IT Workforce Management - Retail Project Manager

IT Workforce Management Project Manager - Retail

Location: REMOTE [No Second Jobs]

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Position Overview

The IT Workforce Management Project Manager is responsible for leading enterprise technology initiatives that optimize workforce planning, scheduling, labor management, time and attendance, employee productivity, and workforce operations across retail and other business environments.

This role will manage complex, cross-functional projects involving Workforce Management (WFM) platforms, Human Resources, Payroll, Time & Attendance, Scheduling, Labor Optimization, Store Operations, IT, Finance, and third-party technology vendors.

The successful candidate will combine strong IT project management skills with a practical understanding of workforce management processes and technologies. The Project Manager will be responsible for delivering projects on time, within budget, within scope, and with measurable business outcomes.

Key Responsibilities

Project Leadership & Delivery

• Lead multiple concurrent IT Workforce Management projects from initiation through implementation and post-production stabilization.
• Develop and maintain detailed project plans, schedules, milestones, dependencies, resource plans, budgets, and implementation roadmaps.
• Define project scope, objectives, deliverables, success criteria, and acceptance criteria.
• Manage project execution across business, IT, HR, payroll, operations, finance, and vendor teams.
• Track project performance against approved timelines, budgets, scope, and quality expectations.
• Establish project governance, status reporting, steering committees, and executive communications.
• Manage project risks, issues, assumptions, dependencies, and decisions.
• Lead project recovery and turnaround activities when projects experience delays, resource constraints, scope issues, or technical challenges.
• Manage change requests and assess their impact on scope, cost, schedule, resources, and business operations.

Workforce Management Technology

Manage projects involving one or more of the following workforce management capabilities:

• Workforce planning
• Labor forecasting
• Employee scheduling
• Labor optimization
• Time and attendance
• Workforce demand forecasting
• Employee availability
• Shift management
• Overtime management
• Labor budgeting
• Payroll integration
• Employee self-service
• Mobile workforce applications
• Absence and leave management
• Workforce analytics and reporting
• Compliance and labor-rule management
• Store labor management
• Field workforce management
• Task management and productivity
• Employee communications

Retail Workforce Management

For retail organizations, lead technology initiatives supporting store and field workforce operations, including:

• Store labor forecasting
• Associate scheduling
• Store staffing optimization
• Traffic-based labor planning
• Employee availability and preferences
• Shift swapping and shift bidding
• Time-clock and timekeeping integrations
• Overtime controls
• Labor budget management
• Store task management
• Workforce productivity
• Manager scheduling tools
• Mobile associate applications
• Multi-location workforce management
• Integration with POS and store systems

HR, Payroll & Enterprise Integration

• Manage integrations between Workforce Management platforms and enterprise systems.
• Coordinate interfaces with:
• HRIS
• Payroll
• ERP
• POS
• Time clocks
• Identity and access management
• Benefits systems
• Employee portals
• Data warehouses
• Reporting and analytics platforms
• Coordinate API, file-based, batch, middleware, and real-time integrations.
• Identify upstream and downstream system dependencies.
• Ensure employee, organizational, location, job, schedule, time, and payroll data flows accurately between systems.
• Work with technical teams to define integration requirements, data mappings, interfaces, and testing requirements.

Business Process & Requirements Management

• Partner with HR, Payroll, Store Operations, Field Operations, Finance, and business leadership to understand workforce management requirements.
• Facilitate requirements workshops and process-mapping sessions.
• Document current-state and future-state workforce processes.
• Identify process gaps, inefficiencies, and opportunities for automation.
• Translate business requirements into actionable technology requirements.
• Work with Business Analysts, Product Owners, and technical teams to prioritize requirements.
• Ensure business requirements are traceable through design, development, testing, and implementation.

Agile & Project Management

• Manage projects using Agile, Scrum, Waterfall, or hybrid methodologies.
• Establish appropriate delivery methodology based on project complexity and organizational requirements.
• Facilitate sprint planning, backlog refinement, demonstrations, retrospectives, and release planning where applicable.
• Maintain project backlogs, milestones, dependencies, and delivery commitments.
• Track project KPIs, velocity, defects, risks, and overall project health.
• Ensure project teams remain aligned with business priorities and implementation objectives.

Testing & Implementation

• Develop and manage comprehensive testing strategies for Workforce Management implementations.
• Coordinate:
• System Integration Testing
• User Acceptance Testing
• Regression Testing
• Payroll parallel testing
• Time and attendance validation
• Integration testing
• Performance testing
• Security testing
• Coordinate business users and technical teams during UAT.
• Establish defect-management processes and resolution priorities.
• Develop cutover, deployment, communication, training, and rollback plans.
• Lead go-live activities and post-production stabilization.
• Ensure successful transition to application support and operational teams.

Change Management & Adoption

• Partner with business and organizational change teams to drive adoption of new workforce technologies.
• Develop stakeholder communication and change-management strategies.
• Coordinate training requirements for managers, employees, HR, payroll, and operations teams.
• Identify organizational impacts associated with new workforce processes and technology.
• Monitor adoption and identify areas requiring additional training or process improvement.
• Support business readiness assessments prior to implementation.

Vendor Management

• Manage Workforce Management software vendors, system integrators, consultants, and technology partners.
• Coordinate vendor project plans, deliverables, milestones, resources, and dependencies.
• Monitor vendor performance against contractual and project expectations.
• Review vendor status reports and implementation deliverables.
• Manage vendor risks, issues, escalations, and remediation plans.
• Coordinate third-party integrations and external dependencies.

Risk, Issue & Dependency Management

• Maintain comprehensive RAID logs.
• Proactively identify project risks related to technology, integrations, data, payroll, operations, compliance, resources, vendors, and business readiness.
• Develop mitigation and contingency plans.
• Manage cross-functional and cross-project dependencies.
• Escalate critical risks and decisions to appropriate leadership.
• Ensure project issues are actively owned and driven to resolution.

Data & Reporting

• Coordinate workforce management reporting and analytics requirements.
• Partner with data and reporting teams to establish appropriate workforce KPIs.
• Support reporting related to:
• Labor utilization
• Staffing levels
• Overtime
• Employee attendance
• Schedule adherence
• Labor cost
• Productivity
• Workforce demand
• Store staffing
• Ensure data quality and reporting accuracy throughout implementation.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor''s degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Business, Human Resources, Engineering, or a related discipline.
• 7+ years of IT project management experience, preferably in retail, workforce management, HR technology, payroll, or enterprise systems.
• Demonstrated experience managing complex, cross-functional technology projects.
• Strong understanding of Workforce Management processes and technology.
• Experience managing projects from requirements through implementation and production stabilization.
• Strong knowledge of SDLC and enterprise application implementation processes.
• Experience with Agile, Scrum, Waterfall, or hybrid methodologies.
• Strong project planning, risk management, issue management, budgeting, and resource management skills.
• Excellent communication and executive stakeholder-management capabilities.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with Workforce Management platforms such as:
• UKG / Kronos
• Workday
• Oracle HCM
• SAP SuccessFactors
• Dayforce
• ADP
• NICE
• Legion
• Verint
• Or equivalent enterprise WFM platforms
• Experience with retail workforce management implementations.
• Experience with HRIS and payroll integrations.
• Experience with timekeeping and time-clock implementations.
• PMP, PMI-ACP, Scrum Master, SAFe, or similar certification.
• Experience managing large enterprise implementations.
• Experience working with offshore/onshore technology teams.
• Experience managing third-party system integrators and software vendors.

Technical Knowledge

Working knowledge of several of the following:

• Workforce Management platforms
• HRIS
• Payroll systems
• Time & Attendance
• Employee scheduling
• Labor forecasting
• Labor optimization
• APIs
• Middleware
• Enterprise integrations
• Cloud applications
• Data warehouses
• Business intelligence
• Mobile applications
• Identity and access management
• Cybersecurity
• Database concepts
• QA and test automation
• DevOps and CI/CD

Project Management Tools

Experience with one or more of the following:

• Jira
• Confluence
• Microsoft Project
• Azure DevOps
• Smartsheet
• ServiceNow
• SharePoint
• Microsoft Teams
• Power BI

Key Competencies

• Workforce Management expertise
• IT project leadership
• Retail technology
• Cross-functional leadership
• Project recovery and turnaround
• Business process improvement
• Stakeholder management
• Vendor management
• Risk and issue management
• Change management
• Requirements management
• Data and integration management
• Executive communication
• Problem solving
• Negotiation
• Decision making
• Strong organizational skills

Example Workforce Management Projects

The IT Workforce Management Project Manager may lead initiatives such as:

• Enterprise Workforce Management implementation
• UKG/Kronos implementation or upgrade
• Workforce scheduling modernization
• Time & Attendance implementation
• Labor forecasting implementation
• Retail labor optimization
• HRIS/WFM integration
• WFM/Payroll integration
• POS/WFM integration
• Employee mobile application implementation
• Store labor-management transformation
• Workforce analytics implementation
• Labor-cost optimization
• Automated scheduling
• Employee self-service implementation
• Cloud WFM migration
• Legacy workforce system replacement
• Enterprise payroll transformation
• Workforce data and reporting modernization

Success Measures

Success in this role will be measured by the ability to:

• Deliver Workforce Management projects on time and within budget.
• Successfully implement and integrate workforce technology platforms.
• Improve workforce planning and scheduling efficiency.
• Improve labor utilization and productivity.
• Reduce manual workforce-management processes.
• Improve timekeeping and payroll data accuracy.
• Increase adoption of workforce-management technology.
• Improve visibility into labor costs and staffing requirements.
• Minimize business disruption during implementations.
• Establish strong alignment between IT, HR, Payroll, Operations, Finance, and business leadership.

Position Summary

The IT Workforce Management Project Manager will play a critical role in transforming how an organization plans, schedules, manages, and optimizes its workforce. The successful candidate will bring a combination of strong IT project management expertise, Workforce Management knowledge, retail/enterprise experience, integration understanding, and exceptional stakeholder-management skills to deliver technology solutions that improve workforce efficiency, employee experience, operational performance, and business results.

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