personio · hr tech · 2023–2025
vision
A future vision for the Organization section
A north star for how people, teams and org charts should work in Personio.
redesign
An ambitious redesign of core functionality
Measurably better, not just a reskin with the new design system components.
new features
New features and capabilities
Multiple supervisors, team leads, group management... that unlocked mid-market deals.
In 2023, Personio was the leading HR platform for SMEs in Europe, serving 1.5M employees. But 40% of NPS detractor comments referred to usability and performance.
Org chart and org management capabilities were one of the top sales loss reasons, with €1.2M in lost ARR.
Personio’s sales team was actively turning away mid-market customers because they had organizational setups we could not support: matrix organizations, multiple supervisors and/or more flexible ways of grouping employees.
01
A much richer experience that helps people understand the organization as a whole, connect with colleagues, explore teams and departments and their lead and members to drive collaboration and a deeper sense of connection across the organization.
02
Instead of a flat list of departments and teams, these can be nested so the org structure in Personio reflects how companies are actually structured. Those relationships between teams can then be used for cascading access rights or setting up triggers for workflows.
03
A faster, clearer org chart to explore the reporting lines across the company, with colour coding and customisable cards.
04
Beyond a single manager: additional supervisors (e.g. shift or craft supervisors) and other relationships like mentors.
05
Groups of people that update automatically, based on simple rules like who is assigned to which department, or complex rules with several conditions, plus people manually included or excluded.
06
Org charts for each department and team, not just the reporting line.
2023
2026
“From a sales perspective, the org chart and multiple supervisor features have been a game-changer. We just turned a 4k MRR churn into a 6k MRR upsell that was entirely contingent on the new org management capabilities. These features have proven to be a significant advantage for our sales team.”
01
The north star vision gave us clarity but it was just the starting point. I then partnered closely with Product and Engineering to turn it into a realistic roadmap we could deliver on, and made it happen.
02
Measurably better, not just a reskin: I pushed for solid design, I personally challenged and elevated the solutions the team suggested and encouraged them to get real customer feedback and iterate until the experience was polished and refined.
03
I personally led the opt-in beta program to manage change and avoid user backlash, letting admins try the new experience early and share feedback before general release.
“Elena helped transform EO from a perceived bottleneck into a high-performing, well-regarded team. Additionally, she led the Opt-in Beta Program, establishing a company-wide standard for customer-centric feature launches that has influenced best practices across Personio.”
let's talk
If a core surface is costing you deals, I can help you decide what to rebuild and how to ship it without losing your customers.
