Welcome back to our “Day in the Life” series! In this series, we highlight some of the amazing people who make up Sun Life's Experience Design practice.

In this installment, we connected with Peter Rose. Peter is a Senior Journey Designer based in Ontario, Canada. Peter was recently an iStar award winner, recognized for his exceptional contributions to the team. The iStar award celebrates individuals and teams for going 'above and beyond' through quarterly nominations across Sun Life Canada. iStar helps us consistently recognize outstanding people who live our values and contribute to our strategy.

Read on to learn more about Peter and his role!

What is your title, and how would you describe your role?

My role as a Senior Journey Designer focuses on mapping out and improving the user journeys our clients and advisors have when interacting with Sun Life's products and services. My team and I take a strategic bird's eye view of these experiences and journeys to understand user pain points and needs, as well as areas we can enhance. I collaborate closely with different members of our organization, whether they work in research, strategy, or our UX and agile teams, to identify issues in our processes and propose solutions. An example of how we do this is my work with our agile development teams. We create value cases to present recommendations to these teams, who then implement these changes through digital interfaces.

In my role, I had the privilege to facilitate long-term strategic planning of up to five years for our target experiences. With design influencing our organizational strategy at the journey level, we can see a level of design maturity that goes beyond optimizing individual touchpoints.

How did you find yourself in this field of work?

I developed an early interest in the environment in elementary school after watching an after-school TV special on Earth Day. This ended up leading me towards pursuing a degree in Ecology during my undergrad, during which I also had a study on sustainability published in an academic journal. After graduating, I found myself working for an environmental consulting firm and becoming friends with the president of the firm, who later suggested I explore the intersection between environmentalism, design, and strategic thinking. This advice led me to pursue a Master of Design in Strategic Foresight and Innovation at OCAD University. This educational experience opened me up to new creative and problem-solving skills, which only continued to grow as I began working for the Government of Canada in fields like Energy Behaviour Change and Procurement Innovation. I worked as a service designer in government settings for over 5 years, with my interest in the field piquing when I learned about an opportunity at Sun Life to help build out their new customer journey design team. I knew this opportunity would let me apply my existing skills while also exposing me to new methodologies in this role.

What are some of the day-to-day tasks in your role? What does a normal day look like for you?

No two weeks are ever the same in my role as I work across different projects that require flexibility and a variety of responsibilities. On a day-to-day basis, I focus on planning, status updates, knowledge sharing, and feedback - tasks that provide consistency from week to week. However, the nature of my work means I may spend time brainstorming new concepts, mapping customer journeys, or working with our end users to test ideas, among so many other things. I also regularly present to organizational stakeholders to gain alignment, attend meetings to understand upcoming work and issues, and host sessions with our design community for critiques and learnings. This variety allows me to get involved in all aspects of the experience design process from initial trends analysis to final implementation. While some duties like communication and tracking progress remain consistent, I appreciate that every project brings new challenges and ways of working to keep our work innovative and solutions focused.

What are some of your favourite aspects of your role? What about the more challenging aspects?

Some of my favourite aspects of my role include meeting new people and hearing different perspectives. Working in design requires a level of empathy because you need to understand the people you are designing for. Having this ability to meet new people has allowed me to continue growing these skills so I can be involved in brainstorming solutions to improve existing problems.

In terms of the more challenging aspects of the role, navigating ambiguity is a tougher issue to tackle than others. The future is inherently uncertain, which means my team and I need to effectively manage uncertainty while also helping others understand the design process takes time before definitive answers or solutions can be presented. Another challenge is dealing with the complexity that comes with having multiple options or different roads to go down. For this type of challenging work, I honestly think of designers as having something of a superpower. We're able to navigate ambiguity by watching our answers and solutions evolve as our research progresses over time - the answer isn't always clear until the end of this process, and you need to be okay with navigating this.

How has remote work impacted your role? How do you promote work-life balance in your career?

I spend most of my work week, around 80%, working remotely from home, with the remaining 20% usually in-person. I really like this hybrid arrangement because it allows for flexibility in my life while also giving me opportunities to connect with my team and colleagues in the office.

Rather than scheduling strict working hours for myself, I try to have a results-driven approach to work. My team and I work extra hours as needed, but also balance this out later so we don't feel overextended. The mental health resources from Sun Life also make it easier for me to avoid this overworking because they also promote a work-life balance. I make sure to disconnect from work when I'm out of the office and prioritize my personal life and spending time with my family and friends.

If you never had to work another day in your life, what would you be doing?

If I had complete freedom from all my work responsibilities, I'd love to take more time participating in some of my different hobbies or passions. My biggest priority would be to spend more quality time with my family. I've always had a deep appreciation for art and storytelling, so I wouldn't rule out pursuing a career in the arts like acting, screenwriting, drawing, illustration, painting, or any other medium to come up with goofy ideas to the create art. Beyond that, exploring museums, nature, and going camping would be other activities I'd take part in because I think they give life more meaning. Rounding out these ideas, travelling the world and seeing historic and cultural sites with loved ones would also be at the top of my list. I also very much enjoy the work I do now, so I wouldn't rule out returning to work in some new capacity just so I could continue helping others and improving journeys for our users. I hear good designers and creatives take inspiration from the experiences in their lives so, if I did all these things I just mentioned, I'd be well positioned to return to work and approach it from new creative angles.