Orka Pay - Empowering shift workers with Enhanced Financial Visibility and Predictability
Leading Orka Pay’s growth from a simple wage access service to an advanced financial empowerment tool, I collaborated closely with a diverse team including a project manager and 3 engineers. Together, we reshaped the platform through a carefully crafted four-phase strategy, focusing on what users needed. This approach led to a doubling of user retention, a significant jump in new sign-ups, and recognition in our industry, all while boosting the team spirit and engagement of both our users and team.
Role
Timeline
Core Responsibilities
Problem & Insights
Shift workers feel frustrated by unclear pay schedules and uncertain income, making it hard to plan their finances
Shift workers using Orka Pay faced several issues, including ambiguous pay cycles, unclear withdrawal processes, lack of time tracking, uncertain future earnings projections, and concerns about financial stability. Crucially, workers identified a gap in the system: our app required substantial improvements in user experience and functionality.
Goals
From Confusion to Contentment, Orka Pay's Journey to Empower Workers
We had to reconsider the app’s capabilities to make Orka Pay a platform that genuinely empowers workers and leaves them satisfied with their earnings. Challenging this, I redirected our team towards a concentrated emphasis on the addition of new features. Guided by user feedback and an awareness of workers’ confusion stemming from an incomplete feature set, I formulated a comprehensive four-phase strategy. This goal was to enhance the platform by improving transparency in pay cycles, simplifying the withdrawal process, implementing time tracking and earnings forecasts, and offering tools to facilitate better financial planning and stability.
Rather than committing to a large lift, it was best to approach a new feature with only the most important needs of Orka Pay’s target users. We could then move forward with more ambitious feature sets depending on success/failure.
Solution
Introducing new features with a steadfast commitment to a user-centric approach, enhancing workers' financial security while providing improved clarity and foresight.
Through collaboration with our product manager, developers, QA testers, data analysts, and customer support team, we transformed the features of Orka Pay from a challenging experience into a user-centric solution, resulting in increased worker satisfaction, enhanced financial security, and improved clarity and foresight. My commitment to a user-centric ethos has been reinforced as I’ve grasped the paramount significance of prioritizing user needs within these features. This realization has deepened my understanding of our diverse user base and their unique demographics, emphasizing the profound impact it can have on the success of these enhanced features. This perspective has prevailed over the allure of trendy approaches that may appear appealing but might not align with our objectives. Sticking with a user-centered approach, with solid research and user feedback behind it, can make a big difference.
Shifting from Orka Pay being a challenging experience to a user-centric solution
Before
Limited features
After
Ability to review past meetings right away, see relevant suggestions on how to improve, and prepare with ease
