Workday Product Manager

At The Obama Foundation, our mission is to inspire, empower, and connect people to change their world. We seek to build an active democratic culture where people are equipped and motivated to make change in the communities where they live, work, and play. Right here on the South Side of Chicago, we’re building a home for this vision, a global center for change with a range of opportunities - coordinated programming, community outreach events, educational moments, and more - that invite visitors from down the block or across the globe to turn hope into action.

Achieving our ambitious goals starts with an exceptional team built on our Hope to Action Values - Courage, Empathy, Integrity, Accountability, Community, Inclusivity, Pragmatism, Resilience, Imagination, and Hope. A Framework that anyone, anywhere, can use to build trust, activate participation, and expand opportunity in their community. Purpose of the Role As the Lead Workday Product Owner, you will serve as the strategic bridge between the business teams and our Workday platform. Rather than serving solely as the primary technical builder, you will be the strategic partner to the People Team, Finance, Operations, and IT, ensuring the system aligns with organizational goals.

You will own the strategic Workday roadmap, manage sprint priorities, lead stakeholder discussions, and direct both internal Workday resources and our external AMS partners to execute configurations and complex builds. Core Job Responsibilities Strategic Partnership & Stakeholder Management: Lead regular discussions with leaders across the People Team, Finance, Payroll, and Operations to gather business requirements, translate them into technical objectives, and ensure cross-functional alignment. Roadmap & Backlog Management: Create and own the Workday strategic roadmap.

Utilize Agile methodologies to manage the system backlog, plan sprints, and prioritize feature rollouts and fixes based on business value and current pain points. Resource Triaging & Technical Oversight: Direct internal Workday administrators and external AMS partners. Evaluate business requests and effectively triage work to determine what should be configured personally, assigned to the internal engineer, or outsourced to the AMS partner. Project Scoping & Vendor Management: Scope and manage external deliverables, including drafting and reviewing Statements of Work (SOWs) for well-defined, large-scale projects handled by AMS partners.

Governance & Accountability: Define, implement, and maintain a clear RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) matrix across all Workday modules to establish strict ownership of data inputs, process flows, and system updates. Change Management & Adoption: Ensure business partners and end-users are prepared for bi-annual Workday releases and internal feature rollouts through clear communication and user acceptance testing (UAT) coordination. Training & Enablement: Develop and execute comprehensive training…

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