Building with end to end ownership on design and delivery
Introduction
Sodexo UK sells employee benefits, recognition, incentives and rewards products that enable HRs to improve employee engagement. These products are offered as completely customised solutions to each client.
In the UK, Sodexo currently serves 1.2 Million consumers from 6.8k clients, with a majority of their presence in the SME segment.
I was fortunate to help guide the design for this project. I was involved in the project from day 1 and played a key role in building and shipping the product.
In the UK, Sodexo currently serves 1.2 Million consumers from 6.8k clients, with a majority of their presence in the SME segment.
I was fortunate to help guide the design for this project. I was involved in the project from day 1 and played a key role in building and shipping the product.
My Role
• Help win the project.
• Collaborated with marketing team to conduct extensive market and competitor research.
• Part of a 3 member team owning the responsibility to lead the team for any combined activity.
• Lead efforts to build a component library for the user app.
• Owned the design and execution of the back office system for the product.
• Collaborating with PM's and Engineers to build and execute.
• Collaborated with marketing team to conduct extensive market and competitor research.
• Part of a 3 member team owning the responsibility to lead the team for any combined activity.
• Lead efforts to build a component library for the user app.
• Owned the design and execution of the back office system for the product.
• Collaborating with PM's and Engineers to build and execute.
Timelines
The timelines for the project were fairly aggressive. We successfully demo'd our first version of the product by the end of 1 year of initiation.
Intro to rewards and recognition
What is Recognition?
Recognition programs are constructed to ensure that companies can recognise employees for their contributions that are in line with the core value and cultural pillars of the organization. These recognitions are broadly classified as:
1. Nominate: Managers nominating their reports for awards.
2. Celebrate: Recognition for long service and anniversaries.
3. Appreciate: Peer to peer recognition
What happens when someone is recognised?
Recognition may or may not be linked to a monetary reward. These monetary rewards may be in the form of points. Points can be further used to be redeemed as e-vouchers or other services.
Who are the key stakeholders?
Recognition programs are constructed to ensure that companies can recognise employees for their contributions that are in line with the core value and cultural pillars of the organization. These recognitions are broadly classified as:
1. Nominate: Managers nominating their reports for awards.
2. Celebrate: Recognition for long service and anniversaries.
3. Appreciate: Peer to peer recognition
What happens when someone is recognised?
Recognition may or may not be linked to a monetary reward. These monetary rewards may be in the form of points. Points can be further used to be redeemed as e-vouchers or other services.
Who are the key stakeholders?
Employees
Participants in, and intended beneficiaries of the programs.
Participants in, and intended beneficiaries of the programs.
Clients
Who needs to manage employee programs in the context of their organization for their employees.
Who needs to manage employee programs in the context of their organization for their employees.
Enabling partners
Backoffice representatives who manages and provides support to partners and clients.
Backoffice representatives who manages and provides support to partners and clients.
Market partners
Aggregators and merchants that construct the benefits and rewards programs.
Aggregators and merchants that construct the benefits and rewards programs.
Illustrations from flaticon
Understanding competitor landscape
The assessment was done with top UK Benefits, R&R providers in the market. We spend considerable time in understanding the following:
1. All the features, services and available propositions in the gifting space.
2. Corporate market dynamics, what is the need of the hour and helps employee engagement
3. UI & design guidelines and tone & tonality
1. All the features, services and available propositions in the gifting space.
2. Corporate market dynamics, what is the need of the hour and helps employee engagement
3. UI & design guidelines and tone & tonality
Some of the information that we captured included
1. Positioning Statement
2. Product features
3. Navigation, Aesthetics, Content
4. What customers like and dislike etc..
1. Positioning Statement
2. Product features
3. Navigation, Aesthetics, Content
4. What customers like and dislike etc..
We conducted an extensive feature comparison for all competitors.
Big picture architecture
Simply put the entire project was divided into 3 sub-projects. We designed a user app for the employee persona, a front office system for the Clients and a back-office for Enabling partners
User app
The User app is the platform that delivers the employee experience of participating in employee Recognition and Rewards programs. This platform is pivoted around a Social Feed based engagement model, providing a uniform and cohesive experience across web and app.
My major contribution
Was involved in setting up information architecture of platform working under a plug and play protocol. Lead initial visual explorations for the app and demoed the first version of the designs. Lead efforts to build a component library specifically for the project to help with consistency and scalability.
My major contribution
Was involved in setting up information architecture of platform working under a plug and play protocol. Lead initial visual explorations for the app and demoed the first version of the designs. Lead efforts to build a component library specifically for the project to help with consistency and scalability.
Front office
The front office is a customisable portal which the HR and Admin personas of the client would engage with, to administer and manage Recognition and Rewards programs in their organization.
My major contribution
Owned some part's of the front office. Some of the features I worked on are managing company wide surveys and announcements, onboarding and first time login experience.
My major contribution
Owned some part's of the front office. Some of the features I worked on are managing company wide surveys and announcements, onboarding and first time login experience.
Back office
The Backoffice is a one-stop platform to manage all aspects related to the product - upstream and downstream integrations, partner management, support, etc.
It provides all the required self-serve controls and levers to administer programs and manage relationships effectively.
My major contribution
Owned all design efforts for backoffice. Also, worked with PM's to validate the system architecture for the platform. Our key challenge was to design an all inclusive experience for users with varied backoffice access like managing merchants and products, managing catalogue of products, client management, promotion management, customer support.
It provides all the required self-serve controls and levers to administer programs and manage relationships effectively.
My major contribution
Owned all design efforts for backoffice. Also, worked with PM's to validate the system architecture for the platform. Our key challenge was to design an all inclusive experience for users with varied backoffice access like managing merchants and products, managing catalogue of products, client management, promotion management, customer support.
Testing with end users
The second half of 2020 was crucial since the entire team coordinated with the team to get the app’s prototype tested with real users to see how they interacted with the product and made changes adequately.
Sodexo partnered with Sigma, a Sweden-based agency that performs usability testing, and conducted the usability study in multiple phases. Engaging in the testing activity helped us build a well-designed product both in functionalities and visual architecture.
We scored 82 out of 100 in their system usability test.
Sodexo partnered with Sigma, a Sweden-based agency that performs usability testing, and conducted the usability study in multiple phases. Engaging in the testing activity helped us build a well-designed product both in functionalities and visual architecture.
We scored 82 out of 100 in their system usability test.
Collaborating with engineers
After conceptualisation, we sliced the entire product ecosystem to be released in six phases. Each release covered a minimum requirement of features to be shipped. We included edge cases and other intermediate screens. We also carried out UX reviews, backlog maintenance, smoke testing and blocking pre-prod and prod issues.
For every release, the preparation began one week ahead of the kickoff, where the design team coordinated with the product and engineering teams and finalised the scope of that release.
For every release, the preparation began one week ahead of the kickoff, where the design team coordinated with the product and engineering teams and finalised the scope of that release.
Conclusion
This project was a very interesting challenge to undertake. I was fortunate to be involved in the project from day 1. Going through all stages of the product life cycle and being involved in every aspect of the product not only design helped me expand my skill set and explore my entrepreneurial side. I received a few appreciations along the way. :)
