How One Company Saved $1.5M by Putting Employees First in HR Support
The $1.5 million magic of treating employees like humans, not tickets
Summary
Fragmented HR support system
Unified platform, saving $1.5 million
Improving employee experience
Intuitive self-service
When I first heard about a Fortune 10 Organization's HR support challenges, the numbers stood out. Thirty-one thousand employees in the US and Canada were struggling to navigate a fragmented ecosystem. Support costs hit $500,000 and satisfaction scores were declining. As someone who has spent years analyzing digital transformation projects, I recognized the symptoms of "system sprawl," when well-intentioned organizational structures create unintentional barriers to the people they aim to serve.
The Frustration of Fragmentation
"How do we create an experience where when you interact with the new Hub, you leave feeling better or that value was added?"
This question from a Pharmaceutical Distributor’s Director of HR Operations captured the essence of the challenge. It wasn’t just about fixing a broken system; it was about transforming an experience.
The existing HR support landscape was a mess. Employees wanted to self-serve but found themselves lost in resources. The search functionality was inadequate, and the HR terminology was confusing. Terms like "Talent Review Process," "Organizational Design," and "Workforce Reporting & Analytics" created barriers between employees and the help they needed.
The support call data revealed that the highest volume of inquiries focused on:
- Payroll issues (not managed by HR)
- System navigation issues and password resets
- Time and attendance inquiries
- Leadership coaching situations
What struck me most was how these pain points crossed hierarchical boundaries. Frontline workers couldn't find basic information about their paychecks, while people leaders were uncertain whether to use the People Leader Hub, People Leader Support, or HR Support for their questions. The system wasn't effective for anyone.
Designing for People, Not Processes
The Vice President of Employee Care summed up the urgency.
"The faster we can get it out there, the better."
But speed couldn't sacrifice quality. The team needed to balance rapid deployment with meaningful improvement.
What followed was a masterclass in human-centered design. The team conducted task interviews, workshops, and evaluations to develop detailed personas and map user flows instead of assuming employee needs. This evidence-driven approach included surveys, usability testing, heuristic evaluation of the existing site, and card sorting exercises to restructure information.
Many organizations skip the critical research phase to implement solutions, but their investment in understanding the human experience paid off. They identified critical friction points that no technical optimization could resolve by mapping the actual journeys employees took for HR support.
From Fragmentation to Unification
The solution was to unify HR Support and People Leader content into a single platform prioritizing self-service and clarity across regions. This was not just a technical consolidation but a rethinking of employee interaction with HR resources.
What impresses me most about this approach is how it addressed immediate pain points and long-term scalability. The team didn't just fix the current problems; they established reusable templates and validated designs through usability testing to ensure the solution would grow with the organization.
An innovative element was the creation of a standardized termination checklist template for global use. Anyone who has been through an offboarding process knows how inconsistent and chaotic these experiences can be. By creating a scalable solution, McKesson ensured that employees would be treated with respect during their exit.
How fixing HR's digital maze turned frustration into $1.5 million
The Results Are Clear
The metrics tell a compelling story.
Support center awareness increased tenfold, usage rose 26%, and cost savings have reached $1.5 million to date. Numbers provide part of the narrative. The Senior Director of HR Operations said the team
"changed the game for our internal employees seeking assistance." This wasn't just about efficiency gains or cost savings; it was about transforming the employee experience with HR support.
Lessons for the Digital Workplace
This transformation is relevant because it addresses challenges that nearly every large organization faces today. As workplaces become more digital and distributed, the human experience gets lost. Systems proliferate, terminology becomes specialized, and tools designed to help employees become obstacles.
This case shows that technical solutions alone aren't enough. True transformation requires deep empathy for the human experience, rigorous research to understand usage patterns, and the willingness to simplify complex systems.
In my years analyzing digital transformation initiatives, I have rarely seen an organization tackle both the technical and human elements so effectively. We created a model that others can adopt by combining multiple sites into a cohesive HR Support Hub, improving onboarding and offboarding processes, and reducing support tickets.
The most powerful insight from this transformation is that everyone benefits when design systems around how people actually work instead of how you think they should. Employees get needed support, HR can focus on high-value activities instead of routine questions, and the organization saves millions in support costs.
This human-centered system design approach is essential for creating workplaces where technology enhances the human experience rather than hinders it, as we navigate complex digital environments.
