Transforming fragmented payroll into a unified, global system
Payroll teams were operating in a highly fragmented environment, with much of the work required to complete a pay run occurring outside the payroll product. Client communication relied on email, file sharing, and phone calls. Approvals lived in disconnected tools.
Data arrived in inconsistent formats and required several manual reviews from payroll specialists before it could even be entered into the system. The software supported only a small portion of the payroll lifecycle. Critical tasks were scattered across the interface, making workflows difficult to learn, hard to remember, and slow to execute.
I led the design strategy to define a modern global payroll experience that would bring structure, clarity, and operational reliability to one of the most complex workflows in enterprise software.
Fragmented workflows across the payroll lifecycle
Payroll practitioners were operating in a highly fragmented environment where much of the work required to complete a pay run occurred outside the payroll system. Client communication relied heavily on email, file sharing, and phone calls. Approvals were handled in separate tools, creating delays and limited visibility into payroll progress. Data collection was another major challenge.
Payroll teams received information from clients in a wide range of formats, including spreadsheets, attachments, and system exports. Each submission required manual review and formatting before the data could even be entered into the system. The product itself supported only a small portion of the payroll lifecycle. Most operational coordination happened outside the platform, meaning the software accounted for only a fraction of the work required to complete a payroll run.
Within the product, tasks were scattered across the interface, with little guidance on which steps to take next. This made workflows difficult for new users to learn and for experienced practitioners to remember. The result was a long and error-prone payroll process that required constant manual coordination.
Creating a unified global payroll experience
The vision was to transform payroll from a fragmented, tool-heavy process into a unified product experience that supports the full payroll lifecycle.
Rather than relying on email, spreadsheets, and disconnected tools, the goal was to design a platform where communication, data collection, validation, and approvals could happen directly within the system. By introducing structured workflows, clear process guidance, and standardized data intake, the platform would enable payroll teams to execute pay runs more efficiently while reducing errors and operational friction. This work aimed to expand the role of the payroll product from a calculation engine into an operational workspace that supports the broader payroll process.
To move toward this vision, I organized and facilitated design thinking workshops that brought together engineers, architects, product managers, QA, solution designers, UX designers, and global stakeholders. These sessions aligned the team on user needs, operational pain points, and the platform's long-term direction.
The process followed three key phases.
Empathize
We analyzed usability findings and customer feedback to better understand practitioner workflows and the operational challenges teams faced during payroll runs.
Define
I mapped the end-to-end payroll lifecycle and created process flows and user journeys that revealed where work moved outside the system and where the platform needed to provide stronger support.
Design Direction
These insights informed a new UX strategy focused on:
centralized communication between clients and practitioners
structured workflows aligned with payroll cycles
standardized data intake across multiple formats
embedded validation and approval checkpoints
Together, these principles established the foundation for a scalable global payroll platform capable of supporting a larger portion of the payroll lifecycle within the product.
Establishing the foundation for a modern global payroll platform
Although the full platform redesign was not completed during this phase, the work established a clear experience strategy for how global payroll should operate within the product.
Mapping the end-to-end payroll lifecycle helped the team understand where operational work was occurring outside the system and where the product needed to provide stronger support. These insights aligned multiple teams around a shared understanding of payroll workflows and the complexity of global payroll operations.
The design work produced:
A unified view of the payroll lifecycle across HR, payroll, and finance teams
Process flows and journey maps that helped four Scrum teams located in the UK (Dublin, Newcastle, and Reading) and the US understand how payroll work moves through the system
Foundational UX principles for communication, approvals, and data intake within the product
A clearer experience direction for supporting global payroll workflows at scale
By shifting the focus from isolated screens to the full payroll lifecycle, the project helped reframe payroll from a calculation tool into a platform capable of supporting the operational complexity of global payroll. This work created a strategic foundation that informed future product discussions and helped the organization move toward a more structured and scalable payroll experience.
