave support email templates to ask for for quick user gut check and validation. I was able to iterate fast and scale with user mental models (intuitive, simple and compliance-proof) for the solutions with limited research resource.
Solution & Impact
I designed a cohesive benefits grouping, mapping and managing system:
A configuration engine that lets admins define employee groups using logic (like role, tenure, or location) or simply, through manual selection.
Compliance proof: drag-and-drop class conflict resolution, and a default safety net to prevent unassigned employees
Benefits mapping for all classes in a single, seamless view
Centralized dashboard with audit trails for real-time visibility and management.
Result & Impact
A new method to scale benefits management for all Benefits Admins:
42% reduction in support tickets
60% faster benefits setup time.
Supported compliance with evolving labor laws
laid the groundwork for reusable design logic across the broader Benefits Admin, and eventually in upcoming platform.
Problem & Opportunities
Admins struggled to assign benefits at scale
As employee populations became more diverse, admins needed to configure benefits for dozens, sometimes hundreds, of employees across different roles, states, and worker types. But the legacy system didn’t support bulk actions or logic-based grouping. Instead, they had to assign benefits one worker at a time, or use error-prone workarounds that led to support escalation.
Admins were not able to assign benefits to multiple workers at once and had to assign on a one-by-one basis.
Through auditing the current setup flows (both for single and multiple employees), the experience was disjointed and overly complex. Much of the confusion stemmed from inconsistent terminology and unnecessary jargon, which drove users to seek help.
Identifying Opportunities
Through user research and system audits, I uncovered recurring admin pain points, which revealed an opportunity to design better. I converted those pain points into success criteria that guided the redesign. For example, what required support became self-serve; what lacked visibility inspired transparency. The end goal is to come up with design solution to eliminate that frustrations.
Pain points
Hard to understand so have to reach out to support
The flow was fragmented and tedious
Confusing , error-prone and lack visibility
There was no scalable way to manage complexity
Success Criteria
Self-serve and reduce need for support
Decrease setup and maintenance time with one seamless flow
Ensure legal compliance across states and worker types
Clear and simple workflow for all usecases
With the problem in mind, we asked:
How might we help Benefits Admins assign customized benefits at scale - quickly, confidently, and without compliance concerns?
Solutions
A New Class Configuration System for Scalable Benefits Management
We introduced a flexible configuration system that enables HR admins to assign benefits through dynamic rules or manual selection—reducing errors, saving time, and scaling with workforce complexity.
Creating classes easily with a rule (or not)
Admins could define classes like “Remote Design Team” or “Part-Time Sales” using logic based on location, role, tenure, etc.
If the rule engine is too complicated or when employees who don’t fit neatly into rule-based groups, admins can search, select, and override class logic on a per-person basis.
Reducing compliance risk by clarifying class priority
When employees match multiple classes, a clear priority drag& & drop allows admins to reorder and understand hierarchy instantly.
If employees match no rules, the system automatically assigns employees to a baseline "Default" group, ensuring legal coverage with zero admin guesswork.
Assigning Benefits to all in just a single scroll
The streamlined layout makes it easy to compare, customize, and assign benefits across multiple groups. This helps the admin avoid context switching and having to navigate through nested multiple pages.
A single dashboard for smarter management
From tracking configuration status to updating class assignments, admins can now manage the full employee benefits cycle in a single, centralized dashboard.
auditable Rule Changes with a transparent activity log
Every rule modification is time-stamped and logged, so HR teams can track what changed, when, and by whom. An essential for compliance audits and risk assessment.
Impact & Learnings
Scalable Self-Service in Assigning Benefits
This led to a 42% reduction in support tickets, 60% faster setup time, and stronger compliance across diverse employee types.
This wasn’t just a UI refresh - it was a core system redesign that unlocked scalable customization for HR teams. It made the product more flexible, more compliant, and more competitive in a rapidly evolving workforce landscape.
The redesigned benefits engine empowered admins to work independently, supported legal compliance, unlocked new mid-market sales, and laid the foundation for future scalability across the platform.
