Client
Global Mobility Group
Team
4 Designers
Focus
Strategy/Service Design
Time
10 months • 2023
01
Context & Challenge
A Global Leader in Infrastructure and Mobility faced a fragmented employee experience due to rapid expansion. The core problem was a critical cultural disconnect between the corporate office and the frontline, compounded by inefficient HR processes that imposed a heavy administrative burden on leadership. The goal was to humanize the connection with thousands of employees while increasing operational efficiency.
02
Discovery & Insights
Approach: We utilized a deep-immersion Service Design methodology, totaling 88 hours of research, including:
Field Research: 20+ hours of on-site immersion at operational bases and terminals.
Qualitative Interviews: 31+ hours of interviews with frontline staff, administrative employees, and executives.
Co-creation: Multi-stakeholder workshops to align business goals with user needs.
Findings:
The Frontline Gap: A perceived "office vs. field" hierarchy led to frontline workers feeling invisible and disconnected from the company’s strategy.
Leadership Overload: Managers spent approximately 70% of their time on bureaucratic tasks, leaving little room for team development.
Informal Communication: The lack of user-friendly tools forced teams to rely on informal apps (like WhatsApp) for critical work communication.
The design team visited the company's infrastructure to understand the daily routines of frontline workers.
03
Definition & Ideation
Personas & Journeys: We developed 8 Employee Personas and mapped end-to-end journey maps to identify friction points in onboarding and daily routines.
Value Generation: Insights were synthesized into 5 Strategic Value Generators:
Empathetic Communication
Development Perspective
Recognized Performance
Adequate Infrastructure
Relevant Training
04
Delivery: Prototyping & Solution
Service Blueprint: We designed a blueprint connecting the visible employee experience (frontstage) to internal HR and IT processes (backstage), prioritizing digital self-service.
Deliverables:
Mobile-First Portal: A centralized platform for time-tracking, paystubs, and internal job openings.
Leader Dashboard: Automation of team scheduling and approvals to give time back to managers.
Self-Service Ecosystem: Chatbots and automated workflows for 24/7 HR support.
Workshop with stakeholders about the employee journey.
05
Outcomes & Lessons
Impact:
Efficiency: Drastic reduction in leadership's manual workload through the automation of administrative routines (e.g., Time Sheets).
Transparency: Democratized access to internal career growth, reducing the perception of favoritism.
Optimization: Lowered the "cost to serve" by migrating standard requests to digital channels.
Reflection: In remote and mobile operations, mobile-first is mandatory, as the smartphone is the only constant link to company culture. The primary lesson learned is that technology should operationalize tasks, but it must never replace the human rituals of leadership; automation and empathy must coexist.
Ideal employee Blueprint