Industry / Project type
B2B SaaS
My Role
Founding product designer
Tools
Increasing employee engagement with Hierbridge
Background
Hierbridge is an AI powered employee engagement tool which began as a student-initiated startup incubated within CMU’s ‘Project Olympus’. Hierbridge aims to bridge the gap between the hierarchies at large organizations through open communication, timely feedback and meaningful action. I am the founding product designer at Hierbridge, responsible for designing the core product.
The Problem
Employees in large organizations often feel unengaged leading to workplace dissatisfaction and attrition
Research shows that as the number of employees at an organization grows and hierarchies are established, employee engagement becomes a challenge. Individuals find to it difficult to share their grievances or ideas, and when they do they feel unheard due to lack of timely feedback / action. Several reports indicate that this leads to dissatisfaction with the workplace and ultimately attrition.
3M
Employees leave due to engagement / culture problems
83%
Employees feel they are not heard fairly or equally
60%
Companies lack communication tool integration
1.75x
Times of salary is the average cost of employee turnover
Source: Aon (Employees Feel Unheard, 2023), Gallup Survey
"After my company crossed the 200 employees mark, I realized I didn't personally know everyone…"
"I don't think surveys work, because by the time they analyze them and take an action, I've already moved on. I don't remember what I wrote 6 months ago."
"Working for big tech has its perks but it can feel alienating sometimes. Like there must be so many cool people working in the next building but I might never get to know them."
"I know change takes time.. what bothers me is the lack of acknowledgement."
Design challenge
How might we bridge the communication gap between hierarchies in large organizations so that each employee feels heard and engaged?
The Solution
We envisioned a platform that encourages employees to share their ideas while AI ensures the idea reaches the right person in real time
We identified three key user groups: employees, HR personnel, and the C-suit and brainstormed potential solutions that could benefit all of them. Employees get to share their ideas or grievances at any time, without having to wait for a survey from the company, HR gets consolidated data about the employees based on all the activity on the platform, C suit executives get to break through the hierarchies and engage with their employees directly.
Information Architecture and User Flows
I defined the information architecture for ideal navigation and the user flows for key features
Wireframing
Let's look at the wireframing process for design of the dashboard and components within it
Having developed a solid idea of the features and site navigation, I began wireframing individual pages. At this stage I explored multiple options in low fidelity and tested them with friends and teammates. I weighed pros and cons of each idea and arrived at the ideal structure for each page.
Higher fidelity UI design
I converted the low-fi wireframes into re-suable UI components focusing on typography, spacing and color
Parts of this project are currently under NDA. Please reach out to see the complete prototype.