Empowering HR & Payroll with integrated workforce scheduling
Sep 2025 - Jul 2026
Zelt is the UK’s leading all-in-one HR and Finance platform. As the solo product designer, I designed Scheduling, a new workforce management module that helps teams easily plan shifts, track attendance and prepare hours for payroll in one connected workflow across web, mobile and a shared terminal app.
See it live: Zelt Blog / Mobile App / iPad Terminal
Role
Lead Product Designer
Platform
Web · Mobile · Terminal
Users
Managers & Shift Workers
Status
Shipped · Live
Product challenge
Make complex scheduling feel fast and clear
Managers needed to plan shifts around people, locations, time off
and exceptions without the rota becoming another spreadsheet.
Business challenge
Make Zelt work for shift-based businesses
Managers needed to plan shifts around people, locations, time off and exceptions without the rota becoming another spreadsheet.
Evolution timeline: from basic functionality built for a fast launch to a fully developed module with advanced features like business targets, weekly and monthly totals, conflict management, and auto-scheduling.
Designing while the product was already moving
Constraints
Sales demos and customer conversations were happening while the core workflow was still being designed.
Selling while building
Sales demos and customer conversations were happening while the core workflow was still being designed.
Different rules
Three platforms
Managers planned on web while employees interacted through mobile and a shared Terminal.
Ship the useful core before solving every edge case
Core experience · Sep 2025
Imagine you manage an F1 team or a bakery chain, where most of your staff work irregular hours. You don’t want to spend hours matching schedules with actual working time and calculating how much everyone should be paid.
You want these processes to be automated – a few clicks, and you can finish your coffee. No more time wasted on spreadsheets or jumping between different platforms. You can manage it all in one place.
Weekly planning looked obvious.
Real usage told us otherwise.
Design decision · 1
93% of shifts created more than a month ahead by our largest rota customer
Keep context close, but not everywhere.
Design decision · 2
Too little information forced managers to leave the rota. Too much made the schedule hard to scan.
The final approach surfaced absences, conflicts, relevant employee and business information only when it helped someone make a decision.
One schedule, designed for different contexts
Cross-platform
Plan and check schedules on mobile.
Clock in: on-site teams use a shared Terminal. First iteration and prototype for a client presentation.
From rota planning to workforce management
Product evolution
Rota → Open shifts → Planned vs Actual → Terminal → Payroll
Scheduling became a reason to choose Zelt
Impact
3 years
customer agreement where Scheduling was key to the decision
100k users
secured in the first pre-sale deal, with more companies choosing Zelt Scheduling after launch
93%
shifts planned more than one month ahead by the largest rota customer
