Job Description: Senior Program Manager – Workday HCM & Payroll Implementation
Position Summar y
- We are seeking an experienced Senior Program Manager to lead a large-scale Workday HCM and Payroll implementation. This individual will serve as the primary liaison between the System Integrator (SI) and the client, ensuring alignment across executive stakeholders, business functions, IT, and implementation teams. The ideal candidate is an accomplished Workday implementation leader with exceptional executive presence, strong program governance experience, and a proven ability to deliver complex enterprise transformation initiatives.
Key Responsibilit ies
- Serve as the primary point of contact between the client and the System Integrator (SI), fostering strong partnerships and driving successful program execution.
- Provide executive-level leadership, communication, and status reporting to steering committees and senior business and IT leadership.
- Lead cross-functional workstreams spanning Human Resources, Payroll, Finance, IT, Security, Change Management, Data Conversion, Integrations, Testing, and Deployment.
- Establish and maintain program governance, including risk management, issue resolution, decision tracking, and executive escalations.
- Ensure alignment between business objectives, technical deliverables, project milestones, and implementation methodology.
- Drive accountability across multiple teams to ensure scope, schedule, budget, quality, and program objectives are achieved.
- Facilitate executive steering committee meetings, program reviews, and cross-functional planning sessions.
- Partner with Workday functional and technical leads to proactively identify implementation risks and develop mitigation strategies.
- Coordinate dependencies across client teams, third-party vendors, and the System Integrator.
- Monitor overall program health using KPIs, dashboards, and executive reporting.
- Champion organizational readiness, stakeholder engagement, and adoption throughout the implementation lifecycle.
- Ensure adherence to implementation of best practices, governance standards, and compliance requirements.
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in Business, Information Technology, Human Resources, or a related
field.
- 10+ years of enterprise program or project management experience leading large-scale ERP or HCM implementations.
- 5+ years of experience leading multiple Workday HCM implementations, including Payroll implementations.
- Demonstrated success serving as the client-facing Program Manager between a System Integrator and executive client stakeholders.
- Strong knowledge of the Workday implementation lifecycle, governance models, and deployment methodologies. Exceptional executive presence with the ability to communicate effectively with C-level executives and senior leadership.
- Proven experience leading cross-functional business and IT organizations.
- Strong leadership, negotiation, conflict resolution, and stakeholder management skills.
- Experience managing multiple workstreams, interdependencies, budgets, timelines, and program risks.
- Excellent presentation, communication, and facilitation skills.