Case Study 2_Agrisource | Nikitabhargava

Case Study

From bottlenecks to agility — Redesigning HR staffing for AAFC

A hiring manager submits a staffing request — and then waits.
Emails start piling up. HR advisors chase missing information. Weeks pass before the request finally moves forward.

This wasn’t a single incident—it was happening across an entire department. At Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), staffing activities were supported by an internal platform called Agrisource, where unclear workflows and scattered information often slowed down hiring actions.

I was the sole UX designer embedded within a multidisciplinary team, brought in to uncover workflow bottlenecks and redesign the Agrisource experience—helping managers and HR teams move through staffing processes faster and with greater clarity.

Details have been anonymized to respect organizational confidentiality.

Role: UX Researcher & Designer

Timeline: 11- 12 months

Tools:

Power BI, Adobe XD, Miro, Microsoft Office Suite etc.

Methods:

• Mixed-method research • Interview • Survey • Wireframing • Information architecture • Sitemapping • Process mapping • Interactive prototyping

• Accessibility`• Agile planning

• Insight synthesis • Thematic coding

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Context

In government organizations, staffing involves multiple approvals and coordination between hiring managers, HR advisors, and administrative teams. At Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), these processes were supported by Agrisource, an internal intranet platform that provided staffing guidance, policies, and process information for managers and HR teams.

Over time, the experience became difficult to navigate. Information was scattered, workflows were unclear, and managers often relied on emails and manual follow-ups to understand the next steps—slowing down staffing actions across the department.

At the same time, the federal government had set a target that most staffing actions should be completed within defined timelines, from when a hiring request is submitted to when it is officially recorded in the HR system. Meeting this expectation required teams to move through the staffing process quickly and with clarity.

Recognizing the gap between expectations and reality, AAFC launched an initiative to improve both the digital experience and the underlying staffing processes.

Revamp the Agrisouce staffing intranet pages

Setting the foundation

When the project began, the goals were clear — but each team member, stakeholder, and decision maker had a slightly different understanding of what success looked like. So before designing anything, I focused on listening

To kick things off, I met with upper management and conducted a listening tour with leadership and stakeholders to understand their expectations, concerns, and vision for the platform.

To further align the team, we collaboratively developed a UX questionnaire to validate assumptions and ensure everyone shared a common understanding of the problem space. I then created a UX project plan and task tracker to organize timelines, responsibilities, and deliverables.

5. Rapid Validation Through Guerrilla Testing

With the core problems clearly defined, I moved quickly from insights to action.

I began with low-fidelity exploration, including sketches, site maps, and early wireframes to define the platform’s information architecture and navigation.

I kept HR experts and technical partners closely in the loop to ensure usability, workflow alignment, and technical feasibility from the start.

When the foundation was right, I evolved the designs into polished mockups and high-fidelity interactive prototypes, focusing on:

Clear step-by-step guidance
Simplified navigation
Accessibility compliance
Consistent content structure

Prototypes were tested with users and iterated based on feedback before being handed off to development

After completing the redesign of the Agrisource staffing pages, I transitioned to Phase 2 of the initiative.

Starting With People, Not Screens

To uncover the root cause with research, I designed a three-part research strategy.

Pre-interview Survey: To understand users and their needs, which helped plan more targeted interview sessions.
One-on-One Interviews: Interviews with key user groups to understand their workflows, challenges, and decision-making processes.
Focus Group: Sessions with subject matter experts to validate technical accuracy and ensure the solution met the needs of both everyday users and specialists.

This mixed-method approach helped capture both individual experiences and collective insights, allowing us to understand how users actually navigated staffing processes.

Next, the project team came together to co-develop survey questions and implement the survey template.

Once responses came in, we collaboratively shifted gears to craft one-on-one interview and focus group questions, ensuring we explored both personal experiences and collective patterns.

Insight Synthesis

After collecting data from surveys and interviews, I led the analysis phase using thematic coding to identify patterns across responses. In collaboration with HR stakeholders, we reviewed recurring insights and grouped related observations into key themes.

The four primary themes defining the current state were:

Process Inefficiencies and Delays
Communication and coordination gaps
Tool and workflow challenges
Training and knowledge gaps
Technology and Tool Limitations

These themes helped uncover underlying challenges and opportunities within the staffing process. Based on these insights, we developed design recommendations aimed at improving clarity, coordination, and efficiency.

To ensure the recommendations could be implemented effectively, I translated them into a structured action plan that prioritized each proposed improvement and defined clear next steps.

The action plan included key elements such as: Theme, Issue, Recommended Action, Target Audience, Expected Outcome, Implementation Timeline, and Accountability.

This structured approach enabled management and the team to:

Determine priorities effectively.
Assign responsibilities to the appropriate teams.
Strategize solutions for the issues identified during the research phase.
This streamlined process facilitated clarity and alignment for addressing critical challenges.

The primary objective of this initiative was to help AAFC move closer to the federal government’s target for completing staffing actions within defined timelines. This meant addressing delays in the staffing process by reducing bottlenecks, improving accountability, and ensuring teams could follow procedures more efficiently.

Project Phases

To achieve this, the project was structured into two phases:

PHASE 1

Revamp the Agrisource Staffing Pages:

To provide managers with centralized, clear, and easy-to-navigate guidance, reducing confusion and minimizing repetitive back-and-forth communication.

PHASE 2

Simplify Staffing Processes:

Review and refine HR procedures for staffing actions to clarify steps, improve transparency, and reduce delays caused by incomplete or missing documentation.

Moving the Needle on Timeliness

The redesign of Agrisource and the process improvement recommendations contributed to meaningful improvements in staffing operations.

Improved HR Timeliness: Reduced the time required to process staffing transactions.
Improved Usability & Navigation: A clearer navigation structure and centralized information reduced confusion and redundant searches.
Greater Process Efficiency: Standardized workflows and clearer guidance reduced delays caused by missing information or incomplete documentation.
Cultural Shift Toward Agility: Teams began adopting more responsive and streamlined approaches to staffing coordination.
Higher Manager Confidence: Managers were able to move staffing requests forward more efficiently, increasing trust in HR support.

My Role in the Transformation

My responsibilities included defining the UX strategy, conducting research, synthesizing insights, designing and validating solutions, and aligning stakeholders across HR, business, and technical teams.

I collaborated closely with:

Business Analysts for research support and process documentation
HR leadership and stakeholders to align with policy and governance
HR Advisors acting as subject-matter experts
Developers and technical teams to ensure feasibility and accessibility
Content Writers to simplify complex HR guidance into clear instructions

I owned the full design lifecycle—from discovery and insight synthesis to prototyping, validation, and accessibility compliance—ensuring the final solution was user-centred, policy-aligned, and technically feasible.

What Tested Me — and What I Learned

Throughout the project, I navigated several constraints—including limited HR domain knowledge, tight timelines, tool limitations, delayed leadership feedback, and being the only UX specialist on the team.

I addressed these challenges by collaborating closely with HR subject-matter experts, adapting tools when needed, maintaining transparent communication with stakeholders, and securing a timeline extension supported by a clear project plan.

This experience strengthened my ability to lead UX work in complex environments. It highlighted the importance of adaptable leadership, clear ownership, and strong cross-functional collaboration. I learned that when teams stay aligned, an agile, feedback-driven approach leads to more effective and impactful solutions.

Process and what I did

While Phase 1 focused on improving the digital experience, Phase 2 addressed operational inefficiencies within staffing workflows.

I began by defining the project scope and objectives with the HR team.

Objective: To enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of our current processes through a systematic approach that involves data collection, analysis, expert feedback, and implementation of targeted improvements.

Next, I mapped the current staffing workflows (process mapping) with the people who live them every day, building a shared understanding of where delays and confusion actually occur.

To gather deeper insights, I designed a survey for subject-matter experts, developed in collaboration with the staffing team so the questions reflected real operational issues.

The survey questions focused on identifying:

Where and why delays most often occur.
Which steps in the process have the longest lead times?
Where double verification of steps could be eliminated.

Once the responses were collected, I led the analysis to identify bottlenecks and improvement opportunities.

My key contributions:

Developed and refined existing staffing process maps
Planned and executed data collection
Designed the survey strategy and questionnaire
Conducted analysis to identify operational bottlenecks

After delivering the insights, my involvement concluded, and the project continued internally with the HR team.