What they built
An internal talent marketplace for Work.Life's 60-person distributed workforce - a filterable, card-based project board where employees can browse, save, and express interest in internal cross-functional projects aligned to their career development framework (CDF).
Key features:
- Displays all live internal projects for the current financial year, with stats on open projects, teams involved, and eligible CDF levels
- Filterable by department, difficulty, time commitment, CDF level, and specific CDF skill areas (e.g. leadership)
- Project cards show a preview; expanded view includes learning outcomes, time commitment, and an "express interest" button
- On expression of interest, an automated Slack notification fires into a dedicated channel, tagging the project sponsor with the applicant's name and project details
- Sponsors manage selection and mark projects as filled; completed projects are tracked separately
- Project data is managed in a shared Microsoft Excel sheet; updates are pushed manually by re-uploading the file to Claude and copy-pasting regenerated HTML
Why they built it
- Work.Life had just launched a new career development framework (CDF) and a new performance management system - the marketplace was built to make those frameworks tangible and usable day-to-day, not just policy documents
- Employees are spread across 14 locations; the tool supports internal mobility and cross-team connection across a distributed workforce
- Gives employees a proactive way to close skill gaps identified in manager feedback, rather than waiting for development opportunities to come to them
- Supports retention and engagement by tying individual growth directly to real business projects aligned with quarterly OKRs
Tools used
- Claude (Anthropic) - used to generate the full HTML/CSS for the marketplace UI via prompting; also used to get step-by-step instructions for the Slack integration
- Microsoft Excel - shared with project sponsors to collect and update project data each month
- Slack - custom Slack app built via Slack's UI to receive expression-of-interest notifications into a dedicated sponsor channel
- TeamTailor - used as the hosting platform (People Hub); HTML code from Claude is pasted into a custom HTML input field on a gated internal page
- (Note: Microsoft SharePoint or Google Sites are viable alternatives for hosting the HTML)
How you could build this yourself
- Define your project data structure - decide what fields each project needs (title, department, description, skills/CDF areas, time commitment, difficulty, sponsor name, status). Build this as a shared spreadsheet (Excel or Google Sheets).
- Gather projects from teams - set a monthly or quarterly deadline for team leads/sponsors to submit projects into the spreadsheet, ideally timed to coincide with OKR-setting so projects are real and business-relevant.
- Prompt Claude to build the UI - paste your spreadsheet data into Claude and prompt it to generate a filterable, card-based HTML marketplace page. Specify filters you want (department, skill area, time commitment, etc.) and the card layout.
- Set up a Slack app for notifications - go to Slack's app management UI, create a new app, configure incoming webhook permissions, and create a dedicated channel for project sponsors. Ask Claude to walk you through the exact steps and to update your HTML so the "express interest" button posts to that webhook.
- Host the HTML - paste the generated HTML into your existing intranet or people hub (TeamTailor custom HTML, SharePoint, Google Sites, etc.). Gate it with a private/permission-based link for internal access only. Note: the page must be hosted somewhere (not just a Claude artifact) for the Slack integration to function.
- Establish a refresh cadence - when projects change, update the Excel sheet, re-upload to Claude, regenerate the HTML, and paste the new code into your hosted page. Monthly works well for a team of this size.
- Launch with fanfare - introduce it at an all-hands, connect it explicitly to your career development framework, and build anticipation before go-live to drive early adoption.
Source
Built by Olya Yakzhina, Head of People at Work.Life, and presented as part of an Open Org "Shipped by HR" session - a series where startup People leaders demo AI-powered tools they've built for their organisations.