My Contributions
- Partnered with Product Management to define and prioritize AI opportunity areas within Oracle Workforce Management through strategy workshops and vision planning exercises
- Collaborated with research to synthesize user insights and identify opportunities where AI could reduce uncertainty, provide proactive guidance and help users make more informed decisions
- Translated research findings into AI opportunity areas, user flows, wireframes, and prototypes that demonstrated how intelligent guidance could reduce uncertainty and improve absence planning
- Presented vision concepts and strategic recommendations to the SVP of Design and senior leadership, receiving strong feedback and influencing future product direction
Problem
Nurses were required to submit absence requests six months to a year in advance through a seniority-based process. Without visibility into staffing coverage, peer absences, or anticipated patient demand, many nurses submitted requests with little confidence that they would be approved. This uncertainty often led to repeated submissions, manual coordination, and frustration during absence planning.
Identifying AI Opportunities in Workforce Management
To better understand the PTO request experience, I mapped the end-to-end employee journey using insights gathered by the research team. The journey revealed that users frequently encountered friction due to fragmented workflows, limited visibility, and uncertainty throughout the request process.
Research Insights
- Employees had to navigate to a separate page to check their PTO balance before returning to submit an absence request
- Vacation requests often needed to be planned and submitted up to six months in advance
- Users lacked visibility into approval criteria or scheduling constraints
- When requests were denied, employees received little context and often resorted to repeatedly submitting alternative dates until a request was approved
These pain points highlighted opportunities to reduce navigation, increase transparency, and provide proactive guidance through AI-assisted experiences.
AI Opportunities Identified
Traditional workflow improvements could reduce navigation, but they could not proactively answer questions, explain approval constraints, or guide users toward viable scheduling decisions. AI created an opportunity to deliver personalized guidance directly within the workflow.
Information Retrieval
Goal: Reduce navigation and time spent searching for information.
Surface PTO balances and policy information directly in the workflow. Eliminate context switching between systems.
Task Completion
Goal: Reduce manual effort and resubmissions.
Guide users through absence requests conversationally. Reduce repetitive trial-and-error submissions by helping users identify viable dates and complete requests more efficiently.
Decision Support
Goal: Increase confidence before submission.
Help employees understand potential scheduling conflicts before submission. Provide context around approval considerations and available alternatives.
Here are the AI opportunities, and here is exactly how each one informed a design concept.
Translating Insights into AI-Powered Experiences
Concept 1: Staffing visibility during selection
AI Opportunity: Information Retrieval
We provide users with an AI-generated summary explaining why their requested vacation dates aren't viable — highlighting factors such as high request volume, forecasted patient demand, low staffing levels, and their time-off history. This transparency ensures nurses understand the constraints behind scheduling decisions and can choose more feasible alternatives.
Concept 2: Approval likelihood forecasting
AI Opportunity: Decision Support
To help nurses avoid submitting blind requests, we integrated an approval forecast that evaluates staffing coverage, peer absences, and patient demand to predict approval likelihood. This visibility empowers nurses to make confident choices and plan time off without uncertainty.
Concept 3: Guided Alternatives
AI Opportunity: Task Completion + Decision Support
We provide guided alternative dates when a request is unlikely to be approved, recommending days with better staffing coverage and lower demand. This helps nurses pivot quickly and select dates that are far more feasible.
Streamlined mobile-first
AI Opportunity: Task Completion
Because nurses often manage their schedules on the move, we designed the flow mobile-first, prioritizing clear staffing insight, easy comparisons, and fast submissions. This gives nurses the flexibility to plan time off wherever they are.
Prototype walkthrough
Interactive prototype walkthrough
Expected Impact
The proposed direction reduces uncertainty throughout the absence planning process by surfacing staffing context, approval considerations, and PTO information directly within the workflow. By helping nurses make informed decisions before submission, the experience aims to decrease resubmissions, reduce managerial overhead, and increase trust in the scheduling process.
Reduced uncertaintyAI surfaces staffing, approval likelihood, and PTO context directly in the workflow
Fewer resubmissionsGuided alternatives help nurses select feasible dates the first time
Leadership alignmentVision presented to SVP of Design, receiving strong feedback and influencing product direction