Manager Hub: From Concept to Launch

Project Overview

ServiceNow created Manager Hub to address a critical gap in HR technology: while employees had self-service tools, managers lacked a centralized workspace to view and manage their teams, particularly in hybrid and distributed environments.

Managers needed visibility into:

• Team presence (in office, remote, traveling)

• Time zones for scheduling meetings

• PTO, holidays, and leave

• Employee journeys (onboarding, offboarding, promotions, transfers)

• Profile information and task requests

I was involved from the beginning, shaping the product vision and driving design from concept through the first two releases, ensuring the product addressed real-world manager challenges.

Problem Statement

Managers struggled to get a comprehensive view of their teams in one place, especially when teams were distributed across different locations and time zones. Specific challenges included:

• Tracking who was on PTO, holiday, or leave

• Coordinating across time zones

• Understanding which employees were in the middle of a journey or transition

• Accessing critical profile information and employee presence

• Prioritizing tasks and requests without missing important actions

These gaps caused inefficiencies, missed signals, and reduced manager ability to support employees effectively.

Business Goals

• Differentiate ServiceNow HRSD with a manager-focused product

• Improve manager effectiveness and employee engagement

• Provide a single destination for managers to see team insights, manage requests, and access leadership resources

• Create a scalable foundation for future HRSD products

Design Goals

• Build a manager-first experience tailored to leadership needs

• Deliver a clear overview of team insights and prioritized tasks

• Provide access to employee journeys (onboarding, offboarding, transfers)

• Surface dynamic content and leadership resources

• Ensure mobile access via Now Mobile

Discovery Process

• Manager Perspective: Leveraged my own experience managing distributed teams to highlight pain points and validate scenarios

• Workshops & Storyboarding: Facilitated cross-functional workshops and storyboarded scenarios for team visibility, lifecycle events, and prioritization needs

• Early Wireframes: Created concept sketches and low-fidelity wireframes to consolidate critical team information into a single dashboard

• Scenario Mapping: Mapped workflows for distributed teams to identify priority tasks, approvals, and employee journey actions

• Customer Validation & Reviews: Tested prototypes with managers to ensure key information was visible and actionable; iterated based on feedback

• Design Direction: Guided two designers in executing the UI, reviewing deliverables for consistency and alignment with the Now Design System

Outcomes

• Delivered the first-ever Manager Hub in HRSD across two major releases

• Managers could find critical team insights in under 30 seconds (vs. minutes in legacy tools)

• Established reusable patterns for dashboards, task prioritization, and employee journeys

• Strengthened HRSD’s positioning as a platform for managers and employees

Key Leadership Insights

• Ground-up design requires hands-on involvement and vision — early storyboarding and wireframes aligned stakeholders around real manager needs

• Empathy matters: Experiencing distributed team challenges firsthand informed design decisions and feature prioritization

• Managing designers while staying hands-on allows you to scale impact without losing touch with critical product problems

• Information hierarchy is key: Managers need critical insights surfaced clearly to act efficiently