Company
Replicon
Project Type
Workflow evaluation
Duration
2 days
My role
As the lead UX designer for time off product, it was my responsibility to understand the motivations of all stakeholders involved in the problem they were experiencing. I analyzed the workflow, identified the data and user flow problems, and evaluated the pros and cons of possible solutions for the given timeline.
Skills applied
User research, personas, system flows, testing, and collaboration with engineering.
Problem
Supervisors and administrators were having trouble approving employee's timesheet. When this happens, payroll cannot run, and employees can't get paid on time.
Why does this happen?
We found that this only happens when a time off request gets rejected. The system bundles time off requests into the timesheet, but the timesheet is not allowed to be submitted and approved with rejected items on it.
Why not just delete the rejected time off request?
This is what the supervisors did because rejected time off requests continued to deduct from employee's time off balance. Deleting the request would correct their balance, but also removes it entirely from the system. The untraceable nature of deletion creates a trust problem between employee and employer.
Example dialog
Employee: Can I go on PTO?
Supervisor: Did you request it?
Employee: Yes.
Supervisor: I don't see a request.
Employee: ...
User Goals
Employee
I want to get paid. I also want to talk about why my time off request was rejected.
Employer
I have to approve timesheets on time, otherwise my employees don't get paid. I also want to resolve disagreements, but I can't fix what I can't see.
Solution
The system solution
Since getting paid is the highest priority. We allowed a timesheet to be approved even if a time off request were rejected. We also made sure that rejected time off requests were not deducting from the employee's PTO balance. Whenever a time off request gets rejected, it would recalculate the balance.
Learnings
Human problems require human solutions
When a time off request gets rejected, the decision has already been made, and it would remain as a record of something that happened. Employees could resubmit their time off request every time it got rejected, but employers could also reject the request every time it was submitted. At some point, the two sides would have to talk to each other to come to a consensus.
Approval System
Overview
