Workday Functional Lead - Human Capital Management / Payroll

The Football Association; Wembley; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 115,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid working model

Private medical cover

Pension scheme

25 days annual leave

Job summary

The FA is seeking an experienced Workday Functional Lead to shape the future of our Workday platform across HCM and Payroll. You will own the product backlog, translate business needs into prioritised Workday solutions, and ensure delivery aligns with FA strategy and standards.

You will partner with Finance, HR, Digital Technology and external partners, driving value through backlog execution, testing, deployment and analytics to support our organisational growth.

Qualifications

• Deep Workday expertise across HCM, Payroll, Absence and Compensation.
• Experience with Workday release cycles and SaaS updates.
• Functional knowledge of HCM/Payroll processes.
• Proven Product Owner/Functional Lead/BA with Agile delivery.
• Strong backlog ownership and prioritisation skills.
• Ability to translate business needs into value-driven outcomes.
• Excellent stakeholder management and cross-functional collaboration.
• Experience with Jira/Confluence/Teams/Miro for delivery.

Responsibilities

• Own and refine Workday HCM/PY backlog with stakeholders and delivery teams.
• Translate business needs into effective Workday solutions across HCM/Absence/Payroll.
• Lead backlog execution, configuration coordination and bi-annual releases.
• Act as HR reporting and analytics SME to inform product priorities.
• Support tiered user support, QA/UAT, sign-off and deployment.
• Create sprint plans and ensure items are clearly defined and sprint-ready.
• Interface with business, PMs, delivery teams and partners to align work.
• Maintain documentation and contribute to process improvements.

Skills

Workday HCM

Workday Payroll

Backlog management

Product Owner

Agile/Scrum

Requirements analysis

Stakeholder mgmt

Cross-functional teams

User stories

QA/UAT support

Communication

Planning

Attention to detail

Tools

Jira

Confluence

Teams

Miro

Job description

At The FA, we're continuing our transformation journey following the successful implementation of Workday across HR and Finance. As ownership of the platform transitions into our Digital Technology team, we're looking for an experienced Workday Functional Lead to lead the future evolution of one of our most business-critical enterprise platforms.

This is a unique opportunity to play a key role in shaping future Workday investment priorities and product delivery for a platform used across The FA. Working closely with Finance, HR, Digital Technology and external partners, you'll ensure Workday continues to deliver measurable business value, supports organisational priorities and enables future growth.

The Workday HCM/PY Functional Lead works within FA Digital Technology and is responsible for owning and optimising the product backlog across the Workday HCM and Payroll product areas, ensuring alignment with business priorities, product strategy and the wider Corporate Workday roadmap. The role acts as the primary interface between business stakeholders, Product Management and delivery teams, translating business needs and strategic objectives into prioritised, value-driven outcomes.

This role also provides functional leadership across the FA Workday platform for relevant SKUs including HCM, Absence, Compensation and Payroll. It is responsible for ensuring platform capabilities are effectively leveraged to meet business needs, that system changes are delivered effectively, and that product decisions align with broader platform, operational and service objectives.

In addition to core Product Owner responsibilities, the role includes accountability for Workday HCM/PY backlog execution, business process understanding, support of testing and deployment, feature release validation, reporting insight, tiered support, relevant administrative responsibilities across the Workday tenant, and championing an ethos of "why not Workday" when tackling ongoing and future HR challenges.

What will you be doing?

• Own and continuously refine the Workday HCM/PY backlog in collaboration with Product Managers, business stakeholders and delivery teams, ensuring alignment to business priorities, product strategy and the wider Corporate Workday roadmap.
• Work closely with stakeholders to understand business needs and translate them into effective Workday solutions, maintaining strong end-to-end knowledge across HCM, Absence, Compensation and Payroll.
• Act as the Functional Lead for Workday HCM/PY, supporting backlog execution, configuration coordination, feature adoption and the assessment and validation of bi-annual Workday releases.
• Act as an HR Reporting and Analytics SME, helping ensure business decisions, operational needs and improvement opportunities are reflected appropriately in product priorities and solutions.
• Champion and operate a tiered support model across Workday HCM/PY, including Tier 0 support materials, Tier 1 upskilling, Tier 2 support and escalation to Tier 3 / AMS where required.
• Fulfil relevant administrative responsibilities across the Workday tenant, including support for HCM, Org, Position, Compensation and Business Process Administration, ensuring effective governance, configuration and operational continuity.
• Champion an ethos of "why not Workday" for ongoing and future HR challenges, ensuring the platform is used effectively and consistently to meet business needs.
• Create sprint plans, ensure backlog items and user stories are prioritised, clearly defined and sprint-ready, and lead refinement, estimation and delivery support across the product area.
• Provide ongoing clarification to delivery teams and support quality assurance, functional testing, user acceptance testing, sign-off and deployment to ensure delivery of valuable, high-quality outcomes.
• Act as a key interface between business stakeholders, Product Management, delivery teams and third-party partners, balancing priorities and ensuring external delivery aligns with FA standards and ways of working.
• Maintain clear, concise and up‑to‑date documentation across the relevant delivery and support tools, and contribute to continuous improvement of Digital Technology processes, standards and Product Owner practices.
• Keep up to date with developments in Product Ownership, Business Analysis and Workday practice, support colleagues where appropriate, and consistently demonstrate FA values and behaviours.
• Executes additional tasks as required to meet the FA's changing priorities.
• Comply with all company policies and procedures to ensure that the highest standards of health, safety, and well-being can be maintained.
• As part of the FA's commitment to ensuring a safe environment for everyone in football, every employee will be required to complete a DBS check. The level of the check required will be based on the activity of the specific job role and in line with legislation and government guidance.

What are we looking for?

Essential for the role:

• Deep Workday expertise across HCM, Payroll, Absence and Compensation modules.
• Experience with Workday feature release cycles and SaaS platform update adoption.
• Functional knowledge of HCM and Payroll processes, including employee lifecycle, absence, compensation and pay.
• Proven experience as a Product Owner, Functional Lead or Business Analyst working with Agile teams and methodologies.
• Significant experience in defining and managing requirements using recognised techniques.
• Strong experience of backlog ownership, prioritisation and refinement aligned to business value and strategy.
• Strong Agile delivery experience, particularly within Scrum and/or Kanban.
• Ability to translate business needs into clear, prioritised and value-driven outcomes.
• Strong stakeholder management skills, including negotiation of competing priorities.
• Experience working closely with Product Managers, Delivery Managers, Business Analysts and technical teams in cross-functional delivery environments.
• Ability to define and refine user stories and acceptance criteria to ensure sprint readiness.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving and decision‑making skills in complex environments.
• Ability to support delivery through QA/UAT, sign‑off and deployment.
• Strong communication, collaboration and presentation skills.
• Highly organised, self‑disciplined with strong planning and time management skills.
• Consistent approach with solid attention to detail.
• Experience of working with Agile development teams, including third parties and offshore colleagues where applicable.
• Experience using tools such as Jira, Confluence, Teams and Miro.

Beneficial to have:

• Experience acting as a functional SME or domain lead.
• Experience of supporting or overseeing system configuration and tenant administration responsibilities.
• Experience with HR reporting and analytics.
• Experience working with Managed Service Providers (AMS) or implementation partners.
• Understanding of tiered support models and live‑service environments.
• Experience in HR transformation, enterprise system implementation or large‑scale digital transformation programmes.
• Experience mentoring Product Owners or Business Analysts.
• Familiarity with business architecture, end‑to‑end process design and change management in enterprise system environments.
• Product Owner, Agile BA or relevant Workday certifications.
• Any systems analysis experience is useful, e.g. logical data design or understanding of schemas and workflows.

Why join us?

This is an opportunity to take ownership of a major enterprise platform at a pivotal stage in its evolution. The foundations have been laid, and now we need an experienced leader who can optimise our initial implementation and turn our vision into business value.

You'll work with senior stakeholders across the organisation, influence strategic decisions and help shape the future of critical corporate technology services that support the people who power football across England.

We are committed to ensuring everyone can flourish in their roles. To achieve this, we have unique office spaces under the arch of the iconic Wembley National Stadium, which is the home of English Football. We are also delighted to offer a world‑class Elite Performance Centre, St. George's Park in Staffordshire, which is an exceptional setting to develop and inspire high‑performing England teams and leaders.

We pride ourselves on offering a competitive salary as well as great opportunities to develop and grow in your role. But that is not all; we also have a range of exciting benefits, some of which can be found below:

• Access to event day tickets at Wembley Stadium, alongside a host of regular internal events throughout the season, encourages you to connect and learn with your colleagues and look after your mental health and well‑being.
• Free, nutritious lunches at Wembley Stadium and St. George's Park.
• Free private medical cover.
• A contributory pension scheme.
• An additional 'Thank You' day's leave, volunteering days, as well as 25 days of annual leave (based on a full‑time, permanent contract)
• A hybrid working model which offers greater flexibility.

For more information on what it is like to work at The FA, please visit our FA Careers page: https://www.thefa.com/about-football-association/careers

Currently, we are working within a hybrid working model whereby the expectation is to work from your contractual location for part of the week, and as and when required by the team. The remaining days can be worked remotely. We will continue to monitor this model, and it may be adjusted in future if deemed necessary. The contractual location of this role can be found on the FA Careers page.

We are a diverse workplace, aspiring to represent football across the country. The Football Association actively promotes inclusion and diversity, encouraging you to be the best version of yourself at work.

We welcome applications from everyone and are proud to be an equal opportunities employer. If you have any particular requirements in respect of the recruitment or interview process, please mention this during your application.

As part of the FA's commitment to ensuring a safe environment for everyone in football, every employee will be required to complete a DBS check. The level of the check required will be based on the activity of the specific job role and in line with legislation and government guidance.