About This Post

This post is about a decade-old manual paper time card process in the construction industry and how Rhumbix solved the problem and benefited multiple stakeholders by taking Design Thinking approach.

Construction Industry

If you happen to attend the one of the largest trade shows ConExpo this year, you might be amazed by the emerging advanced technology in the construction industry. The powered exoskeleton that we have seen in the Si-Fi movies is available on the market now. Today, the technology is out there, but the construction industry is still underserved and overlooked. A classic example is the paper time care. 

What's wrong with paper? It just wastes operation cost and loses the productivity insight, not to mention the trees we cut down. Our study found: 

• A foreman on the job site spends average 30+ minutes per day on filling in paper time card or typing in Excel after the work shift.

• Depending on the project size, more than one project accountant need to spend 1-2 full days per week manually typing recorded hours into the accounting system.

• A payroll admin very often needs to call foremen to figure out why certain crew members didn't work eight hours a day to prevent underpayment lawsuits.

While this process is an important routine to ensure fair pay, it is a painful one for all those involved. The accounting and payroll systems are not built to communicate to each other. To make matters worse, a project manager may only realize the actual work has blown the budget 2-8 weeks later.

Furthermore, the use cases in the industry are complex. Depending on the trades, union regulation, and company preference, the time card could be set up as daily or weekly, per crew or worker, and requiring a daily or weekly signature or not. There is no standard. 

Rhumbix

This is the problem that we try to solve. The challenge of design is not only to create a simple entry model but also to be flexible for all different use cases. We digitize timekeeping and relative functions as a mobile app for foremen to use on the job site. The captured data is presented on a web app so that:

• Project managers can approve and see productivity analysis,

• Payroll admins can review absence notes and process payment through system integration, and

• Accountants can save manual effort and have accurate numbers.

We eliminate the manual process across users and bridge the gap between field and office.

The field data is valuable to reveal productivity insights. For any analytics, the first step is collecting the right data. The core factors in timekeeping are about:

1. Workers,

2. Cost Codes (In this context, cost codes are specific types of work being done on a project. Learn more about cost code here.), and

3. Hours.

Note: There are other factors such as equipment, materials, quantity reporting, and low-tier sub-contractors, etc. To simplify the post, I will cover those in separate topics. 

Let's take a look at the timekeeping mobile app. 

Design

Identify the Problem

When I joined Rhumbix on early 2016, we already had basic timekeeping mobile app. Here is a high-level workflow in the app:

Depending on the crew size and working cost code amount, the steps in the workflow could be different. In an average 8-person crew with 4 working cost codes, a foreman may need to go through 22 steps and tap screen 109 times to submit a digital time card.

The following table is the detailed steps and taps:

Regarding this decade-old paper process in the industry, this didn't really solve the problem. We were not satisfied with this user experience. There were couple issues we noticed in user interviews and observations:

• First, this was not how a foreman typically thinks of a time card. The intention behind the workflow was the real-time cost coding — A foreman clock the workers in and out whenever performing different jobs. We thought this would help measure the performance. However, a foreman usually focuses on the tasks to get the job done and only work on the time card at the end of the day.

• Second, real-time cost coding required extra adjusting step before submitting crew hour. Payroll convention in the industry has the round rule — 15 mins as one unit. A foreman needed to round the irregular time. This apparently was an extra effort.

• Third, the linear workflow may not fit in all customer's processes. Construction is a very complicated industry due to a wide range of variety, such as weather, working condition, trades, union rules, etc. Some companies perform almost the same jobs from project to project. This workflow forced users to repeat the unnecessary steps every day.

Not only the above external usability issues, but this workflow also caused internal developing inefficiency. In order to resume users back to when they left from the app, the system needed to divide multiple "states" to remember where they were. This naturally caused more bugs in different states and increased tech debts when adding new features. The developing process was getting longer. 

Here we defined the problem:

The problem we were trying to solve was reducing the time and efforts on the timekeeping and payroll processes for customers and increasing the product developing efficiency. 

Re-frame the Opportunity

Let's step back to think about user's mental model. In traditional paper time card, a foreman is filling in the blanks —

Who (worker) works on which task (cost code) for a particular time (hour).

It is about people, not a timer of tasks. 

Changing behavior is challenging. Though the foremen are not the buyers, their satisfaction plays a significant role in the purchase decision-making process. We kept hearing complaints about this real-time cost coding and it eventually became a deal breaker in the customer journey.

Here we re-framed the opportunity:

The problem we were trying to solve was reducing the time and efforts on the timekeeping and payroll processes for customers and increasing the product developing efficiency by designing a mobile app that matches foremen's mental model but also fits in different companies' use cases.

Ideation

The dynamic respond to the market is one of the advantages of a startup. The downside is the crucial restricted resource. We decided to change but needed to be in minimum scope. 

The first thing we did was the workflow auditing and heat mapping — how users went through and where were the pain points. The real-time cost coding in the linear workflow was the heat. We needed to create some interactions matching to users' mental model. 

We invited multiple discipline teams including project management, customer success, construction professionals, and engineering to a brainstorming session. The design team proposed two new workflows on a whiteboard to trigger conversations. The team shared ideas and discussed all possibilities. We kept generating sticky notes, moved them around, and finally nailed down a workflow with the balance between proper user experience and engineering efficiency. 

The new workflow also covered the implementation plan — the minimum viable product (MVP), v1.1, and beyond, with the estimated story points on engineering. This is a common challenge and realistic approach in the startup world.

Validation

The design team we made lo-fidelity mockups and validated internally and externally:

• Presenting in a regular Product/Design Showcase to all hands, receiving critiques and suggestions, and

• Sharing with major customers to collect feedbacks.

The feedbacks were positive! Besides, we also gained some ideas beyond the timekeeping. 

Delivery

Here are the major changes:

I. Simplified Workflow

• Removed real-time cost coding

• Flexible workflow, allowing to navigate back and forth.

• Reduced the "state" in the app that system needs to remember. This change speeded up the developing process and prevented bugs.

II. New Home Screen - Shift Setup

1. Remember your previous shift! If no change, one click to move on.

2. Single entry page of project, workers, cost codes, and automatically updated date and time.

III. Time Card - Preview the final state

• Matching users' mental model — filling in hours of performing tasks for workers. No other adjusting step.

• Multi-selection and input

• Bonus: Making absence and leaving a note for payroll admins. They don't need to call foremen again to ask reasons on the rushing payroll day!

Note: To not confused, the flow chart only shows the core timekeeping function.

Evaluation

I always advocate to measure the usability and evaluate the design quantitatively and qualitatively. The metrics should cover three categories: efficiency, effectiveness, and satisfaction.

I. Efficiency

Comparing with the same 8-person crew and 4 working cost codes mentioned earlier, a foreman now may tap 48 times, versus 109 times in the old version, cutting down about half steps. Here is the comparison with the detailed steps and taps.

II. Effectiveness

How much time do users really save? We work with data scientists and developers to set up criteria and implement data points in the app and review the usage.

Remember that a foreman spent average 30+ minutes per day on filling in paper time card or typing in Excel after the work shift? Now:

• A foreman only spent average 30 seconds per worker on the mobile app. In a standard 10-person crew, a foreman only spends 5 mins per day.

• The project accountant is freed up from manual data entry process.

• The payroll admin can review worker's absence reasons, export accurate data, and import it into the payroll system.

• The project manager can see the profit/loss dashboard to monitor the productivity immediately after a foreman submitting the time card.

III. Satisfaction

We also scored 91 out of 100 in System Usability Survey (SUS) to quantitatively measure user-friendliness. This score means the app is very friendly to users!

This is absolutely a team win! User research reveals insights; the insights triggers thoughtful design; the design requires engineering implementation, plus a patient design QA process. 

Design and business are hand in hand. This improvement unlocks the pilot and rollout phases of the customer journey and earns customers. As I am writing the post now, our sales just share a good news of a closing deal!

This's the design impact!

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Next, I would like to share a design case about another side of the product — the web app and the productivity dashboard, the vision behind the simplified timekeeping. Also, it is crucial to design an intuitive onboarding experience to roll out the solution smoothly.