Senior Manager, HRIS

The Pew Charitable Trusts • Buffalo, NY

7d • Hybrid

About The Position

The HRIS Transformation lead provides strategic and operational leadership for the organization’s Workday Human Capital Management (HCM) platform. This role heads a new HRIS function within the HR department, overseeing a dedicated Workday support team that serves as the bridge between HR, IT, and payroll. Reporting into HR leadership, the senior manager ensures Workday stays optimized to effectively support business needs, compliance requirements, and continuous improvement goals. As part of the implementation of the new support model, the Transformation Lead will design and staff the new HRIS team, establish and refine a governance structure, and develop and maintain a comprehensive change management and training program to maximize user adoption and proficiency in Workday.

Requirements

• Leadership: Proven experience managing teams and leading cross-functional initiatives. Experience supervising staff, including managing performance and providing career development advice and counsel.
• Technical Expertise: Deep experience with Workday configuration, reporting, integrations, and business processes in a large nonprofit, global organization with employees in several countries and across multiple U.S. states.
• Domain Knowledge: Strong grasp of HR and payroll operations, compliance, and data governance.
• Project Management: Experience with strategic planning, governance frameworks, and project delivery.
• Communication: Excellent stakeholder engagement, training development, and change management skills.
• Foster a work environment that inspires excellence, values impact, encourages transparency, builds mutual trust and respect, embraces and values diversity, and is collaborative, caring and compassionate.
• Generally requires a minimum of 8 years of professional experience, including staff, project, and/or consultant management experience; bachelor’s degree in HR, Information Systems, Business Administration, or related field or equivalent experience required . Advanced degree preferred.
• Minimum of 8 years of progressively responsible for HRIS or HR technology leadership, with direct Workday HCM experience.

Nice To Haves

• Certifications: Workday HCM certification strongly preferred.

Responsibilities

• In close collaboration with IT, develop a governance structure that at the strategic level will keep pace with innovation and maximize Workday system value for the HR and payroll teams. The governance structure at the operational level will develop processes for change control and release management and ensure timely attention to operational needs.
• Develop a two-year plan to implement a Workday support model across HR, IT, and payroll to achieve an ongoing optimized operational state.
• Serve as co-owner of the Workday HCM platform with IT and collaborate with cross-functional stakeholders to define priorities and optimize functionality.
• Lead change management and adoption. Drive organizational readiness for new features and processes through structured change management strategies.
• Recruit, hire and establish a high-performing HRIS team within HR to support continuous Workday subject matter expertise.
• Demonstrate strong influencing skills to drive decision-making and strategic outcomes across HR, IT, and payroll. Effectively build consensus, advocate for best practices, and steer stakeholders toward solutions that maximize the value of the Workday platform.
• Champion user adoption by developing communication plans, training programs, and stakeholder engagement initiatives.
• Serve as a key liaison between HR, IT, payroll, and other stakeholders such as finance and program to foster cross-functional collaboration and ensure seamless integration of Workday solutions. Promote a culture of partnership and shared accountability for system performance and process optimization.
• Work closely with IT to maintain system integrations, data flows, and technical performance. Partner with IT Lead in executing the system roadmap and communicating enhancements.
• Develop and oversee testing framework and strategies for the support model teams (HRIS and WDIT) and functional teams (in HR and payroll) to ensure thorough testing for all updates and new features.
• Oversee creation, maintenance, and optimization of reports and dashboards that support workforce insights and decision-making.
• Design and maintain comprehensive and engaging learning resources. Develop a structured, scalable training framework for all Workday user groups—including HRIS team members, HR functional teams, payroll staff, managers, and employees. Ensure programs address both foundational knowledge and advanced functionality to maximize system utilization.

Benefits

• We offer a competitive salary and benefit program, including: comprehensive, affordable health care through medical, dental, and vision coverage; financial security with life and disability insurance; opportunities to save using health savings and flexible spending accounts; retirement benefits to help prepare for the future; and work/life benefits to maintain a good balance.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Manager