Change & Transition Lead, One Payroll Programme
Organizational Context
The World Food Programme (WFP) is the world's largest humanitarian organization, dedicated to saving lives and building a pathway to peace and prosperity. WFP is undergoing a significant transformation by consolidating three payroll populations onto a single SAP S/4HANA platform through the One Payroll Programme. This initiative aims to modernize administrative and HR processes, shifting from decentralized to more centralized payroll processing.
Job Purpose
The Change and Transition Lead will be instrumental in ensuring the successful organizational readiness and adoption of the One Payroll Programme across its implementation phases, including Phase 1 and Phase 2 go-lives and stabilization. This role is critical for managing the shift from distributed payroll processing in Country Offices to increased centralized processing at Headquarters. The Lead will identify and address organizational implications of the technical build, prepare affected functions for changes to their operating models, and provide independent assessments of organizational readiness to programme governance. The position requires close collaboration across technical, human resources, and finance workstreams, engaging stakeholders from working to director levels. The role also involves advising programme leadership on organizational dimensions, shaping governance, and designing necessary interventions beyond communication and training to optimize affected functions for the new operating model, ensuring a smooth transition to business as usual.
Responsibilities
The Change and Transition Lead for the One Payroll Programme is responsible for ensuring the successful organizational readiness and adoption of a new, centralized payroll system. This role oversees the entire transition process, from the current build phase through two go-live phases and into stabilization, aiming to complete by the end of 2028. A key focus is managing the shift from decentralized payroll processing in Country Offices to a more centralized model at Headquarters, ensuring field operations are prepared and confident. The Lead will develop and execute a comprehensive change management strategy, conduct organizational impact assessments to identify and mitigate risks, and translate the future operating model into clear role definitions and practical guidance. They will define readiness criteria for each phase, provide independent assessments of organizational readiness to program leadership, and proactively identify and escalate adoption risks. Additionally, the role involves advising program management on organizational dimensions, shaping program governance, designing agendas for steering committees, and developing interventions beyond communication and training to optimize affected functions. This includes directing communications, training, and enablement strategies, ensuring alignment with new processes and roles, and establishing sustainable capability within operational teams. The Lead will also coordinate across technical, HR, and finance workstreams, manage change governance, and direct the transition to business-as-usual operations, capturing lessons learned throughout the process.
Work Experience
Requires at least eight years of progressive professional experience in change management, organizational transformation, or programme delivery. Must have demonstrated experience leading the change and adoption aspects of enterprise system implementations and corporate transformation projects.
Skills
Change Management, Organizational Transformation, Program Delivery, Stakeholder Engagement, Business Process Analysis, Communication Strategy, Training and Development, Project Management, SAP HR/Payroll, Workday, Risk Management, Leadership Advisory