Enterprise · HR Tech · Fintech
Investigating and improving financial well-being for Amazon employees.
Amazon employees report lower financial health than peers at Google, Meta, or Apple. The HR & Benefits organization wanted to give employees consolidated tools for planning their financial futures — instead of scattered wikis, peer docs, and benefits portals.
I led research and shaped the product roadmap — a 5,000-employee survey, 30 in-depth interviews, and prototype calculators that translated the findings into a working planning surface.
5,000
Employees surveyed
across the organization
30
In-depth interviews
5 internal departments
5
Life-event journeys mapped
retirement to vacation
Project at a glance
Company
Amazon
Industry
Enterprise · HR Tech
Product
Internal Financial Well-being tools
Phase
Discovery → Prototype → Roadmap
My role
UX Research & Product Design
Methods
Surveys, stakeholder interviews, qualitative & quantitative analysis
Sample
n = 5,000 survey · 30 interviews
Output
Press release of findings, UX plan, prototype
The Context
Amazon employees were navigating major financial decisions — retirement, parental leave, home ownership — by digging through fragmented internal wikis, peer-written documents, and benefits platforms that didn't talk to each other.
HR & Benefits leadership wanted a single, opinionated experience that connected compensation, benefits, and life events into one planning surface — without forcing employees to become spreadsheet experts overnight.
The problem
What financial life events most affect Amazon employees, and where do the current internal tools fail them at the moment of decision?
That question framed the entire study — every interview, survey cut, and journey map had to either answer it or sharpen it.
Methodology
01
Identified the top financial goals across roles, geographies, and income bands — and pressure-tested assumptions from HR leadership.
02
Sessions with employees across operations, corporate, and tech roles in the US and UK — pickers, drivers, SSAs, and managers.
03
Retirement, starting a family, home ownership, life insurance, and vacation planning — mapped end-to-end with internal touchpoints.
04
Two tools: a retirement contribution calculator and a per-paycheck spending allocator based on the 50/30/20 rule.
Voices
"I had to dig through benefits platforms, reference peer-written documents, and Amazon wikis related to paternity leave just to understand the coverage and financial implications."
— Amazon employee, US
"I want to save up for a trip to Spain for my honeymoon, but I'm not sure how much to set aside per month. I'd love to plan a realistic timeline alongside my PTO."
— Amazon employee, UK
Key Findings
01
Employees described a scavenger hunt across 4–7 internal sources just to make one decision. The blocker wasn't access; it was synthesis.
02
Employees don't think 'I need a 401(k) page' — they think 'I'm having a baby.' Organizing tools around life events outperformed product-led IA in every test.
03
The 50/30/20 starting point unlocked engagement. Employees adjusted from a sensible default rather than designing from scratch.
04
Monte Carlo style 'strong vs. weak market' visualizations were the single most requested feature once employees saw a static projection.
What I designed
Two connected calculators powered the prototype: a retirement planner that consumed an employee's total compensation, 401(k), HSA, and vested RSU balances; and a per-paycheck spending allocator with recommended categories based on financial best practices.
One-click changes routed back to Amazon-sponsored benefit elections, including stepped contribution increases that ramped over a self-selected timeline — minimizing the shock of a lower net paycheck.
Success Metrics
01
Percent of employees accessing the Financial Well-being tool from the A to Z portal.
02
Equifax score delta, new savings accounts opened, retirement contribution changes, life-insurance enrollment.
03
Per-calculator session journeys and ClickStream completion rates per life-event flow.
04
Recurring quarterly interviews to ensure the tool kept pace with how employees' financial lives actually changed.
Reflections