Program Management Officer, Global HR Time & Payroll Transformation

Wärtsilä; Madrid; Hybrid; EUR 60,000 - 95,000; Full time

Job summary

Wärtsilä is seeking a PMO to provide the tactical project management backbone for its Global HR Time & Payroll Transformation Program. This multiyear, multicountry initiative requires strong governance, integrated planning and risk management across multiple workstreams and vendors.

You will support the Program Manager and regional coordinators, maintaining transparency and ensuring readiness while coordinating with diverse partners and internal teams.

Qualifications

• Experience governing large, multicountry and multivendor programs.

Responsibilities

• Maintain the integrated program plan, milestones and dependencies across time, payroll, technology, data, finance and regional delivery.
• Drive timely status updates, escalate deviations and maintain RAID, dependencies and decisions.
• Coordinate go-live preparation, cutover and transition to operations.
• Produce high-quality governance packs and executive reporting.
• Connect global workstreams with regional teams and ensure clear ownership and handoffs.

Skills

PMO

Project coordination

Governance

RAID and dependency management

Executive reporting

Jira

Microsoft 365

Teams

SharePoint

PowerPoint

Excel

Asana

Smartsheet

Tools

Jira

Microsoft 365

Teams

SharePoint

PowerPoint

Excel

Asana

Smartsheet

Job description

Wärtsilä is an innovative technology company known for being a forerunner in the Marine and Energy markets. Every day, we – Wärtsilians - put our hearts and minds into turning Wärtsilä's purpose of enabling sustainable societies through innovation in technology and services into reality. Our ultimate aim is to provide increased value to both our customers and society. New, game-changing ideas and continuous improvement have been part of our DNA since 1834. Together, we can create new business opportunities and more sustainable future that we can all be proud of.

Role purpose

As our PMO, you will provide tactical project management backbone for the Global HR Time & Payroll Transformation Program. This is a multiyear, multicountry and multivendor transformation that is harmonising HR time and payroll processes, consolidating the application and vendor landscape, and establishing strong global governance and predictable execution across all workstreams. You will support the Program Manager, Project Leads, Regional Coordinators and specialist teams by maintaining an integrated view of plans, governance, risks, dependencies, decisions and readiness. Your primary responsibility is to create transparency, discipline and connectivity across the program so that actions are completed, governance requirements are followed and emerging delivery or operational-readiness gaps are identified early.

Key Responsibilities

Program governance and documentation

• Maintain the program governance framework, annual governance calendar, meeting cadence and terms of reference.
• Coordinate agendas, pre-reads, minutes, decisions and action logs for Steering Committee, core team and other governance forums.
• Facilitate update meetings and respective committee meetings, such as Steering Group, Leadership Team meetings and the like.
• Ensure required project and governance documentation is complete, current, approved, stored in the agreed repositories and used consistently.
• Monitor compliance with agreed project management standards, stage gates, approval routes, templates and document-control practices.
• Maintain an auditable record of key decisions, approvals, scope changes and governance evidence.

Integrated planning, tracking and control

• Maintain the integrated program plan, milestone view, calendars and critical dependencies across time, payroll, technology, data, finance, change and regional delivery.
• Proactively drive timely and accurate status updates across all workstreams, challenge unclear or overdue commitments and ensure material deviations are escalated. Maintain RAID, dependency, decision, change and action logs, ensuring clear ownership, target dates, escalation and closure evidence.
• Consolidate inputs into accurate weekly and monthly program reporting, including RAG status, critical-path impacts, management attention points and decisions required.
• Support baseline control, change-control administration, schedule updates and reconciliation of workstream plans with the overall roadmap.

Regional and operational readiness support

• Lead Regional Transformation Coordinators in establishing and maintaining country readiness plans, checklists, action logs and evidence.
• Track readiness across people, process, data, technology, vendor, training, communications, controls, cutover and support dimensions.
• Connect global workstreams with regional and country teams, clarify hand-offs and ensure local inputs and decisions reach the relevant owners.
• Flag readiness gaps, cross-country patterns and resource constraints early, and coordinate follow-up through to resolution.
• Coordinate go-live preparation, cutover coordination, hypercare planning and structured transition to operations.
• Program coordination and decision support
• Drive day-to-day support to the Program Manager and enable informed, timely decisions through clear and fact-based information.
• Coordinate connectivity between internal workstreams, implementation partners and vendors, ensuring commitments, interfaces and dependencies are visible and followed up.
• Independently plan and facilitate program routines, workshops, reviews and checkpoints; prepare materials and capture agreed outcomes.
• Steer consolidated resource, budget and forecast inputs with accountable owners and highlight variances requiring management attention.
• Continuously improve PMO tools, templates, controls and ways of working to reduce administrative friction and strengthen delivery discipline.

Key interfaces and scope

You will work closely with the Program Manager, Process Owner, Project Leads, Regional Transformation Coordinators, Change & Communications and Data specialists, HR Technology, Finance, People Services, Procurement, country teams and external implementation and payroll partners. The role enables delivery through coordination, control and decision support; accountability for program direction, solution design and individual workstream deliverables remains with the respective accountable owners.

Allocation and location

This role reports directly to the Head of HR Strategy Office, and in matrix to The Global HR Time & Payroll Transformation Program Manager with 100% allocation to the Global HR Time & Payroll Transformation Program. This position can be performed in a hybrid or remote setup, preferably from one of Wärtsilä’s existing locations within a European time zone. Some travel may be required for key governance meetings, workshops, deployment activities or go-live support.

Experience And Capabilities

You bring practical PMO or project coordination experience in a complex, international transformation environment, ideally including:

• Demonstrated experience governing large, multicountry and multivendor programs with several parallel workstreams.
• Strong drive and command of project governance, integrated planning, status reporting, RAID and dependency management, decision tracking and change control.
• Experience steering operational readiness, deployment, cutover or transition-to-operations activities across regional or country teams.
• Ability to produce high-quality governance packs, concise executive reporting and reliable documentation from multiple inputs.
• Working knowledge of established project and program management methods such as PMP, PRINCE2, PMBOK, Agile or equivalent, applied pragmatically.
• Proficiency with common planning, collaboration and reporting tools; experience with Jira, Microsoft 365, Teams, SharePoint, PowerPoint and Excel is expected. Further tools such as Asana, Smartsheet are considered ideal.
• Experience in HR, Time, Payroll, HR technology or other enterprise-platform transformations is considered an advantage.

Professional Skills And Competencies

• Highly structured, organised and detail-oriented, with strong follow-through and a disciplined approach to commitments and deadlines.
• Ability to distinguish critical delivery issues from routine activity, prioritise effectively and maintain focus across competing demands.
• Proactive and persistent in securing updates, resolving ambiguities and escalating issues at the right time.
• Strong analytical skills and the ability to connect plans, dependencies, risks and readiness information across multiple teams.
• Strong decision-making and judgement, with the ability to assess available information, identify when a decision is needed, recommend a practical course of action and escalat[?] appropriately.
• Highly effective and confident verbal communicator, with a proactive preference for direct dialogue to build relationships, clarify issues, influence stakeholders and drive decisions. Clear and concise written and verbal communication, with the ability to tailor information for project teams, regional stakeholders and senior governance forums.
• Collaborative and service-minded, while confident in constructively challenging incomplete information or missed commitments.
• Comfortable operating in a fast-moving environment with evolving priorities, incomplete information and geographically dispersed stakeholders.
• Fluent professional English; additional languages are an advantage.
• High integrity and sound judgement when handling confidential employee, commercial and program information.

Success in the role

Success means that governance is reliable and audit-ready, program information is current and decision-oriented, cross-workstream dependencies are actively managed, actions are closed on time, and regional teams have the structure and support needed to demonstrate operational readiness for each deployment.

Why you and us?

You are valued – as your true self. At Wärtsilä YOU matter. We value diversity and are committed in supporting inclusive work community.

Your growth is supported. We believe in continuous learning & teamwork. Wärtsilian community has your back when it comes to development opportunities – so you can develop beyond your potential.

You get to make a difference. Innovation and sustainability are important for us. Every day, we - Wärtsilians - put our hearts and minds into enabling sustainable societies through innovation in technology and services into reality.

Last application date: 24/11/2026

At Wärtsilä we value, respect and embrace all our differences, and are committed to diversity, inclusion and equal employment opportunities; everyone can be their true self and succeed based on their job-relevant merits and abilities.

Please note that according to Wärtsilä policy, voluntary consent for a security check may be required from candidates being considered for this position, depending on the applicable country.

This is Wärtsilä

Wärtsilä is a global leader in innovative technologies and lifecycle solutions for the marine and energy markets. Our team of 18,300 professionals, in more than 230 locations in 77 countries, shape the decarbonisation transformation of our industries across the globe. Read more on www.wartsila.com.