I can’t work my shift.

TEAMS: Workforce Management, Leadership Engagement app , TLC

Problem

If an employee is sick and cannot work their shift, they are required to get a manager’s approval. How do they reach a manager?

There is no longer a phone system in the stores. Employees do not have access to store schedules and do not always know which manager is working. Most stores have multiple leaders, so an employee could easily reach a manager who has the day off.

“A really huge issue is not knowing what manager is on duty. We think we’ve got a no call, no show–four hours later we find out they contacted the manager who was off.”

Design objectives

Design a communication solution that improves call-out coordination without altering the existing HR approval process.
• Enable employees to reach the manager on duty
• Give leaders shared visibility into call-out requests
• Create a trackable record of call-outs and their status

Solution: Call Out Request

The Call-Out Request is a structured message initiated from an employee’s scheduled shift in the employee app. Submitting a request routes it to managers who are actively working and surfaces the request in the Leadership Engagement app, where all leaders can view and respond.

By anchoring the request to the employee’s schedule and routing it to on-duty leaders, the experience replaces informal texts and removes guesswork about which manager is available.

Iterating with leaders

Rapid iterations with general managers shaped the experience and surfaced an important tension. What we learned:

❌ Leaders did not want an automated process that removed opportunities for human care
❌ There was concern that lowering friction could unintentionally increase call-outs
❌ Approval needed to feel explicit, not implied
✅ Shared visibility across leaders built confidence

The feedback surfaced an important constraint: the solution couldn’t just be efficient, it also had to preserve trust.

“I love the idea. I just worry it takes the human side of care out. When someone calls out or is late, I reach out and see if they are ok.”

Addressing concerns

To avoid the perception that a call-out was automatically approved, we made adjustments:

• Clear language reinforcing a manager approval is still a requirement
• A link to the absence policy
• An acknowledgment checkbox before submission

The goal wasn’t to make it harder to submit a call-out, but to make expectations clear for both employees and managers.

Challenging the next step

Posting an open shift to the billboard directly from a call-out was positioned as a natural extension of the workflow. Before moving forward, I wanted to understand whether this step reflected how call-outs were actually handled in stores.

What research revealed

Employees already had multiple ways to gain or reduce hours, and the billboard was not the primary way call-outs were resolved in practice. Leader interviews showed that staffing gaps were typically addressed through on-the-floor adjustments or market-level coordination.

Posting an open shift from a call-out ultimately moved forward due to broader business priorities, but the research reframed it as a low-confidence extension rather than an assumed win.

(Journey map: “Leader maintaining a schedule” shows leader decisions and actions following a call-out)

What moved forward

Implementing the ability to post an open shift from a call-out required close collaboration with the TLC team to support real-time access to schedule data.

Flow: Posting an open shift from a call-out

Reflections

This project began as a communication problem and surfaced a trust problem. Solving it required listening closely to leaders and incorporating their feedback so the experience aligned with how they actually support their teams. Leaders were more comfortable adopting the solution because they could see their input directly shaping the design.