Workday Operations Manager

The Panther Group is seeking an experienced Workday Operations Manager to join our technology team at a University in Boston, MA. This is a hybrid opportunity!

• Lead and develop the Workday Operations Team, including prioritization and ensuring disciplined workload management, structured execution of operational commitments, and alignment with enterprise priorities.
• Drive team accountability for SLAs, operational quality, and service maturity. Partner closely with HR, Finance, ITS, Security, and the Workday Product Lead to ensure aligned priorities and transparent communication. Own weekly operational huddles, backlog reviews, and readiness process that support the enterprise governance model.
• Oversee day-to-day production stability, including incident triage, major incident management, root-cause analysis, and prevention strategies. Monitor KPIs, maintain operational runbooks, and ensure timely escalation of systemic risks or capacity constraints through the Product Lead.
• Lead the Workday support team to successfully deploy Workdayâs biannual release cycles, monitor weekly service updates, and internal changes following IT change-control procedures and cross-functional review gates. Manage the support coordination around regression testing, cutover planning, stakeholder communication, and issue resolution, in alignment with the Product Leadâs tenant and roadmap strategy.
• Manage Workday security operations including role assignments, quarterly access reviews, SoD monitoring, and audit documentation. Coordinate with HR, Finance, Internal Audit, and the Security Lead to ensure compliance and elevate exceptions through the governance process.
• Collaborate with the Integrations Lead and Workday Architect to support integration stability and environment operations, ensuring timely coordination, adherence to Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) controls, and alignment with release and environment planning activities.

• Bachelor's degree in Information Systems, Business Administration, Computer Science, or related field required.
• Minimum of 3–5 years of people management experience leading technical or operational teams in a complex enterprise environment.
• Demonstrated expertise with Workday HCM, Finance, and Payroll modules.
• Background in higher education ERP systems strongly preferred.
• Preferred, experience managing teams supporting SaaS platforms, including oversight of operational processes, ticket management disciplines, and service performance metrics.
• Strong understanding of higher education business processes (academic, HR, finance).
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving abilities.
• Ability to translate business requirements into technical solutions.
• Strong collaboration skills and ability to work effectively in team environments.
• Excellent documentation and communication skills.
• Strong organizational skills with ability to manage multiple priorities.
• Experience with change management and ITIL processes.

• Workday Certification (HCM, Financials, or Student).
• Workday Pro or Partner certification.
• Additional Workday module certifications (Absence, Benefits, Recruiting, Learning, Compensation).
• Experience with Workday Adaptive Planning or PRISM Analytics.
• Knowledge of Workday Extend platform development.
• Familiarity with Agile methodologies and iterative development approaches.
• Experience with other higher education ERPs (Banner, People Soft, Oracle).
• Familiarity with data analytics and visualization tools (Tableau, Power BI)