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. Working with HR Centers of Expertise, HR Business Partners, HR Operations, HRIS, IT, Finance, Compliance, and vendors, the specialist clarifies business needs, evaluates system and non-system options, and guides sustainable solutions that account for cross-functional impacts, security and controls, data needs, and long-term supportability. The role is distinct from day-to-day HRIS administration and configuration ownership. The role establishes clarity and alignment across intake, 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 Specialist analyzes, documents, coordinates, and recommends within assigned workstreams or moderately complex initiatives; owns defined process areas or initiatives involving several stakeholder groups; and works independently within established methods and governance, seeking guidance for novel, high-risk, or enterprise decisions. The Lead HRIS Business Process Specialist establishes direction and alignment for highly complex, ambiguous, or enterprise-impacting work. This level leads cross-functional initiatives, portfolio segments, governance topics, or roadmap decisions spanning multiple COEs and downstream impacts; structures ambiguous work; shapes prioritization and tradeoff decisions; advises on enterprise impacts, controls, and risk; and leads delivery readiness for complex initiatives. The position involves regular travel to operational sites, industry events, and stakeholder meetings.

Requirements

For the HRIS Business Process Specialist level: 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 level: 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 level: 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 level: 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.
Lead level: demonstrated experience leading complex discovery and enterprise analysis involving ambiguity, competing priorities, cross-functional impacts, and difficult tradeoffs.
Lead level: experience leading prioritization, roadmap, portfolio governance, executive reporting, and cross-functional delivery across business, technical, vendor, and leadership stakeholders.
Lead level: advanced facilitation, negotiation, executive communication, conflict navigation, coaching, and influence without direct authority.
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.
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 outcomes, urgency, risks, dependencies, affected populations, and decision owners.
Apply prioritization criteria such as business value, risk, compliance, employee impact, strategic alignment, effort, readiness, and dependencies; prepare recommendations for governance decisions.
Maintain portfolio, backlog, roadmap, decision, and dependency information to provide stakeholders and leaders with visibility into status, tradeoffs, and upcoming decisions.
Facilitate cross-functional alignment when stakeholders have competing priorities, conflicting requirements, or different definitions of success.
Lead or support discovery 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 analyses 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; 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 clear business language.
Prepare decision materials and recommendations; document decisions, ownership, conditions, and follow-up actions; escalate matters requiring leadership governance and recommend a path forward.
Partner with the Workday Enablement Lead and HR Solutions Center to evaluate end-user impacts of system changes and provide recommendations and communication support 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 to improve quality and predictability.
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 the 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, audience-appropriate status reporting that distinguishes 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 vendors while maintaining clear accountability and decision rights.
Coach stakeholders on effective 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.
Identify opportunities to improve HR technology governance, operating rhythms, portfolio transparency, cross-functional readiness, and vendor engagement.
At the Lead level, establish decision paths for complex work, lead enterprise analysis and difficult tradeoffs, shape portfolio and roadmap recommendations, improve governance and decision quality, and coach stakeholders and analysts.