Designing a role-based internal hiring workflow that reduced approval cycle time and improved traceability across departments
Summary
Request to Hire (RTH) is an internal platform built to streamline the end-to-end hiring request process at Evoke. Before RTH, hiring requests were managed through spreadsheets, email threads, and manual approvals, resulting in limited visibility, frequent rework, and heavy dependency on HR to chase progress across stakeholders.
I led UX and UI from discovery to deployment, designing a centralized, role-based workflow that routes requests through HR, Finance, PMO, Rewards, and the Talent Committee. The product focused on time-to-market: reducing bottlenecks in approvals while ensuring policy compliance and full traceability for every request.
Timeline: 2025 — ~5 months (discovery to deployment)
Context
Hiring requests involve multiple roles, approval levels, and policy constraints. The process must be reliable under volume, consistent across hiring types (permanent, consultant, project-based, replacements), and auditable for accountability and governance. The system also needed to integrate with SSO and Active Directory hierarchy to automate assignment and routing.
My Role
Lead UX/UI Designer working primarily with Business stakeholders and cross-functional operations teams (HR, Finance, PMO, Rewards, Talent Committee), partnering closely with Engineering throughout implementation.
Tools: Figma, Miro, OutSystems
The problem
The prior process created operational friction and avoidable delays:
- Low visibility into request status and ownership
- Frequent misrouting or incomplete submissions due to inconsistent formats
- Manual rework across departments and duplicated data entry
- High dependency on HR to follow up and coordinate approvals
- Limited auditability and weak action history across the lifecycle
Goals
- Digitize and standardize the hiring request workflow end-to-end
- Reduce approval bottlenecks across departments and shorten cycle time
- Make status, ownership, and next actions explicit for every stakeholder
- Ensure traceability and policy compliance through structured steps and logs
- Build a modular workflow that supports multiple hiring types and future extensions
- Automate routing via SSO + Active Directory hierarchy to reduce manual coordination
Constraints and approach
The solution had to be implementable within OutSystems and align with enterprise identity and approval structures. The approach was to redesign the workflow around role responsibility and state progression, prioritizing the product changes that would reduce cycle time immediately while improving governance.
Key product decisions:
- Use role-specific dashboards to reduce noise and clarify responsibility
- Replace open-ended email approvals with structured actions, states, and history
- Use conditional forms to prevent incomplete submissions and reduce rework
- Automate approver assignment using Active Directory hierarchy and fallback rules
- Treat traceability as a core feature, not an administrative add-on
Key improvements (iteration highlights)
1) Role-based workflow engine
Each role only sees what is required to act, reducing clutter and delays:
- Clear ownership and status at each step
- Separate views for “Pending my action,” “Submitted by me,” and “Completed / Rejected”
- Consistent action patterns (approve, request changes, reject) with recorded rationale
2) Smart forms with conditional logic
The request creation experience was designed to reduce errors and rework:
- Multi-step forms with conditional sections based on request type
- Required-field logic and validations aligned with policy
- Reduced cognitive load by hiding irrelevant fields per role and scenario
3) Transparent progress and request history
To eliminate status ambiguity and “follow-up loops”:
- Visual progress indicators across approval stages
- Action history showing what happened, when, and by whom
- Clear feedback on rejections and required changes to move forward
4) Automated routing via SSO + Active Directory
Approvals were routed automatically to reduce manual coordination:
- Auto-assignment of approvers based on AD hierarchy
- Fallback approvers and defined rejection loops
- Reduced reliance on HR to manually track and push requests through the chain
UI Design and Delivery
- Designed 11+ screens including dashboards, multi-step forms, modals, and decision views
- Established a Figma component set tailored for internal operational tools (cards, tags, tokens, form fields, validation feedback, notifications)
- Designed for high legibility, keyboard navigability, and clear error handling aligned to WCAG practices
- Produced exportable tracking views for reporting and operational review
Usability Testing and Iteration
I conducted 8 usability sessions with participants from HR, Finance, and PMO to validate:
- Clarity of request creation and conditional form logic
- Transparency of approvals and status in dashboards
- Confidence in taking actions and understanding consequences
Key changes driven by testing:
- Simplified approval routing representation and reduced perceived complexity
- Added stronger progress indicators and clearer request history logs
- Further reduced cognitive load by tightening field visibility by role and scenario
Implementation and Handoff
I supported build and rollout closely with engineering:
- Delivered annotated Figma files for OutSystems implementation, including states and validation logic
- Partnered on form validation rules and SSO integration details
- Participated in QA rounds to verify business rules (fallback approvers, rejection loops, state handling)
- Ensured error states and edge cases matched design intent
Approved layout
Final workflow layout and screens designed by me, reviewed and approved with HR and cross-department stakeholders.
Outcomes
- ~60% reduction in total approval time
- Full traceability across departments with clear ownership and action history
- Near-zero support tickets post-launch
- RTH framework reused by HR to support additional workflows (promotions, transfers)
- Seamless identity handling and routing enabled by full SSO + AD integration
What this demonstrates
- Product-led operational UX focused on cycle time and governance
- Ability to translate policy and org structure into clear workflow states and role-based design
- End-to-end delivery within platform constraints and enterprise identity systems
- Designing for scale: modular forms, reusable patterns, and extensible workflow framework
Next steps
Continue refining validation and edge case handling as org structures evolve
Expand coverage to additional people-operations workflows using the same framework
Improve reporting and analytics for bottleneck detection and SLA management
Add configuration options for new approval chains without redesigning core flows