HRIS Business Process Specialist or Lead HRIS Business Process Specialist

Tucson Electric Power•Tucson, AZ

About The Position

The HRIS Business Process Specialist connects HR strategy, business processes, and technology delivery. The role leads structured discovery, enterprise process analysis, requirements, prioritization, governance, and delivery readiness for Workday and related HR technologies. In partnership with HR Centers of Expertise, HR Business Partners, HR Operations, HRIS, IT, Finance, Compliance, and vendors, the specialist defines business problems, evaluates system and non-system options, and guides sustainable solutions that address cross-functional impacts, security and control expectations, data needs, and long-term supportability. The role is distinct from day-to-day HRIS administration and configuration ownership. Its primary contribution is establishing clarity and alignment across intake, business process design, requirements, roadmap priorities, governance decisions, testing and release readiness, stakeholder adoption, and benefits realization. The job family advances HRIS practices through disciplined, repeatable, and data-informed ways of working. The HRIS Business Process Specialist analyzes, documents, coordinates, and makes recommendations within assigned workstreams or moderately complex initiatives. The role owns defined process areas, workstreams, or initiatives involving several stakeholder groups, and works independently within established methods and governance while seeking guidance for novel, high-risk, or enterprise decisions. The Lead HRIS Business Process Specialist establishes direction, decision paths, and alignment for highly complex, ambiguous, or enterprise-impacting work. The lead may direct cross-functional initiatives, portfolio segments, governance topics, or roadmap decisions spanning multiple Centers of Expertise and downstream impacts. The role independently structures ambiguous work, develops enterprise solution direction, shapes prioritization and portfolio recommendations, and leads delivery approach, risk resolution, executive visibility, and end-to-end readiness for complex initiatives. The position regularly involves prolonged sitting, with occasional standing, walking, or bending for short periods. It requires use of a computer, keyboard, mouse, and other office equipment; frequent communication by phone and in person; and visual review of detailed operational reports. The role may require lifting and carrying items weighing up to 15 pounds. Regular travel to operational sites, industry events, and stakeholder meetings is required. The position does not perform safety-sensitive functions.

Requirements

For the HRIS Business Process Specialist: bachelor’s degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Information Systems, Organizational Development, Analytics, or a related field, or an equivalent combination of education and relevant experience.
For the HRIS Business Process Specialist: two or more years of progressive experience in HR operations, HR technology, HRIS, business analysis, process improvement, product delivery, or related work.
For the Lead HRIS Business Process Specialist: bachelor’s degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Information Systems, Organizational Development, Analytics, or a related field, or an equivalent combination of education and relevant experience.
For the Lead HRIS Business Process Specialist: typically five or more years of progressive experience in HR operations, HR technology, HRIS, process consulting, product ownership, portfolio management, or project delivery.
Ability to frame ambiguous problems, constructively challenge assumptions, recommend sustainable options, and communicate technical concepts in business language.
Ability to build trust, facilitate cross-functional decisions, manage competing priorities, and influence without direct authority.
Commitment to delivered functionality, scalable design, clear ownership, strong documentation, disciplined governance, knowledge sharing, and continuous improvement.
End-to-end HR process awareness and ability to connect business strategy, operating processes, worker experience, data, controls, and technology impacts.
Experience supporting discovery, process mapping, requirements, fit-gap analysis, impact assessment, acceptance criteria, and implementation readiness.
Experience maintaining or reporting on a backlog, roadmap, project pipeline, or comparable body of work and coordinating deliverables across stakeholders.
Strong analytical, facilitation, critical-listening, written, verbal, presentation, and relationship-management skills.
Working knowledge of testing, change control, data, security, documentation, audit, and compliance expectations in a corporate environment.
For the Lead level: demonstrated experience leading complex discovery and enterprise analysis involving ambiguity, competing priorities, cross-functional impacts, and difficult tradeoffs.
For the Lead level: experience leading prioritization, roadmap, portfolio governance, executive reporting, and cross-functional delivery across business, technical, vendor, and leadership stakeholders.
For the Lead level: advanced facilitation, negotiation, executive communication, conflict navigation, coaching, and influence without direct authority.
For the Lead level: strong working knowledge of governance, security, controls, release readiness, testing strategy, risk, vendor accountability, and regulatory expectations.

Nice To Haves

Workday platform experience; broad Workday platform experience is preferred for the Lead level.
Experience with work-tracking tools, reporting, Agile or structured demand management, change impact, or regulated environments.
For the Lead level: portfolio or product ownership, vendor governance, SOX or regulated-environment experience, and executive decision-material development.
Relevant Workday, IIBA, PMI, Prosci, Agile, Lean, Six Sigma, SHRM, or HRCI credentials.

Responsibilities

Lead or support intake for HR technology enhancements, optimization opportunities, production concerns, projects, regulatory needs, and strategic initiatives.
Clarify requests, outcomes, urgency, risk, dependencies, impacted populations, and decision owners before work enters a portfolio or backlog.
Apply established prioritization criteria and prepare recommendations for governance decisions.
Maintain portfolio, backlog, roadmap, decision, and dependency information to provide visibility into work status, tradeoffs, and upcoming decisions.
Facilitate cross-functional alignment on competing priorities, conflicting requirements, or different definitions of success.
Lead or support discovery sessions to identify business needs, root causes, assumptions, process gaps, user impacts, data requirements, and system dependencies.
Document and validate current- and future-state processes, business rules, requirements, decisions, acceptance criteria, traceability, and implementation readiness.
Perform fit-gap, change-impact, stakeholder-impact, control-impact, and dependency analysis across HR processes, worker populations, Workday modules, integrations, security, reporting, and downstream systems.
Recommend appropriate Workday, process, policy, data, reporting, training, or non-system responses to business needs.
Promote delivered functionality, enterprise standards, simplification, automation, scalability, and sustainable ownership.
Translate business needs into functional direction for HRIS, IT, vendors, and Workday support partners without assuming technical ownership assigned to other teams.
Ensure proposed changes follow intake, design, security, data, testing, change-control, documentation, release, compliance, and production-readiness expectations.
Assess downstream impacts and explain options, constraints, risks, costs, dependencies, and tradeoffs in business language.
Prepare decision materials and recommendations; document decisions, ownership, conditions, and follow-up actions.
Escalate issues requiring leadership governance while providing a recommended path forward.
Partner with the Workday Enablement Lead and HR Solutions Center to evaluate end-user impacts of system changes and support communication needs as determined by the HR change leadership team.
Translate approved business changes into impact assessments, testing requirements, readiness activities, communications, training needs, and support preparation.
Partner with HRIS and process owners to define unit, regression, integration, and user acceptance testing scope, scenarios, expected outcomes, evidence requirements, roles, and sign-off criteria.
Coordinate cross-functional testing and readiness across HR COEs, HR Operations, HRSC, IT, Finance, Compliance, and vendors; identify gaps, blockers, and unresolved decisions.
Support release readiness playbooks, debriefs, defect and issue-pattern reviews, and lessons learned.
Use business-process and case insights to identify skill gaps, process breakdowns, recurring issues, and opportunities for clearer ownership or enablement.
Lead small to moderately complex HR technology initiatives and serve as business process lead or product-facing analyst for larger initiatives.
Define and manage analysis and readiness work plans, deliverables, dependencies, risks, decisions, and stakeholder commitments.
Coordinate work from discovery through design, testing, deployment, stabilization, and transition to sustainable support.
Provide concise status reporting on completed work, work in progress, upcoming decisions, risks, blockers, and requested leadership actions.
Support adoption by preparing stakeholders, clarifying role and process changes, coordinating enablement, and confirming that solutions address approved business needs.
Build trusted relationships across HR, IT, Finance, Compliance, and vendor partners while maintaining clear accountability and decision rights.
Coach stakeholders on requirements, prioritization, testing, readiness, and sustainable use of Workday capabilities.
Create reusable templates, standards, playbooks, process maps, decision records, and knowledge resources.
Share knowledge through facilitation, coaching, pairing, demonstrations, and lessons learned; support development of business-analysis and product-delivery capability.
Identify opportunities to improve HR technology governance, operating rhythms, portfolio transparency, cross-functional readiness, and vendor engagement.
For the Specialist level, own defined workstreams or moderately complex initiatives, facilitate discovery, document traceable requirements, develop options, validate readiness, apply established criteria, and coordinate analysis, testing, readiness, communications, risks, and transition.
For the Lead level, lead complex discovery, resolve conflicting requirements, shape prioritization and roadmap recommendations, advise on controls and risk, improve governance and decision quality, lead complex cross-functional delivery, and coach stakeholders and analysts.