Director, Employee Experience

Western Digital • San Jose, CA

23h • Onsite

About The Position

The Director, Employee Experience is a senior leadership role responsible for enabling and continuously improving a high‑quality, consistent employee and manager experience across multiple regions. Positioned between HR Operations, HR Centers of Excellence, and HR Business Partners, this role serves as the connector that ensures enterprise people strategies, programs, and processes are delivered in a cohesive, intuitive, and experience‑led way.
This role leads a global Employee Experience Partner team focused on shaping end‑to-end people journeys, strengthening manager effectiveness through scalable experiences, and supporting the activation of regional talent strategies through thoughtful, localized delivery. The Director ensures that core HR programs are implemented with consistency and clarity, reducing friction for managers and employees while respecting regional and regulatory nuances.
Working in close partnership with HR COEs, HR Operations, and HRBPs, the Director translates people strategies, policies, and programs into practical, usable experiences centered on key moments that matter across the employee lifecycle. The role enables leaders and HR partners by improving how people processes are experienced, understood, and adopted.
Operating at the intersection of experience optimization, operational execution, and change enablement, the Director, Employee Experience leverages employee insights, operational data, and continuous feedback loops to identify pain points, improve usability, and elevate how employees and managers experience HR at scale. The Director, Employee Experience Partner serves as a critical connector between the business and how HR is experienced and understood.

Requirements

• 10+ years of progressive experience in employee experience, HR transformation, organizational effectiveness & manager enablement, with demonstrated impact in complex, matrixed organizations; experience in technology or manufacturing environments strongly preferred.
• Demonstrates strong regulatory acumen by partnering with Legal, Employee[JF1] Relations, and regional HR teams to ensure people practices meet country‑specific employment requirements, while translating complex regulations into clear, actionable guidance that enables managers to make compliant, informed decisions
• Proven ability to build, lead, and scale high‑performing global teams across multiple regions, cultures, and regulatory environments, with a focus on consistency of experience and local relevance.
• Strong track record partnering with senior leaders, HR Business Partners, HR Operations, and Centers of Excellence to translate people strategies into practical, manager‑ready experiences that address leadership, talent, and organizational needs.
• Strong coaching, facilitation, and communication skills, with the ability to leverage storytelling to enable manager effectiveness, and drive alignment across diverse stakeholder groups without direct authority.
• Sound judgment and strong influencing capability, grounded in accountability, trust, inclusion, and respect, with the ability to balance business priorities, employee experience, and risk considerations.
• Demonstrated ability to operate effectively in ambiguity, manage multiple large‑scale initiatives simultaneously, and adapt approaches in fast‑changing, global business contexts.

Responsibilities

• Uplevel Manager Capability
• Partner with Talent Development & Inclusion (TD&I) to enable and embed core people‑leader capabilities through locally relevant, experience-led delivery.
• Build, develop, and lead a high‑performing global Employee Experience Partner team that provides just‑in-time coaching, practical guidance, and manager‑ready frameworks developed by TD&I and COEs.
• Strengthen manager confidence, consistency, and accountability by translating leadership capability frameworks into clear expectations, tools, and moments‑that‑matter across the employee lifecycle.
• Serve as a frontline experience multiplier, ensuring managers consistently understand how to apply people practices—not just what to do.
• Deliver HR Programs Through Experience‑Led Activation
• Drive the activation, adoption, and consistent experience of core HR programs across regions in close partnership with HR Operations and COEs.
• Translate global HR initiatives into manager‑ready practices that are intuitive, locally applicable, and scalable.
• Enable leaders to engage effectively with HR programs by simplifying complexity and reinforcing expectations through coordinated communications, tools, and reinforcement.
• Provide feedback loops to COEs and HR Operations to improve program usability and effectiveness based on lived manager and employee experiences.
• Support the Business through Integrated enablement
• Partner closely with HR Business Partners, Legal, HR Operations, and Centers of Excellence to deliver integrated, experienced-led people solutions aligned to evolving business priorities.
• Act as a connector that balances business needs, employee experience, and risk awareness, ensuring consistency without sacrificing local relevance.
• Enable HRBPs and leaders by clarifying roles, decision pathways, and escalation points within people processes.
• Identify friction points between the business and HR and proactively address them through experience improvements and enablement.
• Drive Country‑Level HR Compliance and Governance
• Collaborate with Legal, Employee Relations, and regional HR teams to ensure people practices comply with local employment laws, regulatory requirements and internal governance standards.
• Interpret complex employment regulations and convert them into clear, practical guidance that empowers managers to make compliant, people-centered decisions.

Benefits

• We offer a comprehensive package of benefits including paid vacation time; paid sick leave; medical/dental/vision insurance; life, accident and disability insurance; tax-advantaged flexible spending and health savings accounts; employee assistance program; other voluntary benefit programs such as supplemental life and AD&D, legal plan, pet insurance, critical illness, accident and hospital indemnity; tuition reimbursement; transit; the Applause Program; employee stock purchase plan; and the WD Savings 401(k) Plan.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director
• Education Level: No Education Listed
• Number of Employees: 1-10 employees