Paycom
Overview
Managers were manually reviewing 65M+ timecard correction requests (TCRs) every year, delaying approvals and creating payroll bottlenecks. I designed a dashboard and decisioning tool that let clients automate approvals and denials using custom rule logic.
Impact
Automation eliminated the friction of manual timecard decisions, with careful attention to transparency, control, and fairness. Accuracy improved too, cutting pay disputes and retroactive corrections.
Beyond the quantitative results, the feedback revealed something important: users valued having control over the automation.
“It’s like I trained the system to think like me.”
“We trust it more because we built the logic ourselves.”
Problem
Imagine an employee who forgets to clock out after a shift.
They submit a timecard correction request. It's a routine issue, but the request enters the same approval process as more complicated cases.
Their manager is managing schedules, staffing, and daily operations. The request sits in a queue.
By the time it's reviewed, the payroll processing window may have passed.
What started as a simple time correction can now require additional payroll adjustments, administrative work, and potentially a delayed or incorrect paycheck.
At the scale of 60 million decisions annually, this isn't just an inconvenience. It's a systemic operational challenge.
The existing experience
The core issue wasn't that managers were making bad decisions.
It was that the system treated every decision as if it required the same level of human attention.
Research
To design automation that people would actually trust, we needed to go beyond business logic, we had to understand human logic.
HR admin
NeedsTranslate organizational policies into consistent, enforceable rules.
Asks“How do I know the system is making the right decisions?”
HR admin
Design opportunityGive administrators control over automation criteria, exceptions, and policy changes.
Manager
NeedsResolve exceptions quickly without reviewing every routine request.
Asks“What actually needs my attention today?”
Manager
Design opportunitySeparate automated decisions from pending actions and surface urgent exceptions.
Employee
NeedsAn easy way to correct time entries and know whether the issue has been resolved.
Asks“Will my correction be reflected in my pay?”
Employee
Design opportunityMake submission effortless and request status transparent.
How might we automate routine timecard corrections without sacrificing policy control, decision transparency, or employee trust?
Solution
The proposed solution connects the employee's attendance record, manager approval, and HR's payroll review in one transparent workflow.
The important design decision was to avoid automating every approval blindly. The system should validate requests and escalate discrepancies while preserving configurable approval policies, employee protections, and payroll compliance.
1. HR admin experience
This multi-step flow is where HR admins configure the core logic behind how timecard correction requests are auto-approved or denied.
This is where HR admins add and manage rules that automatically approve timecard correction requests, check which employees each rule covers, and identify overlapping rules or gaps in employee coverage.
2. Manager experience
The new dashboard provides a real-time, unified view of all TCRs—auto-approved, manually reviewed, and flagged exceptions.
The Manager on the Go app gives managers instant access to timecard correction requests—both pending and completed—with just enough context to take action confidently if needed.
Also, for flagged or ambiguous cases, the system routes requests to managers with context-rich decision support.
3. Employee experience
This is where employees track, review, and manage all their submitted timecard correction requests.
The employee experience for submitting timecard correction requests, designed to reduce confusion, increase transparency, and guide users toward successful submissions.
Trade-offs
Trade-off 1
Automating more decisions could reduce manual effort, but overly broad rules might create compliance or payroll risks.
The design approach
Give HR administrators explicit eligibility conditions, exception handling, and visibility into automated outcomes.
Trade-off 2
Managers needed to understand automated decisions without being distracted by hundreds of requests that required no action.
The design approach
Make pending exceptions the primary focus while keeping automated decisions accessible for oversight.
Trade-off 3
HR policies can include thresholds, eligibility criteria, organizational differences, and edge cases.
The design approach
Progressive disclosure—keep common configuration tasks simple, while allowing access to advanced conditions when necessary.
Reflection
Automation in HR software isn't about replacing people, it's about scaling their best decisions.