The annual Best Employee Experience Contest spotlights exceptional employee experiences across the ServiceNow ecosystem. This year, the contest reflects where our customers are headed: beyond the portal, into AI-powered, action-oriented experiences that change how work actually gets done.
The best employee experiences don't just surface information — they complete work, resolve issues, and free people up to focus on what matters.
Meet the Top 10 Winners of the 2026 Best Employee Experience Contest, and join the Knowledge26 session where we will unveil the top winners!
TOP 10 WINNERS (in alphabetical order)
DFI Retail
For a retailer with thousands of employees spread across office and store floors, fragmentation isn't just inconvenient — it's costly. DFI Retail solved it with DFI Link, a single destination for 5,000+ office employees to connect, learn, and get help, with a frontline rollout to 15,000 store employees already underway. Digitalized onboarding replaced manual, fragmented processes with guided journeys that prepare employees from day one, and self-service workflows handle everything from HR transactions to leadership communications. Watch the pitch video.
“We put our team members first. We really wanted to enable them in their day-to-day life, because we believe that is the key differentiating factor in terms of translating to the service-level qualities that we'll be providing to our customers.” - Chantelle Chiew, Group Technology Director, DFI Retail
Key results: $1.1M in annual cost savings | 92.5% of searches resolved accurately | 50%+ of cases deflected via self-service
Team credit: Lester Aguilera, ServiceNow and Corporate Technology; Chantelle Chiew, Group Technology; Dohn Li, Group People & Culture; Gwendolyn Cheong, Corporate Communications and Affairs
Partner: Deloitte
H. Lundbeck
When one portal can replace 100+ shared mailboxes and a legacy system — and do it fast enough that teams are asking to get on ServiceNow before you've finished rolling it out — you've built something special. That's exactly what happened at H. Lundbeck. The pharmaceutical company created a single entry point across IT, HR, finance, procurement, and facilities, with mobile access and support in 30+ languages, breaking down barriers for field sales and global affiliates who previously couldn't get help without a local intermediary. Watch the pitch video.
“Almost immediately after go-live, multiple parts of the organization were asking: how and when can we get on ServiceNow? The demand is too huge for us to even handle — and that's showcasing that we were super successful.” - Danuta Kadziolka, IT Business Support Services, Senior Manager, Lundbeck
Key results: 151k hours saved annually through self-service | 94% employee satisfaction score | 50 hours saved monthly and given back to agents
Team credit: Fredrik Johansen, Platform Owner; Sine Theilgaard, UX/UI Designer; Danuta Kadziolka, Business Lead; Patrycja Zajac, Lead Developer
Partner: Deloitte
Keurig Dr Pepper
MyKDP replaced separate HR, tech, and finance portals with a single, AI-powered front door — and built intelligence into the back end so employees just describe what they need and AI routes it to the right place. The platform already runs AI-powered search, an auto-categorization agent, and an AI resolver that cuts HR case resolution from two days to six seconds. Watch the pitch video.
“No longer do you have to remember what portal you're going to. You don't have to know if it's an incident or a service request. Just describe the work you're looking for — we use AI to route it on the back end and get it into the right hands faster.” - Jason Haines, Senior Director Employee Experience, Keurig Dr Pepper Inc.
Key results: 6 seconds instead of two days to resolve HR cases | 25% of HR agent time freed by AI | 91k total monthly active users
Team credit: Jason Haines, KDP Tech; Carlisle Gallo, HR Operations; Beca Zilski, KDP Tech; Rebecca Knight, Internal Communications
Partner: EY
Labcorp
At Labcorp, the stakes of a good employee experience go beyond productivity. With 70,000 employees across 17 countries focused on advancing human health, every minute saved finding an HR answer is a minute reinvested in the work that matters. HR Central delivers that — including a dedicated People Leaders site where live chat and one-on-one HR support cut manager wait times from 24 hours to 35 seconds. And DiNA, Labcorp's internally built AI avatar, is expanding across HR, careers, and onboarding to give employees answers in natural language and complete Workday tasks on their behalf. Watch the pitch video.
“If I can give our teams back the minutes they spend searching for answers — about their pay, their benefits, their family — they can spend that time finding the cure. It's not just checking a box. We're talking about changing people's lives.” - Teresa Brinson, Director of Global HR Portal Experience, Labcorp
Key results: $1.2M annual productivity impact | 90% search deflection rate | 89% CSAT for chat
Team credit: Teresa Brinson, HR Portal Experience; Somipem Keishing, Portal Design & Creative; Aneesha Ail, Portal Specialist; Monika Ferec, Portal Administrator
Lennar
home@Lennar replaced fragmented intranets and siloed department sites with one unified portal across HR, IT, and communications, built on a knowledge-first foundation that gives field workers instant answers on the job site. The result was immediate organic pull: as soon as teams saw what Employee Center Pro could do, 20 departments voluntarily asked to leave SharePoint behind. Watch the pitch video.
“As soon as we were able to show them what we had designed in Employee Center, we had 20 departments voluntarily say, I want to get out of my SharePoint — I want it all to be on Home at Lennar.” - Logan Wallick, Sr Director, HR Operations, Lennar
Key results: 98% ticket deflection | 88% search deflection | 80% of associates visit weekly
Team credit: Logan Wallick, HR Operations; Saurabh Kumar, Software Engineer; Mindy Romero, Internal Communications
Partner: GlideFast Consulting, Vbrick, Emplify Consulting
Medtronic
Medtronic's HRmony portal starts with a simple premise: employees shouldn't have to wade through content to find what's relevant to them. So it doesn't make them. HRmony serves hyper-localized content by country, union contract, and location — so every employee sees exactly what applies to them and nothing that doesn't. The AI digital assistant, powered by Moveworks, gives manufacturing employees a faster way to get HR support without ever leaving the line, and 100+ custom use cases are already live. Watch the pitch video.
“Employees don't want to wade through content to find what's relevant to them. We have to serve it up on a plate — what they need to know, what they need to see, and what they need to take action.” - Louise Ernewein, Principal Content Management Specialist, Medtronic
Key results: 100+ custom use cases built with Moveworks | 6k hours saved by AI assistant since launch | 77% ticket deflection
Team credit: Kelly Kusters, HR Systems; Neil Taylor, HR Systems; Louise Ernewein, Content Management; Sarah Goldade, Content Management
NBA
The NBA's Homecourt portal proves that the best employee experiences don't just answer questions — they take action. By consolidating three portals into one unified hub for IT, HR, facilities, and communications, and layering in Now Assist for natural language requests, the NBA gave employees a way to get real work done without navigating multiple systems. AI Search ensures employees get curated, NBA-specific answers rather than generic web results that could lead to costly decisions. Watch the pitch video.
“We're delivering on the promise we have to employees — to help them do their jobs better and easier. Someone asks, 'My machine's slow, when do I get a new one?' ServiceNow already knows their warranty is expired and prompts them to order a replacement. That's the game changer — that's what makes people feel like their day is actually different.” - Nick Ricciardi, VP, Head of IT Customer Experience, NBA
Key results: 75% of employees report increased productivity | 61% search deflection rate | 38% of agent time saved with self-service
Team credit: Nick Ricciardi, IT Customer Experience; Michelle Tagmyer, Internal Communications; Vadi Kulkarni, Technical Platform Owner; Cydney Goldberg, IT Strategist and Communications
Partner: Ondaro
Siemens
Siemens didn't just build a portal. They built a vision: a future where employees never have to navigate to any system, application, or provider — they just ask, and AI handles the rest. That vision is already delivering at scale. A single unified IT portal serves 250,000 employees across 143 countries in five languages, with a bot-first strategy combining Moveworks as the conversational front end and Now Assist powering back-end automation. The result: 94% of service requests fully automated and 1.7 million employee interactions per month. Watch the pitch video.
“We set out to create a single unified gateway. AI automation really changed the game. Together with Moveworks, we transformed IT support into a streamlined and actionable experience.” - Ilya Kovalenko, SIAM Strategy Manager and Product Owner, Siemens
Key results: 94% of service requests fully automated | 1.7M employee interactions per month | 140k virtual agent conversations per month
Team credit: Ilya Kovalenko, Strategy Manager; Arndt Buschmann, Platform Architect; Friedemann Duerrbeck Freiherr von Rotenhan, IT Solution Architect; Monica Ribeiro, IT User Experience Professional
Stellantis
Automotive giant Stellantis built its employee experience the way you'd engineer a car: structured process, rigorous testing, zero shortcuts. The unified front door spans IT, HR, procurement, facilities, finance, and communications — and was validated through personas, journey mapping, and cross-regional usability testing before a single employee logged in. Now Assist handles search summarization, knowledge translation, and virtual agent conversations, and deflected roughly half of all support tickets within the first two weeks of go-live. Watch the pitch video.
“Am I getting the right information faster? Is it taking me to the next step? That's the key — search, get an answer, and move on.” - Dean Gibbins, Senior Program Manager, Stellantis
Key results: 50% ticket reduction within weeks of go-live | 30k employee sessions per month | 79% SUS usability score
Team credit: Alice Bitencourt, Portal / Now Mobile Service Owner & UX Program Manager; Dean Gibbons, Senior Programme Manager; Robert Pickering, ServiceNow Platform Owner; Kevin Marion, Business Office Lead
Partner: New Rocket
UCLA Health
Most employee experience platforms are built for the 9-to-5. UCLA Health built theirs for the nurse on a night shift who can't wait until morning for an HR answer. With 80% of its workforce frontline — and often working without HR coverage — UCLA Health deployed Now Assist AI Search to give employees accurate, instant answers around the clock. A custom Auxiliary Manager role was engineered specifically for the clinical environment, giving Nurse Managers and School of Medicine administrators access to employee data across matrixed teams. The result: HR business partners freed from reactive requests and repositioned as strategic partners. Watch the pitch video.
“HR business partners can now be more strategic, rather than running someone a report because they need data. Manager Connect is helping elevate HR to be a more trusted and strategic partner.” - Stacey Titter, Sr Manager, HR Digital Transformation, UCLA Health
Key results: 88% employee satisfaction score | 70% AI search deflection rate | 70% ticket deflection rate
Team credit: Stacey Titter, HR Digital Transformation; Mike Jones, HR Analytics, Business Partners, Service Center & Technology; Kim Bunge, HR Information Systems; Andrea Resnik, HR Information Systems
Partner: Ondaro
SPECIAL RECOGNITION
City and County of SF
The City and County of San Francisco serves 35,000 employees across 60 departments with a single unified destination for HR, internal communications, and services. The team pulled it off entirely in-house, without professional services or implementation partners, and did it by leading with content first — generating buy-in and employee traffic while simultaneously building out HR service workflows in parallel. With 70% of the workforce frontline or deskless, getting this right wasn't just an IT project. It was a commitment to employees who had never had a digital front door before.
"The fact that we did something that has been attempted and never accomplished in an organization hundreds of years old — centralizing contact lists, providing receipts for requests, making content available across all 60 departments — is revolutionizing the employee experience.” - Syd Heller, Acting Director of Systems and Analytics, City and County of San Francisco
Key results: 32k unique monthly active users | 291k total monthly sessions | 135 HR workflow cases processed since July 2025 — replacing a fully manual, paper-based process
Team credit: Syd Heller, Systems and Analytics; Matt Nelson, Employee Journey
These experiences are proof that great employee experience isn't just good HR strategy — it's a business advantage. Want to see what's possible? Learn more about how ServiceNow can help reinvent your employee experience.
