Workforce Planning Systems Lead

Overview

Lead the enterprise Workforce Planning product ecosystem, owning its vision, strategy, roadmap, standards and governance to deliver measurable workforce planning outcomes and business value.

What you'll do

• Own the vision, strategy and multi-year roadmap for the enterprise Workforce Planning product ecosystem, linking investment and release priorities to measurable workforce planning outcomes and business value.
• Maintain an outcome-based product roadmap and lifecycle plan, covering discovery, business cases, dependencies, technical debt, releases, decommissioning and future capability investments.
• Define and govern Workforce Planning system standards, decision rights, governance requirements, operating procedures, and expected user practices across regions and business areas.
• Own prioritization of Workforce Planning system requirements using value, risk, regulatory need, user impact, architectural alignment and delivery capacity; resolve conflicts across competing stakeholder needs.
• Approve business requirements, testing outcomes, and user acceptance in accordance with agreed governance processes.
• Own Workforce Planning system performance, reliability, availability, adoption and user experience, ensuring appropriate remediation of recurring or critical issues.
• Establish and maintain a governance framework for Workforce Planning systems, ensuring alignment between business objectives, technology delivery, and user needs.
• Ensure systems support global workforce planning objectives, forecasting, scenario modelling, reporting requirements, and operational needs.
• Lead product discovery and continuous improvement, combining user research, process analysis, data insights and technical feasibility to shape scalable enhancements rather than isolated local customizations.
• Define business requirements and partner with Technology and Data teams to deliver effective Workforce Planning solutions.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives through process simplification, automation, and standardization.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and capabilities to enhance Workforce Planning operations.
• Partner with Enterprise Architecture and engineering teams to ensure solution designs align with approved architecture patterns, identity and access controls, integration standards, security requirements and technology roadmaps.
• Define Workforce Planning data requirements and oversee integration between Workforce Planning and enterprise systems.
• Assess emerging technologies, vendor capabilities and market options through structured discovery, proof-of-concept and total-cost/value evaluation.
• Own the Workforce Planning data product requirements, including data definitions, lineage, ownership, quality rules, retention, access and reconciliation across source and consuming systems.
• Partner with data owners to establish data governance standards, controls, and quality requirements.
• Ensure interfaces and data pipelines are observable, secure, resilient and supportable, with agreed service levels, monitoring, error handling, reconciliation and recovery procedures.
• Partner with data owners and stewards to establish data governance, master/reference data controls, metadata standards and measurable data quality thresholds.
• Lead resolution of cross-system data integrity issues, ensuring root causes are addressed at source and impacts on workforce planning decisions are clearly communicated.
• Establish support models, governance processes, and operational procedures for Workforce Planning systems.
• Act as the escalation point for critical system issues impacting workforce planning operations.
• Support successful delivery of workforce planning outcomes with the WFP team.
• Promote standardization and consistency across workforce planning processes and tools.
• Maintain compliance with enterprise architecture, data governance, privacy, cybersecurity, accessibility, records management, procurement and technology risk policies, and drive a culture of accountable product ownership and continuous improvement.

What you'll need

• Typically 8+ years of experience in enterprise product ownership, business systems, data-enabled transformation or technology delivery.
• 3+ years owning a complex product or platform used across multiple functions, regions or business units.
• Demonstrated experience owning an enterprise product strategy, roadmap, backlog and lifecycle, with evidence of prioritizing investment, managing technical debt and delivering measurable business outcomes.
• Deep knowledge of workforce planning data structures, reporting frameworks and governance principles, with the ability to ensure data quality, consistency and effective use of workforce information across the organization.
• Demonstrated experience working with technology teams, external vendors and business stakeholders to design, implement and enhance workforce planning system capabilities that align with business objectives.
• Experience translating business requirements into system solutions, collaborating with technical teams to prioritize enhancements, resolve issues and deliver continuous product improvements.
• Strong understanding of product ownership principles, with experience managing product backlogs, defining priorities and balancing business needs with technical delivery to maximize business value.
• Experience leading change management and user adoption initiatives, ensuring successful implementation of new systems, processes and ways of working through effective stakeholder engagement, communication and training.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to evaluate business processes, identify improvement opportunities and implement technology enabled solutions that enhance workforce planning performance.
• Excellent stakeholder management and influencing skills, with the ability to build trusted relationships and collaborate effectively with business leaders, operational teams, technology partners and vendors across a matrixed organization.
• Strong communication and facilitation skills, with the ability to communicate complex technical concepts clearly and support informed decision making across technical and non technical audiences.
• Leadership style that promotes collaboration, accountability, innovation and continuous improvement, aligned with the Arcadis Leadership profile of being curious, driving success and igniting passion.
• Degree level education in Information Systems, Business Administration, Computer Science, Engineering, Data Management or another relevant discipline, or equivalent practical experience.

Nice to have

• Professional certification in product management, business analysis, project management or a related discipline.
• Significant experience delivering workforce planning systems and technology enabled transformation initiatives.

Details

• Locations: Bangalore, Karnataka, India; Hyderabad, Telangana, India; Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.