Total Rewards & Benefits Portal
Research-Driven Strategy Pivot
Project Type → Employee Benefits Portal Redesign
Client → The Heritage Group
Industry → HR Tech, Employee Experience
Stakeholders → HR Business Partners, IT, MarComm
Role → UX & Front-End Lead, Information Architecture
Duration → Multi-phase (2023 – Present)
Overview
BACKGROUND
What began as a gamified concept evolved into a complete overhaul of the benefits portal. I redesigned the experience into a structured, searchable hub consolidating content, fixing navigation, and introducing governance practices that made updates sustainable.
The result: a content-rich portal that saved us $40,000 in printing costs and became our employees go-to resource.
BUSINESS CONTEXT
Underutilized Benefits: The Heritage Group was investing heavily in employee benefits, but many went underutilized. Awareness was low, and employees often struggled to understand what was available to them.
High HR Dependency: The portal functioned more as an HR resource directory than a true employee tool.
MY ROLE
Defining the Direction: Shifted leadership’s focus from gamification to a guidance-driven, content-rich hub aligned with employee needs.
Information Architecture & Governance: Redesigned the IA by merging and restructuring sections, while setting up a content governance intake process with Total Rewards Business Partners.
Front-End Development: Built reusable web components (tabs, collapsibles, interactive cards) in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to overcome CMS constraints.
Searchability: Integrated Bing Custom Search to replace the broken default search and make benefits easily findable.
Cross-Functional Alignment: Partnered with HR, IT, and MarComm to ensure the portal served employees while staying maintainable for stakeholders.
Iteration & Stewardship: Guided the portal’s growth across versions (1 to 10), embedding governance for long-term scalability.
The Messy Middle
This wasn’t a neat design sprint. It was a series of pragmatic moves: working around a rigid CMS, aligning stakeholders across six portals, and building governance as we went. Each step brought the portal closer to what employees needed: a clear, structured, and searchable hub.
Vision Shift through Research
Leadership wanted to use gamification to push wellness benefits. However, in interviews, we heard a different problem. “I didn't know that benefit existed.”
We discovered real issue wasn’t motivation, it was clarity. I proposed that we needed to shift the focus to making benefits easy to find.
Read more: Well-being Speedway
Overcoming CMS Constraints
Replacing the CMS wasn’t an option. The platform only supported rigid, static layouts, which meant the portal risked becoming a dumping ground for PDFs.
I built custom components like collapsibles, and cards using HTML, CSS & Javascript to create interactions the CMS couldn’t support.
Aligning Stakeholders to Simplify Information Architecture
The company was maintaining six different portals across holding companies. Yet 98% of the content was the same.
5/6 had exact same content, but one company needed a variation.
I proposed a gateway page where employees could select their company. That reduced six portals to two.
On the backend, I managed both versions with JavaScript so it was effectively one codebase.
At the same time, I worked with HR stakeholders to replace static PDFs with a structured, category-based layout. For example, we folded the New Hire tab into Benefits and merged Learning into Work Perks.
Restoring Search
Employees needed search, but the CMS didn’t have it. I implemented Bing Custom Search as a quick fix.
Read more here: Making Search Work Under Constraint
Building Governance that Sticks
Before, content updates were scattered. Requests came through emails, chats, or hallway conversations, and no one was sure who owned what. I set up a intake form linked to an Airtable catalog. Every request had an owner, a status, and a history in one place.
Turning FAQs into Change Management
Every major change triggered questions. The Oracle-to-Workday rollout, pay schedule changes, and annual benefits updates all flooded HR with queries. I repositioned the FAQs page as the single source of truth during transitions.