Intro
The Beginning
Before we start, to comply with my non-disclosure agreement, I have omitted confidential information in this case study. All information is my own and does not necessarily reflect the views of Mindtera.
Mindtera is a digital platform dedicated to aiding leaders and organizations in cultivating a sustainable workforce through the optimization of employee well-being, efficiency, and productivity.
Context
Start with Business, then Consumer.
In 2021, Mindtera primarily operated within the B2C sector. However, by the end of 2022, Mindtera strategically transitioned its focus to the B2B2C sector.
B2B2C has always been Mindtera's grand plan from the start. From a business perspective, the B2B side will be Mindtera's main source of income. While we're developing our B2C side, we're also laying the groundwork for the B2B part. In the B2B side, our users are companies, particularly their People or HR Teams who oversee employee performance.
Problem
Glimpse of Workforce
Office workers, typically aged 25-35, face a lot of tough stuff at work, with family, and in their personal lives. Sadly, many don't have good ways to handle these challenges. From the employer's perspective, these struggles can mess with how well employees do their jobs, and that can affect the company indirectly.
The stress of office politics, balancing work and personal life, and managing relationships can be overwhelming for workers. When they don't get help dealing with these issues, it can lead to lower productivity, more days off, and a gloomy atmosphere at work. And if companies don't step up to support these employees, they risk losing good people and making the workplace less enjoyable for everyone.
How Might We
Next?
From these problem, how might we:
1. Build a platform that genuinely helps office workers handle the ups and downs of work, family, and personal life with greater ease?
2. Make it easier for companies to understand and support their employees by managing data in a way that reflects their real needs and experiences?
3. Bring in tools to offer personalized support, making each employee feel seen and supported as they navigate their work and personal lives?
Challenge
There's a first time for everything
Developing an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) platform in Indonesia comes with its own set of challenges:
1. Limited Market: The concept of EAP is relatively new in Indonesia, few companies offer EAP services in Indonesia, so educating potential clients about their benefits is crucial.
2. Awareness Gap: There exists a notable gap in awareness and understanding among Indonesian workers regarding emotional intelligence (EQ) and mental health.
3. Customization Complexity: Businesses in Indonesia vary widely, requiring tailored EAP solutions. Balancing standard features with customizable options is necessary for success.
My Role
From Super Team to Four Horsemen.
When I first joined Mindtera, I was asked to lead our B2B project. We started from scratch, doing research, creating wireframes, developing high-fidelity designs, prototyping, and finally getting our MVP product off the ground. Of course, I had the support of an incredibly talented team.
Back in early 2021, Mindtera was just a small team of six: Hanny Liana (Product Designer), Tifanny (Product Manager), Randi Dwi Nandra (VP of Engineering), Mauladani Adi (Frontend Engineer), Fajar (Backend Engineer), and Ari (QA Engineer).
As the pressure mounted from stakeholders and bosses to have our MVP ready within 6 months, we decided to expand our team with some truly gifted individuals. We welcomed Meldi as Product Manager, Hanna as Product Manager, Ali Irsyad, Lutfhi, Calmantara as Backend Engineers, Rizal as Senior Frontend Engineer, Ulum Mudin as Frontend Engineering, Gilang as Junior QA Engineer, and Ali Naufal as Junior QA Engineer. Plus, we had Fani, who joined us as an Internship Product Designer, receiving hands-on mentoring from both me and Hanny.
Despite the challenges, our development journey went smoothly, from launching the MVP to adding new features. But come 2022-2023, tough decisions had to be made. The company had to downsize, and sadly, some of our team members were affected due to business efficiency and tech-winter.
By early 2024, only four of us remained. It was me as Product Designer, Hanna as Product Manager, Ali Irsyad as Backend Engineering, and Ulum Mudin as Frontend Engineering. Though we were a smaller team, we rallied together and managed to keep our development efforts going strong, even with fewer resources.
Discovery
The Business Perspective
Like we mentioned earlier, our main focus right now is on the corporate sector. For almost two months, our product team has been diving deep into research, chatting with HR folks from all sorts of companies and having conversations with top executives.
We've had some great support from our CEO, Tita Ardiati, who previously worked as a researcher at YouGov and Nielsen.
As we dug deeper, we started uncovering some really interesting insights from both HR pros and bigwigs in the corporate world. They're keen on:
- Understanding what their employees need and want
- Boosting the quality and performance of their workforce
- Keeping tabs on how their employees are learning and growing
- Creating programs that truly make a difference
- Providing safe spaces for their team members
So, based on all this, our goal is to boost employee retention by ramping up their engagement, wellness, and growth.
Employee Engagement
Our focus is on ensuring that employees remain actively engaged with their company and feel a sense of ownership
Active
Participatory
Committed
Employee Wellness
We strive to promote the physical and mental well-being of employees
Work-Life Balance
Stress Management
Physical Fitness
Employee Growth
Our goal is to facilitate employee growth in all aspects by providing educational resources, evaluating results, tracking progress, and personalizing goals
Learning
Performance
Measurable
The Consumer Perspective
"Starting from the Corporate to the Employee, meaning the last gate is still Consumer (Employee)."
Some important points that we need to highlight is we have benchmarking product that similar to us like cultureamp.com for the comparison.
So, what did we found? Well, it turns out that having killer features that keep users coming back for more is the secret sauce to staying power. Think about it—when people love what we offer, they stick around. And that's gold for us.
We doing some brainstorming to moving the 'Employee Progressive Journey.' We want our team members not just to use our product, but to love it. By keeping them engaged and happy.
Key Findings
After our thorough research and brainstorming sessions, we've compiled a list of key outcomes for our B2B MVP. Here's what we've come up with:
Employee Engagement: We're introducing an Assessment Platform to measure employee engagement levels, coupled with a Turnover Forecasting tool to predict and mitigate turnover risks.
Employee Wellness: Prioritizing employee well-being, we're rolling out an Emotion Meter to track emotional states, a Wellness Meter to monitor overall well-being, and a Workload Analysis tool to ensure workload balance and prevent burnout.
Employee Growth: We're implementing Program Content aimed at enhancing skills and knowledge, along with a 360 Feedback platform to provide comprehensive performance insights and foster growth-oriented conversations.
The Solution
Mindtera 1.0: Beauty of Imperfetion
In the initial stage, we are focusing on the Assessment, Emotion Meter, & Wellbeing Meter.
The initial idea for the assessment is that it will be automatically sent to each employee (filled in through the Mindtera app) after the company selects corporate values on the onboarding B2B Mindtera dashboard. The results of the chosen corporate values will be processed and matched according to the Mindtera learning program, generating assessments aligned with the corporate values they have chosen.
Flow Assessment (Dashboard) 1.0
Wireframe Assessment (Dashboard) 1.0
Hifi Assessment (Dashboard) 1.0
Proto Assessment (Dashboard) 1.0
Employees will receive notifications via the Mindtera app to promptly fill out the provided Assessment. The Assessment is divided into 3 stages: pre-assessment, post-assessment, and follow-up assessment. Each assessment will be sent every 3 months automatically to each employee. The results from the employees' responses will be seamlessly integrated into the B2B Mindtera dashboard.
Hifi Assessment (Mobile) 1.0
Hifi Assessment Result (Dashboard) 1.0
The initial idea behind the Emotion Meter is to help companies understand their employees' moods. Employees can input their mood daily through the Mindtera app. Companies can then view the statistics of employee moods in real-time via the Mindtera dashboard. If there's an employee flagged as having a concerning or unfavorable mood, the Mindtera dashboard can alert the company that the employee may be facing issues. Mindtera can suggest that the company provide immediate coaching or even offer 1-on-1 counseling to support the employee.
Flow Emotion Meter (Dashboard) 1.0
Hifi Emotion Meter (Mobile) 1.0
Hifi Emotion Meter (Dashboard) 1.0
The initial idea of the Wellbeing Meter is to assist companies in understanding their employees' wellbeing. Companies can view the wellbeing of all departments through the B2B dashboard in real-time, where each employee will be provided with a monthly automated wellbeing assessment via the Mindtera app.
Flow Wellbeing Meter (Dashboard) 1.0
Hifi Wellbeing Meter (Mobile) 1.0
Hifi Wellbeing Meter (Dashboard) 1.0
After one month, the development from the product team, from wireframe to prototype, has been completed, and the development by the engineering team has progressed for 3-4 months. We successfully achieved our total target over the span of 6 months.
Fast forward, the Mindtera B2B MVP is running smoothly. With time constraints, alhamdulillah, our team has successfully met the expectations of stakeholders and our CEO.
However, as time goes on, we've started to receive quite a lot of feedback regarding this B2B product, particularly from HR professionals and company executives. Eventually, at the beginning of Q1 2023, we decided to revamp the B2B dashboard.
Mindtera 2.0: It's Only the Beginning
We acknowledge that Mindtera 1.0 is far from perfect. Therefore, feedback from HR professionals, employees, and company executives has been instrumental in developing this B2B Mindtera platform.
There are many things we need to improve, including the onboarding process in Mindtera 1.0, which often confuses HR because they have to choose their company's corporate values. Moreover, sometimes some core values are not available in our platform's library.
Additionally, the automated assessment process, it turns out, isn't well-liked by HR professionals because they can't schedule assessments for specific dates. HR wants the flexibility to send assessments to employees as they see fit.
The team and stakeholders also realize that the assessments in Mindtera 1.0 are not suitable for scaling. This is because we only have one assessment library, the Mindtera learning program, whereas many companies want to customize assessments for their employees.
The team is gearing up for a fresh round of brainstorming, fueled by feedback. The outcome? We've got some features to fine-tune and a few new ones to add. So, here's the scoop on Mindtera 2.0:
New Onboarding Process
We simplified the onboarding process by removing the step of selecting core values and directly focusing on company profiling.
New Assessment
We revamped the Assessment details, added a heatmap, progress tracking, and also implemented a custom assessment system.
Added Turn Over Forecasting
We added a new features called turn over forecasting. This features predict how many employees might leave a company in the future. Analyze past data to identify patterns, risk factors, and potential impacts. This helps with planning, resource allocation, and improving retention strategies.
Added Employees Feedback
We added a new feature called Employee Feedback. This feature is designed to make employees feel comfortable sharing feedback, criticism, suggestions, or grievances with the company. Feedback can be submitted anonymously, by department name, or with the employee's name displayed directly.
Added Presence
Lastly, we've added an Attendance feature so that companies can track employee presence in real-time. Additionally, we've incorporated Productivity Mapping, which accumulates task completions for each employee. Employees can log their attendance and the tasks they plan to work on for the day directly within the Mindtera app, seamlessly integrated into the Mindtera dashboard.
Learnings
Learn to Trust The Journey
In the journey of developing this B2B platform, I've had an incredible learning experience. It's been a rollercoaster ride of lessons, from the basics like fostering seamless team communication and mastering time management, in-depth research on the product we're creating and ensuring every pixel in our designs is perfect.
I want to extend my heartfelt gratitude to the entire Mindtera team who has been part of this journey. Despite the ups and downs, your dedication and hard work have been invaluable. While our team may have down to just 4 of us by early 2024, our spirit perhaps never changes.
As we move forward, let's continue to innovate, learn, and grow together. Here's to the countless late nights, brainstorming sessions, and milestones achieved.
Cheers to us!
Fadrian Bachri
2024