Vacation Pay System for Canada
Designing a payroll-critical extension to the existing vacation pay setup, adding mobile requests, admin approvals, wallet adjustments, reporting, and better control for Canada-specific vacation pay workflows.
My Role
Product Designer - product scoping, interaction design, systems thinking, edge-case mapping, visual design, prototyping, and implementation handoff.
Timeline & Status
2 to 3 weeks
This was a urgent client requirement, so we moved quickly from understanding the gaps to designing the full flow for review.
Team
Product Designer (me)
Product Manager
Engineering team
Client stakeholders
Overview
This project focused on Canadian vacation pay for construction companies, where vacation pay is calculated as a percentage of eligible earnings and directly impacts payroll. The existing web system had policies and configurations, but the Canada workflow needed new request, approval, mobile, adjustment, and reporting capabilities.
Problem Statement
The existing system already had configurations and policies, but they were limited for Canada-specific vacation pay needs. It supported automatic payout patterns, but did not support employee-initiated vacation pay requests from mobile, approval workflows, wallet adjustments, and full reporting.
Outcome
Designed an extended vacation pay experience across policy creation, policy assignment, mobile employee requests, employer approvals, wallet adjustments, reporting, and worker self-service.
APPROACH
How I worked on the problem
I treated this as a system design problem because the existing setup already handled automatic vacation pay behavior, but the new requirement needed employee-initiated requests, approval control, wallet-level adjustments, and visibility across web and mobile.
1
Understood payroll rules
Mapped how vacation pay should be calculated across earning types, tenure structures, policies, and pay periods.
2
Mapped existing limits
Reviewed the current policy and configuration setup to identify what was already working and what was missing for Canada.
3
AI helped me move faster, not skip thinking.
I used AI as part of the design process to break down complex rule combinations, write clearer scenarios, and explore alternate flows. Final decisions were still validated with product and engineering.
4
Designed flows and handoff screens
Created flows with warnings, empty states, payroll constraints, and clear states for engineering implementation.
THE PROBLEM
The existing system had policies, but the Canada workflow needed more control and access.
Limited payout control
The old flow supported automatic payout behavior, either after the configured period or as a percentage paid in every payroll cycle.
Limited policy capability
Policies already existed, but they were limited in how they handled Canada-specific payout behavior, employee-initiated requests, and operational visibility.
No earning-type control
Vacation pay treatment needed to vary for earning types like overtime, reward, bonus, or gift money.
No employee request workflow
Employees could not raise a vacation pay request from mobile when they were going on vacation or needed the accrued amount.
No liability visibility
Admins could not easily track total liability, high balances, upcoming escalations, or exceptions that need attention.
No vacation pay on mobile
The existing mobile app did not have vacation pay flows because most earlier construction clients were based in the US, where this requirement was not prominent for the product.
EXISTING MODEL
How setup worked before
Before redesigning the flow, I reviewed how the existing system handled vacation pay. The system could either pay vacation pay automatically after the configured period or include the vacation pay percentage in every payroll cycle, but it did not let employees request the accrued amount from mobile when they needed it.
THE SOLUTION
New vacation pay architecture
The redesign keeps tenure, earning types, configurations, and policies as existing system primitives. The new flow extends them with assignment, employee mobile requests, employer approvals, wallet adjustments, and reporting.
1
Create Policy
Method, tenure configuration, earning-type overrides
2
Assign Policy
Apply policy to employees or worker groups
3
Mobile Request
Employee raises vacation pay request from mobile
4
Approval
Employer reviews and approves the requested amount
5
Wallet Adjustment
Add or correct vacation pay amounts when needed
6
Reporting
Liability, balances, escalations, and exports
Step 1 · Create
Create Vacation Pay Policy
Step 2 · Assign
Assign Policy
Step 3 · Request
Employee Mobile Request
Step 4 · Approve
Employer Approval
Step 5 · Adjust
Wallet Adjustments
Step 6 · Report
Reporting
OTHER SCREENS
Adding vacation policy directly through employee page
In case an employee was missed in the mass assignment or want to change the policy admin can still add/change it through employee section in a valid time window.
IMPACT
What improved
01
Extended policy setup
Vacation pay behavior now builds on the existing policy structure while adding the missing Canada-specific request, approval, and adjustment flows.
100%
Traceable workflow
Requests, approvals, payouts, and adjustments now have clear states and history.
$$
Liability visibility
Admins can monitor financial exposure through reports and balance-level insights.
Web and mobile
The system supports both admin operations on web and worker self-service on mobile.
REFLECTION
Designing for payroll means designing for trust.
What I learned
Reuse existing primitives *
Tenure, earning types, configurations, and policies were already familiar to users, so the design extended those primitives instead of introducing a new mental model.
Visibility builds confidence
Balance after payout, approval state, wallet adjustments, and liability reporting make the system easier to trust for payroll-sensitive decisions.