Senior Performance & Talent Solutions Lead (Workday)

What You'll Do

The Senior Performance & Talent Solutions Lead supports the enterprise strategy and owns the functional product roadmap, process architecture, configuration partnership, and continuous improvement agenda for performance, talent, and succession solutions. Reporting to the Head of Talent and Performance Management, this role translates performance and talent philosophy, policy, and business requirements into simple, scalable, data-informed processes and Workday-enabled experiences.

This role serves as the functional product and process lead for enterprise performance and talent solutions, including goal setting, performance reviews, calibration, talent profiles, talent reviews, potential assessment, succession planning, critical-role management, and development planning. The role combines strategic ownership with hands-on leadership of requirements, configuration decisions, testing, release readiness, user adoption, and annual-cycle execution.

The Senior Performance & Talent Solutions Lead partners closely with Talent & Performance Management, HR Technology, HR Operations, People Analytics, HR Business Partners, Talent Standards and Integration, and other stakeholders. The role owns functional priorities and business acceptance of the solutions, while HR Technology retains technical architecture and system-configuration accountability where applicable.

What We're Looking For

Performance & Talent Solutions Strategy and Product Leadership

• Own the enterprise performance and talent solutions strategy and multi-release functional product roadmap, aligned with Talent & Performance Management priorities and the broader Talent COE operating model.
• Define the future-state ecosystem for goal setting, performance, calibration, talent profiles, talent reviews, potential, succession, critical roles, talent pools, and development planning.
• Prioritize enhancements and investments based on business value, user needs, process risk, data requirements, Workday capabilities, technical feasibility, and organizational change capacity.
• Establish product principles, success measures, value-realization expectations, and a transparent intake and prioritization process for performance and talent solutions.
• Advise the Head of Talent and Performance Management on process feasibility, user experience, technology implications, data needs, and implementation trade-offs.

Global Process Architecture and Annual-Cycle Leadership

• Own the global process architecture, end-to-end workflows, roles, decision rights, controls, exception governance, and documentation for performance and talent processes.
• Lead operational readiness and execution for goal setting, mid-year performance, year-end performance, calibration, talent review, and succession cycles.
• Drive process simplification, global consistency, and reduction of manual work, while defining principles for justified local or regulatory variation.
• Coordinate integrated calendars, dependencies, communications, leader enablement, support models, and post-cycle reviews with functional and operational partners.
• Identify process risks, adoption barriers, and recurring issues, and translate findings into prioritized improvements.

Workday Functional Design and Configuration Partnership

• Serve as the functional product owner and subject-matter lead for Workday Performance, Talent, and Succession capabilities.
• Translate business strategy and process requirements into functional requirements, user stories, process flows, configuration decisions, security requirements, test scenarios, and acceptance criteria.
• Partner with HR Technology and Workday configuration teams to design, configure, validate, and release scalable solutions that align with policy, governance, data, and user-experience requirements.
• Make or recommend functional design decisions and manage trade-offs among standard Workday capability, configuration, integrations, and justified supplemental solutions.
• Lead user acceptance testing, regression testing, defect prioritization, business sign-off, release communications, and production-readiness activities.
• Maintain a disciplined backlog and release plan, and ensure that configuration and enhancements remain aligned with the approved functional roadmap.

User Experience, Adoption, Data and Insights Enablement

• Own the functional user-experience strategy across employees, managers, executives, HR Business Partners, Talent practitioners, and administrators.
• Develop or coordinate in-system guidance, tools, templates, enablement resources, communications, and support approaches for performance and talent processes.
• Define functional data requirements, data definitions, quality controls, access principles, reporting needs, and dashboard requirements in partnership with People Analytics and HR Technology.
• Enable connections among performance, talent, succession, learning, skills, internal mobility, workforce planning, organization data, and development planning where they create clear business value.
• Monitor adoption, process completion, user feedback, data integrity, issue trends, and solution value; use the evidence to drive continuous improvement.

Governance, Risk and Cross-Functional Partnership

• Establish and operate governance for intake, prioritization, design decisions, testing, release readiness, risk escalation, and post-implementation review.
• Partner with Talent Standards, Operations & Integration to apply Talent-wide program, process, tool, data, vendor, measurement, accessibility, and user-experience standards within the performance and talent domain.
• Support enterprise and executive succession processes through controlled workflows, data, reporting, and materials; Board-governed succession decisions remain accountable to the Global Head of Talent, CHRO, CEO, and relevant Board governance.
• Coordinate with Privacy, Legal, Information Security, Audit, and other control partners to ensure appropriate confidentiality, compliance, security, and data governance.
• Lead cross-functional working teams and influence senior stakeholders without relying solely on formal authority.

Required Qualifications

Experience

• 7–10 years of progressive experience in talent management, performance management, HR technology, HR product management, process transformation, or related disciplines.
• Demonstrated ownership of complex enterprise performance or talent processes in a global, matrixed organization.
• Strong experience with Workday Performance, Talent, and/or Succession, including functional requirements, configuration partnership, testing, releases, and process optimization.
• Experience creating or managing a functional product roadmap and prioritizing enhancements across business, process, data, and technology needs.
• Proven experience leading global annual cycles, cross-functional initiatives, and stakeholder governance.
• Experience working with data analysis, reporting, and synthesizing information for diverse and senior audiences.
• Experience influencing HR, technology, operations, analytics, and business stakeholders without direct authority.

Skills

• Strong functional product-management, process-architecture, and continuous-improvement capabilities.
• Ability to translate talent strategy and business needs into scalable processes, functional requirements, configuration decisions, and technology solutions.
• Strong project and release-management capabilities, with the ability to manage multiple priorities, risks, and deadlines.
• Knowledge of requirements documentation, user stories, process mapping, system testing, change management, and adoption practices.
• Strong analytical judgment and ability to use data and stakeholder feedback to prioritize improvements.
• Executive-ready written, verbal, facilitation, and presentation skills.
• Ability to operate as a hands-on working lead while shaping strategy and influencing enterprise decisions.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite, especially Excel and PowerPoint.

Knowledge

• Deep understanding of performance management and working knowledge of talent reviews, potential assessment, succession, critical roles, and development planning.
• Strong knowledge of Workday business processes and performance and talent technology practices.
• Understanding of HR product-management, process-governance, user-experience, data, integration, and release-management concepts.
• Knowledge of data privacy, confidentiality, controls, and governance related to sensitive talent and succession information.
• Understanding of the intersections among performance, talent, succession, learning, skills, mobility, workforce planning, and people analytics.

Education

Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Organizational Development, Information Systems, or a related field. Advanced degree or relevant Workday, product-management, process-improvement, or project-management certification is preferred.

The anticipated annual base salary range for this position is $90,000 - 190,000. Actual compensation within this range will be determined based on a variety of factors, including geographic location, relevant experience, skills, qualifications, and internal equity considerations.

What’s In It for You

• Competitive compensation package, including base salary and incentive opportunities where applicable.
• Comprehensive health and wellness benefits for employees and eligible dependents.
• Retirement savings programs, including company matching contributions where available.