Workday HCM Project Manager, Freelance

About WPP IT

WPP IT offers information technology services for WPP, the world's largest provider of communication services. WPP is a creative transformation company that helps its clients to transform the future through exceptional work. WPP IT plays a crucial role in this journey, and we take pride in providing technology solutions to some of the most innovative and creative brands worldwide.

Role Purpose

WPP is a company that places technology at the forefront of its operations. At WPP IT, we are dedicated to enabling collaboration, creativity, and success for everyone. We are transforming significantly to create a platform that will power WPP's next evolution. Our current focus is to simplify and clarify the operating model between WPP and our brands, modernize and create technology-enabled colleague experiences, and establish an open, integrated technology innovation platform throughout WPP.

As part of this process, we have identified the need for a crucial new role, the Workday HCM Project Manager. This person will lead Workday HCM delivery in North America for our agencies. The Workday HCM Project Manager will ensure that the HR Technology Transformation is aligned with WPP IT's vision, professionalize how we deliver projects as a service, provide a value-focused approach, and maintain cost control through tools fit for purpose.

Key Responsibilities

The job involves defining and maintaining project/deployment plans from various work-streams and assessing functional dependencies.

You will oversee the end-to-end delivery of Workday HCM rollout, including plan and deliverable tracking, resource management, work-stream alignment, risks, issues, dependencies, assumptions, and reporting.

You will set up a programme governance model and represent stand-ups and weekly status updates, as well as steer co-representation.

You will also devise a strategy to transition the solution from programme mode to BAU, collaborating with the service team, other project managers and the BAU product owner.

Your job will also involve leading discussions with 3rd party vendors on solutions, scope, plan tracking and budget management. This also includes building and maintaining tenant management plans for deployment purposes.

You will lead work-stream alignment in Functional, Integrations, Data, Test, Cutover, and Hypercare. You will possess exceptional facilitation, conflict resolution and prioritization skills, leading global workshops as part of HCM deployment.

You will collaborate with a diverse multi-disciplinary global team to deliver the HCM solution based on business needs and outcomes, managing cross-dependency between Functional, Technical, Data Migration, Testing, Cutover and Transition to BAU Work-streams.

You will be the single point of contact for any plan tracking, deployment progress, issues and associated risks to complete on-time delivery.

You will work with Risk and controls, DPO approvals, and Programme assurance to ensure project governance deliverables meet WPP IT audit standards and best practices.

Skills and Experience

The ideal candidate should have previous experience leading the rollout of Workday HCM projects in a complex global organisation, such as Technical Project Manager, Project Manager, Deployment Manager, or Engagement Manager.

They should have end-to-end Workday HCM project delivery experience in a large-scale organization, starting from project kick-off until transitioning to BAU and hypercare. Additionally, they should have previous experience in delivering Workday HCM solutions as part of a wider HR Transformation program.

The candidate should possess exceptional stakeholder engagement skills, with an appreciation and experience of working with stakeholders across multiple business units and levels of seniority.

They should be quick to learn and adaptable to changing priorities, with the ability to reshape, reconfigure, and realign plans and delivery approaches to meet challenging deadlines without jeopardizing the overall delivery.

Moreover, the candidate should be a self-starter with impeccable organizational and time-management skills, focusing on value and outcomes, and enthusiastic with a can-do attitude.

They should have strong communication and stakeholder management skills, turn complex technical messages into effective, succinct communications, and influence stakeholders with competing priorities.

Lastly, the candidate should have experience and knowledge of project management tools and dashboards such as MS Project, Smart Sheets, Jira, Risk Register, and Office 365 Collaboration tools.

To be Successful

• 3 – 4 Workday HCM Deployment experience as a Project Manager or Engagement Manager
• Previously Certified in Workday HCM / Project Manager
• Workday Functional knowledge will be beneficial.
• Previously deployed Workday HCM in the North America Region
• Team lead, Team player skills to manage a project as part of the Global Programme.
• Available in East Coast time zone to collaborate with wider programme team based in London.

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