Workday Functional Lead - Human Capital Management​/Payroll

Position: Workday Functional Lead - Human Capital Management / Payroll
At The FA, we're continuing our transformation journey following the successful implementation of Workday across HR and Finance. As ownership of the platform transitions into our Digital Technology team, we're looking for an experienced Workday Functional Lead to lead the future evolution of one of our most business-critical enterprise platforms.
This is a unique opportunity to play a key role in shaping future Workday investment priorities and product delivery for a platform used across The FA. Working closely with Finance, HR, Digital Technology and external partners, you'll ensure Workday continues to deliver measurable business value, supports organisational priorities and enables future growth.
The Workday HCM/PY Functional Lead works within FA Digital Technology and is responsible for owning and optimising the product backlog across the Workday HCM and Payroll product areas, ensuring alignment with business priorities, product strategy and the wider Corporate Workday roadmap. The role acts as the primary interface between business stakeholders, Product Management and delivery teams, translating business needs and strategic objectives into prioritised, value-driven outcomes.
This role also provides functional leadership across the FA Workday platform for relevant SKUs including HCM, Absence, Compensation and Payroll. It is responsible for ensuring platform capabilities are effectively leveraged to meet business needs, that system changes are delivered effectively, and that product decisions align with broader platform, operational and service objectives.
In addition to core Product Owner responsibilities, the role includes accountability for Workday HCM/PY backlog execution, business process understanding, support of testing and deployment, feature release validation, reporting insight, tiered support, relevant administrative responsibilities across the Workday tenant, and championing an ethos of 'why not Workday' when tackling ongoing and future HR challenges.

What will you be doing?
Own and continuously refine the Workday HCM/PY backlog in collaboration with Product Managers, business stakeholders and delivery teams, ensuring alignment to business priorities, product strategy and the wider Corporate Workday roadmap.
Work closely with stakeholders to understand business needs and translate them into effective Workday solutions, maintaining strong end-to-end knowledge across HCM, Absence, Compensation and Payroll.
Act as the Functional Lead for Workday HCM/PY, supporting backlog execution, configuration coordination, feature adoption and the assessment and validation of bi-annual Workday releases.
Act as an HR Reporting and Analytics SME, helping ensure business decisions, operational needs and improvement opportunities are reflected appropriately in product priorities and solutions.
Champion and operate a tiered support model across Workday HCM/PY, including Tier 0 support materials, Tier 1 upskilling, Tier 2 support and escalation to Tier 3 / AMS where required.
Fulfil relevant administrative responsibilities across the Workday tenant, including support for HCM, Org, Position, Compensation and Business Process Administration, ensuring effective governance, configuration and operational continuity.
Champion an ethos of 'why not Workday' for ongoing and future HR challenges, ensuring the platform is used effectively and consistently to meet business needs.
Create sprint plans, ensure backlog items and user stories are prioritised, clearly defined and sprint-ready, and lead refinement, estimation and delivery support across the product area.
Provide ongoing clarification to delivery teams and support quality assurance, functional testing, user acceptance testing, sign-off and deployment to…