Overview
Lara Technologies: Reference Check
A centralized tool to automate background screening is essential when hiring healthcare workers, however this type of platform is limited in Australian hospitals and healthcare organizations. How could we introduce automation, and accelerate this process?
I led research and design for Lara Technologies reference checking experience for both desktop and mobile platforms.
Role: Product Designer
Team: Product Manager, Content Marketer, Sales Manager, Engineer Lead, Engineer
Timeline: 6 months part-time (including research and design)
Problem
Background screening of health care workers in Australia is primarily a manual process. The current systems are not scalable or standardized, leaving room for miscommunication, lengthy hiring processes, and the potential for error and fraud. Because of this, they are losing valuable candidates, which places pressure on existing staff until the vacant position is filled.
But first, why health care?
A study on our competitors shed light on how background screening tools are not targeted towards specific industries. As a result, this puts more pressure on hiring managers to ensure additional regulations and accreditation standards are met.
This insight led us to our next question. Which industry should we focus on, and why? From here, we focused on Australia's largest employing industries, their expected growth, and how they hire.
Why are hiring managers having a hard time screening?
After understanding Australia’s employing industries, we moved onto generative research. During the initial discovery phase, I conducted 1:1 moderated interviews with 14 people who are involved in hiring processes to evaluate if our hypothesis was accurate. We realized our assumption—that hiring managers in health care were struggling to efficiently and effectively hire new staff — was correct. Validated, we moved onto creating a new iteration, but this time I focused on existing research.
My team was lucky to have access to a wealth of knowledge about HR professionals through the Australian Hospitals and Healthcare Association. After digging through the information provided and our synthesized research, I summarized the key user problems related to hiring within this industry.
“This job has changed. The management role now is just astounding. I work 10 hours a day. I start early and I finish late and I pretty much sit at this desk all day. I can’t think of the last time I really saw a patient…there is no secretarial support, so I’m answering the phone all day…managing pay systems, recruiting systems.”
— Sonya, Ward Manager
Major Insights
By organizing the data through affinity mapping, I was able to identify three main themes. These themes ultimately stemmed from limited or no universal tooling being used to manage the hiring process. This often led to a lack of trust and confusion in the process as hiring staff struggled to communicate to the wider team involved.
Theme 1: Process
When prompted with a clear list of tasks to complete, hiring staff are more willing to complete candidate background checks
Working with manual processes results in miscommunication
Lengthy processing times are putting pressure on existing staff until the vacant position is filled
Theme 2: Communication
When surrounded by others involved in the hiring process, hiring managers are more likely to hire without delays
Nursing staff are stressed about under staffing due to inefficient hiring processes
Managers working alone feel undermined because of an inability to communicate the recruitment outcome to staff
Theme 3: Time Management
Interviewees oversee multiple management tasks as well as ensuring patients receive high quality care
When provided with documentation, staff are more likely to efficiently complete a task
Lack of structure in the process leads to a waste of resources and time
Our goal— more efficiency, more transparency
Success to us meant a growing number of health care organizations using our software to screen candidates, which would not only increase their productivity, but also grow our active user base. For our users, our team’s primary goal was to launch the reference checking feature so hiring staff could easily and quickly learn more about the candidates working habits and history. In addition to that were higher-level goals for the business: ensure Lara is secure and compliant with industry standards, and help users to understand our product.
Exploration and iteration
Initially I explored the different ways a hiring employer could create a reference check: from creating questionnaires, employer requests, candidates providing details and references providing their feedback.
During this iteration, I spent a lot of time working with stakeholders to develop a user-flow and understand their goals and expectations. This involved mind-mapping, brainstorming sessions and conversations with the team.
Early designs
After throwing ideas and flows onto paper during product requirement meetings, I began designing variations in Figma to share with the wider team. I would show the team my designs, then get feedback and go back the drawing board for another iteration.
Unifying reference checks, background checks and candidate details
One of our goals was to clearly display the status of all reference checks requested for a candidate, and to allow screeners to search and filter. However, we needed to think about the entire background check experience to ensure this feature was built to scale. Early on I moved away from one generic status for a candidate and learned the importance of showing a status for each individual check. I explored the idea of focusing on referee information, however it quickly became clear that was not scalable. Ultimately, I had to make two distinct designs for the background checks page —an MVP and post MVP version.
Key takeaways
Revision 1
5 filters in left nav are very useful
Status column is unclear - needs more context
Cannot easily view reference checks requested and their progress
Revision 2
Easy access to full reference check reporting is important
“Reference check status” and “reference status” filters are confusing
Candidate’s email should be visible
Revision 3
Status information key to Screener
Option to view candidate information
Too specific to a reference check
Functionality of document icon is unclear
Revision 4
Candidate info and reference check info can be viewed quickly
Clearly shows all checks requested for a candidate and their status
Status of each check is unclear - add identifier to display status
MVP
(reference checks only)
Post MVP
(multiple background checks with bulk edits)
Hiring staff (screener) viewing a reference check
Above shows the ability to easily view all reference checks. Here, the screener can apply and save filters to quickly review checks.
Clicking on a candidate’s reference check takes you to the referee’s answers where screener’s can track and review progress.
Understanding the candidate and referee user flows
The candidate and referee experience was designed to be mobile first. This decision was based off our initial research that suggested people would be more likely to complete these steps on their phone, rather than a laptop or desktop. Prior to wire-framing and designing, I met with the Product Manager and Engineer Lead to map out the user flows in Miro. Accounting for every state and interaction ensured that any new feature would fit within the new framework engineering were architecting.
Candidate providing two referees
Referee completing a reference
Outcome
This was a very collaborative and exciting project for me to work on as it provides real value and involved a ton of iterative sprints to achieve both the user and business goals for MVP, while planning for future feature launches. Although shifting priorities have delayed the launch of this project, I learned important takeaways related to product and business processes.
Choosing what features we don’t want to launch
There were many features we wanted to complete as part of MVP launch, however we sometimes forgot how costly or unrealistic some were. Along with my team, I had to help determine where the real value was for Lara Technologies so we did not spread ourselves too thin.
Adapting to changing requirements
Although the overall timeline never changed, reprioritization meant the scope of the project was constantly changing. Due to tight deadlines, I had to quickly adapt to those changes while delivering the most suitable design.
Communicate and collaborate from day one
I was fortunate to be working with a team who had decades of start up knowledge between us all. Constant collaboration allowed us to not only fail fast, but also document and achieve certain goals faster than expected.