Skip to content
All work

Better HR

Better HR is an HR and payroll platform built in Myanmar and now sold across Southeast and South Asia. I joined as an early member when the product started and designed all of it: the admin web, the employee app for iOS and Android, office check-in and the marketing site. The product still runs on that base; later work has been improvements on top.

Role
Senior Product Designer
Product
HR and payroll SaaS
Platform
Web admin, iOS and Android
Status
Live, expanding across APAC

The original design files are long gone, so every screen on this page is rebuilt in code from memory. They run live, with sample data.

The challenge

Payroll in Myanmar is hard to get right, and most companies wrote their own rules.

  • Every company, its own rules

    Few companies followed the labour law to the letter. Each had its own policy for working days, lateness, overtime and leave, so one fixed system could not fit them.

  • Paper and Excel

    Attendance sheets and leave forms were paper. Payroll lived in Excel and was rebuilt by hand every month, with income tax and social security worked out on the side.

  • People away from a desk

    Delivery riders, field sales and branch staff rarely pass the front office, so signing a sheet at reception did not work for them.

What I designed

Four surfaces, one set of rules underneath.

  • Admin web

    For HR: the day's attendance, leave, employees, payroll, reports and the company's own policy.

  • Employee app

    iOS and Android. Check in, ask for leave, see the team, read the inbox and open payslips.

  • Office check-in

    A shared tablet at the office, so staff without the app can still check in.

  • Marketing site

    The public site that explains the product and books demos, now in each market.

Policy as settings

The rules are settings, not code.

Because every company ran HR its own way, I designed the rules as settings: working days and hours, the grace period before someone is late, which check-in methods count, leave types and balances, and how payroll treats income tax, social security, unpaid leave and lateness. A new company is set up by filling in its policy, not by changing the product.

Check-in

Many ways to check in, one live picture.

One method never fits a whole company. Office staff scan a QR code with the app, field staff check in remotely with GPS, the office can keep a shared tablet, branches can keep their fingerprint machines and import the data, and HR can add a record by hand. Every check-in lands on the same dashboard, with a map of where people checked in.

  • Scan in the appOffice staff scan the office QR code.
  • Remote with GPSField staff check in where the work is.
  • Office tabletA shared tablet for staff without the app.
  • Fingerprint importBranches keep their machines; the data comes in.
  • Manual by HRFor the day a phone dies.

Leave

A leave request is a short conversation.

The employee picks the day and writes a note, in Burmese if they like. The manager replies and approves from their phone, and can see who else on the team is off that day. Nobody re-types anything: the balance, the HR calendar and payroll update on their own.

  1. EmployeeAsks

    Picks the type and the day, sees the balance left, and adds a note.

  2. ManagerDecides

    Gets it in the inbox with who else is off, replies, then approves or rejects.

  3. HRSees it

    The day shows on the leave calendar and in reports. No form to file.

  4. PayrollCounts it

    Paid leave comes off the balance. Unpaid days are deducted by the company's own rule.

Payroll

Payroll ends on the employee's phone.

When HR runs payroll, net pay goes straight to each employee's bank, and a failed transfer is flagged with the reason. The payslip lands in the app. Income tax and social security are shown line by line, so an employee can open the tax, see how it was worked out bracket by bracket, and acknowledge the payslip.

Markets

Built for Myanmar first. The same product now serves companies across Southeast and South Asia.

MyanmarCambodiaVietnamSingaporeThailandPhilippinesIndonesiaSri LankaPakistan

My role

  • Joined as an early member and designed the product from its first version
  • Admin web: dashboard, attendance, leave, employees, payroll, reports and settings
  • Employee app for iOS and Android: check-in, leave, team, inbox and payslips
  • Office check-in on a shared tablet
  • The marketing site
  • The base later releases still build on

Tools

Figma
Previous projectNext project
KDS

Klink Design System

One set of components, any brand color, light and dark

S

Still

Focus and sleep sounds, shaped by brain-wave research