SaaS / Leave Management launch

The challenge

Remove the Leave Specialist.
Keep the expertise.

Tilt historically managed leave on behalf of its customers. Internal Leave Specialists interpreted dates, benefits, documentation, and downstream consequences—and knew what needed to happen next.

With the new SaaS offering, HR teams would manage leaves themselves. Exposing more controls wouldn’t give them years of specialist knowledge. The product needed to take on more responsibility.

How might we give HR everything they need to manage a leave without requiring them to understand everything Tilt knows about leave?

My role

Designing the workspace
at the center of the new model.

As Product Design Manager, I led experience strategy while remaining hands-on in key parts of the design. I partnered with Product, Engineering, Leave Services, and Design to translate operational knowledge into an experience HR could confidently operate.

My contribution included systems thinking, cross-feature alignment, design reviews, identifying dependencies and downstream UX impacts, and testing and iteration.

The approach

Give HR control without
transferring the complexity.

More information doesn’t automatically create clarity. Four questions helped shape the workspace: what does HR need to know, what do they need to do, what can Tilt handle, and what should Tilt recommend?

One place to understand—and act on—the state of a leave.

The Leave Management Screen brings core information and actions into a centralized workspace. It helps HR understand what’s happening, what needs attention, what Tilt has handled, and what a change might affect.

Don’t make HR reconstruct the leave.

A leave isn’t a collection of independent fields. Dates influence benefits; benefits influence requirements; requirements shape tasks and documents. Working schedules add another dependency. Those relationships need to be understandable without HR mentally assembling them.

Changes have consequences.

Changing leave dates may affect coverage, duration, requirements, schedules, automation, and employee-facing information. An Edit button alone isn’t enough: Tilt needs to recognize the impact, handle connected changes where possible, and involve HR when judgment is required.

Guidance without taking away control.

Autonomy shouldn’t leave HR alone to recognize every edge case. Where Tilt has context to identify an issue or recommend a next step, the experience can surface that knowledge directly: Tilt provides intelligence; HR remains in control.

Give HR room to work before changes become real.

The Publish model gives HR an opportunity to review the state of the leave after making adjustments. The design intent is to help people understand changes before publishing, rather than treat every edit as an isolated action.

The outcome

From operator to decision-maker.

The goal was to determine which parts of leave management shouldn’t require a person—and where human judgment still matters.

Bringing information, actions, automation, recommendations, and downstream context into one management experience shifts HR’s role toward informed decisions. HR takes ownership of the leave while Tilt carries more of the underlying complexity.

The product doesn’t ask HR to become a Leave Specialist. It gives HR the confidence to manage leave without one.