Director, IT - HRIS

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For over 50 years, AmeriLife has been a leader in the development, marketing and distribution of annuity, life and health insurance solutions for those planning for and living in retirement.

Associates get satisfaction from knowing they provide agents, marketers and carrier partners the support needed to succeed in a rapidly evolving industry.

Job Summary

AmeriLife is seeking an experienced and hands on Director, IT – HRIS to own the enterprise delivery, governance, and operational success of its Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS), with Workday as the core platform. This role is responsible for ensuring Workday effectively supports HCM, Payroll, Benefits, Talent, and Reporting needs while meeting scalability, compliance, and operational excellence standards.

This position will initially function as a senior individual contributor, serving as the IT technical owner of the Workday platform. All configuration, development, testing, and operational support are delivered mostly by internal teams in a matrix reporting structure and potentially by service integrators in the future, requiring strong vendor leadership, technical depth, and accountability without direct execution ownership. The role is expected to evolve into people leadership as the HRIS footprint and internal capabilities expand.

Job Description

Key Responsibilities

HRIS Platform Ownership & Strategy

• Serve as the technical enterprise owner for HRIS, defining platform vision, roadmap, operating model, and success metrics.
•  Ensure Workday operates as a secure, scalable, and compliant enterprise platform supporting HR owned business processes.
• Execute approved enhancements, integrations, reporting, and configuration changes through disciplined SDLC, release management, and change governance
• Partner with HR Operations and COEs to implement approved business designs through technical configurations and integrations.

Service Integrator‑Led Development & Delivery Oversight

• Oversee all HRIS development, configuration, testing, and releases performed by Service Integrators.
• Review and validate solution designs, configuration decisions, and delivery plans.
• Ensure delivery complies with enterprise architecture, security, privacy, audit, and regulatory requirements.
• Drive disciplined SDLC execution, change management, and release governance.

Technical Leadership & Integrations

• Maintain enterprise level ownership of Workday architecture, despite vendor delivered execution.
• Partner with Data Engineering, Security, IAM, and Finance teams to design, implement, and monitor integrations (benefits carriers, payroll vendors, identity providers, financial systems, and reporting platforms).
• Ensure data accuracy, reconciliation, and lineage across HR systems.

Production Support & Operational Governance

• Own technical platform reliability, integrations, monitoring, incident response, and system performance for Workday in partnership with HR functional owners.
• Define and enforce SLAs, KPIs, monitoring, and escalation procedures with Service Integrators.
• Lead incident management, root‑cause analysis, audit support, and continuous‑improvement initiatives.

Vendor & Service Integrator Management

• Serve as the primary technical governance owner for HRIS Service Integrators , ensuring delivery quality, security and architectural compliance, in partnership with HR functional owners for priorities and acceptance.
• Manage SOWs, contracts, capacity planning, renewals, and performance reviews in partnership with the HR Operations team
• Hold partners accountable for delivery quality, responsiveness, documentation, and knowledge transfer.
• Coordinate with Workday as needed for escalations and roadmap alignment.

Leadership & Future Team Growth

• Operate initially as a senior individual contributor with enterprise‑wide accountability.
• Establish governance models, operating procedures, documentation standards, and controls that enable scalability.
• Prepare to build and lead an internal HRIS team as organizational needs evolve.
• Provide clear, executive‑level communication on risks, timelines, delivery health, and business outcomes.

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of progressive IT experience with strong background in enterprise application development, delivery and operational support of on-prem or SaaS platforms.
• Workday experience required, including HCM, technical system configur