Streamline HR Operations for Remote Teams
Challenges
As Dwarves Foundation grew to over 100 employees, fragmented workflows and manual tasks slowed HR operations and risked employee dissatisfaction.
Solution
I designed Fortress, a centralized platform to streamline HR operations by integrating employee data, project, and clients into one intuitive hub.
Reduced HR routine tasks by 25%
Made employee onboarding seamless
Enabled HR to focus on company growth
Company
Dwarves Foundation
Position
Consultant
Year
Aug – Oct 2019
Market
Vietnam, Internal Tool
Challenges
In 2019, I joined Dwarves Foundation as a Design Consultant to help solve a growing problem. The company was scaling rapidly, with over 100 employees, but its HR and operations workflows weren’t keeping up. Tasks like onboarding new hires, managing employee profiles, and tracking project data were scattered across disconnected tools, causing delays, errors, and inefficiencies.
HR staff spent countless hours juggling systems, fixing errors, and performing repetitive tasks. New hires often felt unsupported, with fragmented processes leaving them lost during their first critical days. These issues risked slowing down the company’s growth and undermining the employee experience.
Solution
To address these challenges, Dwarves Foundation developed Fortress, an internal platform designed to centralize and streamline HR operations.
I started with interviews and observational research with HR managers, operations staff, and executives. The insights were clear: fragmented tools wasted hours, manual processes created errors, and onboarding lacked consistency. But these pain points also presented the opportunities for innovation. Automation could save time, a unified dashboard could simplify navigation, and onboarding could become a structured and supportive experience.
The result was a centralized hub where HR teams could manage employee data, project updates, and onboarding workflows in one place. Automated processes replaced manual busywork, ensuring any new hire had a welcoming onboarding experience. Enhanced employee profiles included career paths and skills tracking, allowing HR to focus on growth and morale instead of data entry.
I created prototypes to test them directly with HR staff. Early designs felt cluttered and overwhelming, so I streamlined the interface to highlight essential tools and simplify navigation. Each decision aimed to make Fortress intuitive, approachable, and a natural fit for existing workflows.
Beyond product design, I created illustrations to make onboarding guides and internal communications more engaging. In two and a half months, the MVP was launched, giving HR the tools they needed.
Impact
Within the first month, Fortress transformed HR workflows. The team reported spending ~25% less time on routine tasks, with all key processes centralized into one efficient system.
Onboarding saw an immediate improvement. Ten new hires joined shortly after launch, and every one of them experienced a seamless process. HR staff described feeling less stressed and more proactive, with tools that allowed them to focus on improving the employee experience.
