Reimagining performance management as continuous employee development.

The project aimed to rethink traditional performance reviews by replacing rigid appraisal processes with a more flexible, continuous approach centered around regular 1:1 conversations between managers and employees. Beyond designing the user experience, I expanded and refined product concepts, defined previously unexplored functionality, and applied a new design system to create a cohesive and scalable experience. The result was a platform designed to help managers coach, support, and develop their teams through ongoing dialogue rather than isolated annual reviews.

Product Design / UX Research

2023

Simployer is a Norwegian company specializing in human resource (HR) management solutions and services.

The challenge:

Traditional performance review processes are often highly structured, HR-driven, and conducted only once or twice a year. While they provide valuable documentation, they frequently fail to support continuous employee growth or meaningful conversations between managers and team members. The initial product concept addressed this need but existed only as a medium-fidelity prototype. Many workflows were incomplete, several features had yet to be defined, and the interface lacked a consistent visual language. The challenge was to transform an early concept into a complete product experience that supported everyday people management while remaining simple enough for managers to adopt independently.

Understanding the users:

The platform serves two primary audiences with different responsibilities:

• Managers need an intuitive workspace that helps them prepare meetings, document discussions, follow up on commitments, and support employee development without relying heavily on HR.
  
• HR professionals require a scalable framework that encourages consistent performance conversations across the organization while providing structure without becoming overly prescriptive.
  

The design therefore focused on balancing flexibility with consistency—allowing managers to adapt conversations to individual employees while maintaining an organization-wide development process.

Design principles:

• Encourage continuous dialogue: Rather than positioning performance management as a periodic event, the experience promotes frequent conversations that strengthen collaboration and support long-term employee development.
  
• Empower managers: The platform gives managers the tools, guidance, and flexibility to lead meaningful development discussions independently, reducing administrative overhead and dependence on HR.
  
• Structure without rigidity: Templates, goals, and action points provide helpful guidance while remaining adaptable to different teams, management styles, and organizational needs.
  
• Keep development actionable: Performance conversations become more valuable when they result in clear commitments. Action points, goals, reminders, and follow-ups help ensure discussions translate into measurable progress.
  

The solution:

The redesigned platform brings together the entire performance management journey within a single, unified experience. A personalized dashboard provides managers with an overview of upcoming meetings, outstanding action points, deadlines, and ongoing employee development activities, helping them stay organized and proactive. At the heart of the platform is a flexible meeting builder inspired by modern document editors. Instead of relying on fixed forms, managers can assemble meeting templates using modular content blocks, combining discussion topics, rating questions, action items, and free-form notes into conversations tailored to individual employees and specific situations.

The platform also introduces dedicated areas for meeting management, goal tracking, action points, reusable template libraries, and future reporting capabilities, creating a complete ecosystem for ongoing employee development. To further support managers, an expandable panel provides contextual guidance throughout the process. It offers best practices for preparing meetings, suggestions for meaningful conversations, access to learning resources through the Simployer E-learning platform, and intelligent recommendations that help managers conduct more effective development discussions.

Together, these features transform performance management from an administrative process into an ongoing coaching experience.

Design impact:

The redesigned experience was intended to support a broader cultural shift in how organizations approach employee development:

• Encouraging more frequent and meaningful manager–employee conversations
• Reducing managers’ reliance on HR throughout the performance review process
• Increasing consistency while allowing flexibility across different teams
• Improving follow-up through goals, action points, and reminders
• Establishing a scalable foundation for future analytics and intelligent coaching features