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Role Description

As the Workday Optimization Manager, you play a critical, hands-on role in supporting the technical design, configuration, and continuous improvement of our enterprise-wide Workday platform. This position combines deep, expert-level technical proficiency in Workday with a strategic approach to cross-functional business process redesign.

• Serve as the primary hands-on technical expert for Workday configuration, testing, and functionality deployment across the platform (HCM, Finance, Payroll, etc.).
• Develop, test, and maintain complex Workday reports, dashboards, and advanced business processes.
• Analyze Workday help desk trends and ticket data to identify recurring issues, troubleshooting, and directly remediating problems through system configuration.
• Serve as a bridge between technical solutions and community adoption — building trust, addressing concerns, and providing training.
• Communicate complex technical changes in accessible and empathetic ways.
• Help develop a culture of continuous improvement.
• Direct the tenant strategy and stay continuously updated on Workday’s product roadmap and bi-annual releases.
• Translate new features and Workday community best practices into actionable system enhancements, and configure and test them in sandbox environments before deployment.
• Monitor overall system performance, data integrity, and cross-functional impacts to ensure updates are leveraged to their full potential without duplicating effort.
• Proactively engage with functional leaders and subject matter experts to understand workflows, pain points, and business practices.
• Apply methodologies (e.g., Six Sigma, Lean, Agile) to rethink and redesign business processes, subsequently building those optimized workflows directly within Workday.
• Simplify complex technical changes for non-technical users and champion documenting new workflows to ensure sustainable adoption.
• Maintain Workday Pro certifications in areas of Functional Core Area, Integration Administration, Security, and Reporting.
• Represent the College in peer groups, user conferences, and other events to maintain a network of informal resources.
• Maintain productive working relationships with functional areas, serve as a liaison as needed between functional areas, and end-user support themes.
• Other duties & responsibilities as assigned.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in a related field (Information Technology, Human Resources, Finance, Business Administration, etc.).
• Minimum of 5+ years of experience in Workday system analysis, design, development, and support, with a strong preference for enterprise-wide platform exposure.
• 5+ years of deep, hands-on Workday configuration experience. (Must be able to pass a technical configuration assessment).
• Demonstrated ability to lead process improvement projects, ideally backed by certification or strong experience in Six Sigma, Lean, or Agile methodologies.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills; ability to seamlessly translate between strategic business needs and highly technical system configurations.

Requirements

• Expert knowledge one or more of the following: Workday Recruiting, Time & Absence, Benefits, Payroll, Finance, or Student.
• Understand technology trends and the practical application of existing and new emerging technologies to support the evolving HR, Finance, and Payroll functions.
• Highly organized and capable of prioritizing tasks under tight deadlines.
• Ability to present and guide conversations regarding technical features to non-technical staff.
• Eagerness to explore new technology and processes.
• Collaborative in nature across diverse teams and comfortable guiding a mission-driven community through system changes, even when that community might be resistant or have varying levels of "change readiness."
• Ability to communicate business needs to technical people and to communicate and simplify complex technical information for non-technical users.

Benefits

• This position is a full-time remote position, with the possibility of occasional requirements to come onsite for planning or strategic meetings.
• Requires the ability to perform customary office tasks such as sitting, walking, standing, computing, and participation in video meetings for moderate to prolonged periods of time.

Company Description

Barnard College is dedicated to empowering women through education and leadership opportunities.