Payroll Ecosystem transformation
Stabilizing the backlog of pay-related issues impacting federal employees
Note: to ensure client confidentiality, some details have been redacted. Please get in touch if you would like to learn more!
Overview
Existing systems have caused thousands of delays and inaccuracies in pay and benefits for the government of Canada. At IBM, I helped design an ecosystem of digital platforms, namely MyGCPay, to address these issues.
Official portal and news release:
1) Design an experience for pay error identification
2) Offer a simple view of HR and pay-related data
3) Consolidate valuable data from legacy systems
I was initially onboarded to improve the pay info dashboard. My role evolved to lead designer and I managed the design direction across other product areas.
Liam Lawlor, Lindsay Reynolds, Julie Bock, Nour Al-Safi, Laila Abou
downstream pay issues
Our research revealed a domino effect: pay issues trickled downstream starting from managers to pay triage agents.
Managers have limited insight into job records. Errors were a result of incomplete information across disparate systems from the manual compilation of contract details and pay data.
Employees and their managers couldn’t see compensation in advance nor track the status of an open pay issue. Employee calls to the help desk overwhelmed staff.
Pay triage agents strenuously navigated pay and HR-related documents, including policies and procedural forms.
Breadth of the solution
Our team took a multifaceted approach to reduce the backlog of pay issues across the following four product areas. I was responsible for overseeing design efforts across multiple pods.
Some heavy-lifting
We tackled the pay issues from a human-centred data perspective. The project scope was initially ambiguous and required groundwork to define the problem space.
Research & Big data
My team applied on-site ethnographic approaches to our research to observe workflows in real-time. We felt that interviews alone would not be sufficient.
Facilitated interviews with Public Services Procurement Canada across 5 departments
Captured on-site field observations within federal work spaces in Ottawa
Conducted 154 contextual inquiries with different user segments
Developed 6 personas representing service workers across the HR-to-pay pipeline
Design and data architecture mapping
Conducted ongoing usability tests and accessibility audits
How was existing data being leveraged? What's missing? What systems were involved?
I identified how employees navigated disconnected systems and adapted workflows with workarounds:
We developed data architecture diagrams to accompany designs
I worked alongside data engineers to develop diagrams that informed requirements for data pipelines and backend systems.
strategy
I developed AI-based workshop activities combining IBM Garage and Enterprise Design Thinking approaches. Our goal was to wrangle differing stakeholder needs and expectations.
Learn more:
Facilitated a 1-day Design Thinking workshop for the Call Client Centre
Facilitated two organization-wide workshops to validate findings and for digital innovation
Identified 26 digital transformation opportunities from 256 unique pain points
Developed a strategy roadmap and service design blueprint
My team held organization-wide workshops that bridged silos
Participants revealed information flows and gaps in interdepartmental relationships. Our workshops ultimately aligned stakeholders on project objectives.
I visualized the upstream solution using a service design blueprint
This work streamlined collaborations between different teams and service lines. Below is an abridged blueprint:
at a glance
Plenty of behind-the-scenes work went into crafting a variety of solutions. Here’s a highlight reel of what we designed from scratch:
Managing multiple paystubs and acting positions
Helping users stay on top of earnings across overlapping acting positions without navigating disparate information sources:
Integrating AI for smarter self-service support
We empowered employees with tools to answer their own questions, and equipped admin staff to more easily navigate complex policies, forms, and processes.
Improved visibility into pay, case, and HR information
By improving transparency around pay, we reduced employee confusion and lowered the volume of payroll-related calls to the support centre:
A SUCCESS STORY
The HR-to-pay digital transformation contributed to ongoing efforts of preventing and resolving pay issues within the public service sector
10-15% reduction in pay issue tickets
30% increase in pay case processing
Successful roll-out to 300,000 federal employees
Additional signing of $5 million contract with PSPC
Repurposed data from a shelved project and turned it into a 0→1 design project
Most importantly, support from users!
Reflection
I found that workshops clarified the extent of misaligned expectations, but also showed the power of structured collaboration. By creating a space for open dialogue, we were able to align on business goals early and build shared momentum around a unified project direction.
