HR Program Manager

Citizens Bank; Westwood (MA); On-site; USD 146,000 - 191,000; Full time

Job summary

Citizens Bank is advancing a multi-year NEXT initiative to strengthen branch networks, frontline teams, and customer outcomes. The NEXT HR Program Manager will partner with HR and business leaders to drive strategy-to-execution, coordinating governance, milestones, and readiness across experiences and change initiatives.

You will lead cross-functional planning, governance, and executive reporting, ensuring alignment of HR implications and delivery plans as NEXT moves from design to pilot,

Qualifications

• 8 years of program management experience in a large, matrixed organization.
• Strong understanding of HR, talent, onboarding, learning, and colleague readiness.
• Executive communication and stakeholder management skills with influence.

Responsibilities

• Define program objectives, scope, deliverables, timelines, and integrated roadmaps for People & Talent.
• Manage HR workstream cadence, governance routines, and decision tracking.
• Coordinate governance forums, meetings, and stakeholder engagement across HR and business partners.
• Prepare clear updates for steering committees and executive governance forums.
• Design and facilitate workshops and working sessions to advance deliverables.

Skills

Program management

Stakeholder management

Executive communication

HR & Talent fluency

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

MS Office Suite

PMO tools

Job description

Description

Citizens is advancing Network Evolution & Xperience Transformation (NEXT), a multi-year effort to strengthen how our branch network, leaders, and frontline teams support growth, advice-led relationships, and stronger customer outcomes. The People and Talent workstream is central to that work. We are looking for a Program Manager who can bring structure, pace, and follow-through to the HR-related work needed to move NEXT from strategy to execution.

The NEXT HR Program Manager will partner with the HR team, Development Partner, business leaders, consultants, and cross-functional partners to support the People & Talent workstream. This is complex work that requires operating across the broader NEXT ecosystem, connecting interdependent business initiatives with HR planning and execution, and helping ensure the right partners, decisions, and delivery plans are aligned.

In this role, you will help coordinate work across teams, governance forums, and delivery partners; track milestones and decisions; prepare clear updates; and ensure people-related impacts are understood before the work moves into pilots, activation, or scale. The right candidate is organized, practical, comfortable with ambiguity, and able to connect work across business and HR teams so a complex set of activities becomes a clear, coordinated plan of action.

Key Responsibilities:

Program Planning and Strategy:

Partner with the HR Lead, Development Partner, business sponsors, and workstream owners to define program objectives, scope, deliverables, timelines, and integrated roadmaps for the People & Talent workstream.

Program Governance:

Manage the HR workstream cadence, governance routines, status updates, decision tracking, and follow-up needed to keep the work organized and moving.

HR and Stakeholder Management:

Act as a central connector across the HR Lead, Development Partner, HRBPs, consultants, functional SMEs, business initiative owners, and other cross-functional partners. Proactively manage stakeholder engagement, clarify roles and decision rights, surface alignment needs, and ensure the right partners are brought in at the right moments as NExT and related business initiatives move from design to pilot, activation, and scale.

Cross-Workstream Alignment:

Help connect people-related work across Experience & Change, Operating Model & Roles, Talent Enablement, Tools & Capabilities, and broader Network Transformation priorities, ensuring HR implications, dependencies, risks, and readiness needs are understood and integrated into program planning.

Milestone and Dependency Management:

Drive visibility and follow-through on key deliverables, owners, decisions, and dependencies across Experience & Change, Operating Model & Roles, Talent Enablement, Tools & Capabilities, related business initiatives, and HR workstreams.

Risk, Issue & Decision Management:

Identify risks, open issues, and decisions early; make them visible; recommend practical paths forward; and move them through the right governance channels.

Executive Reporting:

Prepare clear, concise updates for steering committees, executive governance forums, and other leadership discussions, including pre-reads, asks, and follow-ups.

Readiness and Change Enablement:

Help the team understand leader, colleague, and field readiness needs before key decisions, pilots, activations, or broader rollout.

Workshop & Working Session Facilitation:

Design and facilitate workshops, review sessions, branch visits, and cross-functional working sessions that clarify objectives, surface decisions, align stakeholders, and advance program deliverables, with project analyst support for scheduling, logistics, materials, notes, and follow-up.

Documentation & Delivery Discipline:

Keep program materials, decision logs, action trackers, and governance documents current and ease to use, leveraging project analyst support where appropriate.

Experience, Skill and Competencies:

• Experience:8 years of experience providing program management expertise for complex, business-level projects or program portfolios in a large, matrixed organization. Experience should include planning, organizing, controlling, and delivering multiple parallel work efforts; managing milestones, dependencies, risks, issues, decisions, funding or resource considerations, and stakeholders across business and HR teams.
• HR and TalentFluency:Understands HR, talent, workforce, onboarding, learning, performance, incentives, and colleague readiness to ask the right questions, interpret business issues, recommend practical approaches, and bring the right partners into the work.
• Executive Communication and Influence:Can translate complex information into clear updates, decision materials, and leadership-ready communications; anticipates questions or objections and influences stakeholders toward alignment and action.
• Stakeholder Management:Builds trust across project sponsors, HR, business leaders, consultants, functional SMEs, and cross-functional teams; manages expectations, clarifies roles and decision rights, resolves conflicts, and keeps partners aligned on priorities, tradeoffs, and next steps.
• Program andSystems Thinking:Understands how multiple projects, stakeholders, subject matter experts, and business priorities connect within a broader program portfolio; anticipates downstream impacts and helps clarify tradeoffs before they become execution issues.
• Strategic Change and Delivery Execution:Experience supporting strategic change management, process improvement, operating model, product, or business transformation initiatives, including readiness planning, stakeholder alignment, leader and colleague preparation, adoption tracking, feedback loops, and sustainment.
• Preferred Experience:Experience in financial services, large-scale transformation, PMO delivery, internal consulting, operating model redesign, workforce transformation, agile delivery environments, or related project/change management certifications is preferred.

Education:

• Education: Bachelor’s degree required, preferably in Business, Human Resources, Organizational Development, Communications, Project Management, or a related field. Equivalent experiencesupporting complexprogram portfolios, business-level projects,transformation initiatives, or cross-functional deliverywork may be considered. Advanced degree or relevantprogram/project managementcertifications preferred but not required.

Why Join Us:

• Purpose-Driven Transformation:Help shape a multi-year effort that will strengthen how Citizens serves customers, supports colleagues, and enables growth across the branch network.
• Meaningful Exposure:Work closely with senior leaders, HR partners, business teams, and external partners on a high-priority enterprise initiative.
• Career Growth:Build transformation, program management, and enterprise HR experience in a visible and fast-moving area of the business.
• Collaborative Culture:Join a team that values partnership, practical problem solving, and working together as One Citizens.

Hours & Work Schedule

Hours per Week: 40

Work Schedule: Monday through Friday

Pay Transparency

The salary range for this position is $146,000 - $191,000 per year, plus an opportunity to earn an annual discretionary bonus. Actual pay is based on various factors including but not limited to budget, the work location, and relevant skills and experience.

We offer competitive pay, comprehensive medical, dental and vision coverage, retirement benefits, maternity/paternity leave, flexible work arrangements, education reimbursement, wellness programs and more. Note, Citizens’ paid time off policy exceeds the mandatory, paid sick or paid time-away policy of every local and state jurisdiction in the United States. For an overview of our benefits, visit https://jobs.citizensbank.com/benefits

Some job boards have started using jobseeker-reported data to estimate salary ranges for roles. If you apply and qualify for this role, a recruiter will discuss accurate pay guidance.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Citizens, its parent, subsidiaries, and related companies (Citizens) provide equal employment and advancement opportunities to all colleagues and applicants for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, citizenship, physical or mental disability, perceived disability or history or record of a disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity or expression, genetic information, genetic characteristic, marital or domestic partner status, victim of domestic violence, family status/parenthood, medical condition, military or veteran status, national origin, pregnancy/childbirth/lactation, colleague’s or a dependent’s reproductive health decision making, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, or any other category protected by federal, state and/or local laws. At Citizens, we are committed to fostering an inclusive culture that enables all colleagues to bring their best selves to work every day and everyone is expected to be treated with respect and professionalism. Employment decisions are based solely on merit, qualifications, performance and capability.