In Nigeria and many emerging markets, companies often struggle to retain and motivate employees beyond basic salary.

Custom perks platforms and enterprise HR tools are often too expensive or complex for small and mid-size businesses.

The opportunity? Build a lightweight, flexible platform for HR teams to reward employees with redeemable points for real-life perks like Uber discounts, shopping vouchers, and more.

As the sole designer, I handled the end-to-end design process from strategy to handoff. My responsibilities included:

• Product visioning with the product owner
• User research (HR + employees)
• Information architecture and flow design
• UI design, prototyping, and dev handoff
• MVP testing and iteration plans

We conducted foundational user research with two key audiences:

1. HR & Admin Teams, who:

• Want low-effort, transparent tools for reward distribution.
• Prefer recurring, automated reward cycles (e.g. monthly stipend).

2. Employees, who:

• Hate vague points systems not linked to real value.
• Want to get discounts on food, transport, and lifestyle perks.
• Get frustrated by complex redemption or long delays.

Core insight:

• Employees only use perks they understand.
• HR only commits to perks they can measure.

After synthesizing research, I collaborated with the PO to define the MVP experience:

For HR/Admins:

• Assign monthly perk points.
• Upload users via CSV.
• Dashboard for monitoring engagement + budget.

For Employees:

• See monthly point balance.
• Browse available perks (transport, food, data bundles, etc.).
• Redeem perks instantly, with real-time confirmation.
• “Perks Expiring Soon” alerts.

We split the build into two UX tracks: HR Portal & Employee Experience.

HR Portal Highlights:

• Perk Point Management: Admins set point budgets per employee (monthly).
• Auto-Distribution: Points sent automatically on chosen day.
• Dashboard: Snapshot of usage, redemption rate, and unused points
• Employee Upload: CSV import.

Employee Perks Experience:

• Clean Wallet UI: Shows current points and Naira equivalent.
• Perk Store: Browse perks by category (Food, Ride, Data, Wellness).
• Instant Redemption: Confirm with one tap, get voucher by email.

We launched a closed beta with 3 Nigerian companies in Q4 2025 (avg. company size: 40 employees). The key results in the first 30 days were:

• 80% employee activation rate.
• 64% of employees redeemed at least 1 perk.

0 to 1 means continuous trade-offs. I had to balance product idealism with business realities (e.g. limited perk catalog early on).

Point systems must feel tangible. Showing Naira equivalents made the platform more trustworthy and reduced confusion.

Small admin wins = high impact. Time-saving features like points automation based on employee level made HR teams willing to adopt.