Shiftsmart Rewards & Policy Program – UX Case Study
What is Shiftsmart?
Shiftsmart is a labor marketplace that connects workers with flexible shift-based jobs, helping businesses scale their workforce efficiently. By leveraging technology, Shiftsmart optimizes labor supply and demand, allowing workers to choose shifts that fit their schedule while ensuring companies have reliable, vetted workers. The platform focuses on empowering workers through better job access, higher wages, and transparent performance tracking.
Overview
In a fast-paced 2-month iteration, our team at Shiftsmart designed and developed the Rewards & Policy Program to improve engagement, reduce churn, and create a transparent system for workers to understand their reliability and performance. This project was executed with one designer (myself), one PM, and several engineers, with the design phase lasting 3-4 weeks.
Problem
Workers at Shiftsmart struggled to understand how their reliability and on-time performance affected their access to shifts and rewards. The lack of transparency led to frustration, unexpected suspensions, and lower engagement. Business-side challenges included high churn, unreliable partners, and a need to incentivize consistent performance.
Key partner issues:
Unclear benefits of being and staying an M1 partner
Confusion around how to achieve levels in the rewards program
Unexpected suspensions without clarity on resolution paths
Key business-side issues:
High churn due to partner dissatisfaction
Slow conversion of partners to higher engagement tiers
Need to balance acquisition vs. partner retention
Solution
Comprehensive, Human-Centered Feedback System
First-Time Experience & Reward Progression
Understanding Reward Tiers: Select & Premium
Shiftsmart introduced two primary reward tiers to recognize and incentivize high-performing partners:
Select Partner: A mid-tier status granting priority shift access and improved earnings potential.
Premium Partner: The highest-tier status with exclusive benefits, early shift access, and premium deals.
The transition between these tiers is based on Reliability Score and On-Time Score, which are the core metrics tracking partner behavior on shifts.
Reliability Score & On-Time Score: Core Business Metrics
Reliability Score tracks consistency, no-shows, and last-minute cancellations.
On-Time Score evaluates punctuality and adherence to scheduled shifts.
These metrics provide real-time performance tracking and preventive education, allowing partners to make informed decisions to improve their standing before facing penalties or suspensions.
The Rewards & Tier Progression System was designed to eliminate the communication gap between what was considered good performance by the platform and what workers assumed was good behavior. Before this system, many strong potential partners were lost due to a lack of feedback clarity and education, while others unknowingly made mistakes (e.g., arriving late) that led to suspensions without a chance to fix their behavior.
The Rewards & Tier Progression System was designed to eliminate the communication gap between what was considered good performance by the platform and what workers assumed was good behavior. Before this system, many strong potential partners were lost due to a lack of feedback clarity and education, while others unknowingly made mistakes (e.g., arriving late) that led to suspensions without a chance to fix their behavior.
Key Improvements:
Clear onboarding guidance on how to become a Premium/Select partner
Real-time feedback loops to show workers their progress and areas for improvement
Performance-based tier progression with clear milestone tracking
Preventive education for workers to understand the impact of lateness, no-shows, and cancellations before penalties occurred
The new system provided a structured path to advancement, ensuring partners knew exactly what actions led to higher-tier benefits and which behaviors could negatively impact their standing.
Omnipresent, Human-Centered Feedback System
To ensure that partners always had clear and constructive feedback, we designed a comprehensive and omnipresent feedback system that provided insights at every phase of their work journey. The goal was to eliminate uncertainty, miscommunication, and guessing about what constituted good performance, ultimately improving retention and worker experience.
Key Features:
Feedback at Every Stage – Partners received updates after each shift, including both positive reinforcement (e.g., reliability improvements) and critical feedback (e.g., late arrivals or missed shifts).
Balancing Encouragement & Accountability – The system provided gentle guidance when possible but delivered strict and explicit warnings when workers were at risk of penalties.
Treating Workers as Partners, Not Subordinates – The UX writing and interface design reinforced the idea that Shiftsmart was working with partners to improve their performance rather than simply enforcing rules.
Preventive Warnings – Before a worker faced suspension, they received clear notifications about what needed improvement, giving them a fair chance to correct behavior before penalties were applied.
By ensuring transparency and education at every step, the system helped workers feel supported and reduced unnecessary suspensions, keeping valuable partners engaged while maintaining operational efficiency.
Comprehensive, Human-Centered Feedback System
A Deeper Look into the Suspension System
The suspension system in Shiftsmart was designed to bring clarity and transparency to policy enforcement while ensuring that partners have a structured way to recover from suspensions. Previously, workers faced sudden suspensions without a clear understanding of why they were penalized or how they could rectify their status. Our new system addressed these concerns through several key improvements:
Clear Notifications: Workers receive timely push notifications and in-app alerts about their suspension, including the exact reason and company affected.
Violation Breakdown: The system provides a detailed explanation of the infraction, helping workers understand the specific policy they violated.
Guided Recovery Steps: Instead of leaving workers in the dark, we introduced a step-by-step recovery flow, allowing suspended workers to complete specific actions (e.g., attending additional shifts, improving reliability scores) to regain access.
Permanent vs. Temporary Suspensions: To differentiate between minor infractions and serious breaches, we established graded suspension levels, allowing for graduated enforcement measures based on policy severity.
Automated Decision Making: The system automatically flags violations and enforces penalties based on predefined policy rules, ensuring fair and consistent enforcement across the platform.
This improved suspension & recovery process significantly reduced confusion among workers, leading to fewer support tickets and improved policy compliance.
A key challenge was ensuring partners who faced suspensions understood the next steps to recover. Our solution:
Automated suspension prompts explaining violations and recovery paths
Step-by-step guidance on fulfilling requirements to regain access
Notification flows to inform users before, during, and after a suspension event
Design & Development Process
UX Discovery & Research
Analyzed user feedback and support tickets to identify pain points
Studied existing policy gaps leading to partner frustration
Solution Design & Wireframing
Created low-fidelity wireframes to visualize core user journeys
Mapped out key flows: reward eligibility, suspension handling, and reactivation
Hi-Fi Design & Prototyping
Designed intuitive UI screens with a mobile-first approach
Built interactive prototypes to test the clarity of messaging
Engineering Collaboration & Iteration
Worked closely with developers to ensure feasibility and smooth handoff
Conducted rapid design iterations based on PM and engineer feedback
Challenges & Trade-offs
Speed vs. Depth: Given the aggressive timeline, we prioritized core flows and phased out secondary improvements for later iterations.
User Education: Communicating policy changes clearly without overwhelming users was a key challenge, solved through progressive disclosure UX patterns.
Balancing Business & User Needs: The system needed to retain workers while enforcing policies, requiring data-driven decisions on penalty thresholds.
Impact & Results
✅ Increased partner engagement by making eligibility for shifts and rewards more transparent
✅ Reduced churn by introducing clear recovery paths for suspended workers
✅ Improved understanding of reliability scoring, reducing support ticket volume
✅ Enhanced compliance by automating suspension and reactivation flows
Learnings & Next Steps
Iterated on score visualization to make improvements even more actionable
A/B tested messaging strategies to optimize compliance and engagement
Enhance automation for policy enforcement and user education flows
This project was done in spirit of fast, iterative design in a cross-functional team and the importance of clarity in policy-driven UX. The final solution not only improved worker retention but also streamlined enforcement of reliability standards, balancing both business and user needs effectively.
