Freelance Workday HCM Project Manager

WPP is the creative transformation company. We use the power of creativity to build better futures for our people, planet, clients, and communities.

Working at WPP means being part of a global network of more than 115,000 accomplished people in 110 countries. WPP has headquarters in New York, London and Singapore and a corporate presence in major markets worldwide.

We create transformative ideas and outcomes for our clients through an integrated offer of communications, experience, commerce, and technology.

WPP and our award-winning agencies work with most of the world's biggest companies and organisations – from Ford, Unilever and P&G to Google, HSBC, and the UN. Our clients include 61 of the FTSE 100, 307 of the Fortune Global 500, all 30 of the Dow Jones 30 and 62 of the NASDAQ 100. WPP are the leader in the Bloomberg Gender Equality Index and 20th in the FTSE 100 rankings for Women on Boards.

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, modernise 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, professionalise 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 technical project plans, combining various workstreams, and assessing functional dependencies.

You will oversee the end-to-end rollout of Workday HCM solutions, including plan and deliverable tracking, workstream alignment, risks, issues, dependencies, assumptions, and reporting.

You will lead workstream alignment as a conduit between the Functional, Integrations, Testing, Data, and Cutover workstreams.

You will also devise a plan to transition the HCM 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 workstream alignment in Functional, Integrations, Data, Test, Cutover, and Hypercare. You will possess exceptional facilitation, conflict resolution, and prioritisation skills and lead global workshops as part of HCM deployment.

You will collaborate with a diverse, multidisciplinary 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 workflow.

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 organisation, 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 and have an appreciation for and experience working with stakeholders across multiple