Manager, HR Operations

Role overview

Responsibilities

• Lead regional employee lifecycle and payroll operations and manage the HR Operations team.
• Partner with local HR and stakeholders to improve service delivery and conduct quarterly service reviews.
• Prioritize and implement process improvement projects and lead regional or global HR process initiatives.
• Manage escalations, identify root causes, and drive resolution and continuous service improvement.
• Support acquisitions, reorganizations, legal entity changes, and other cross-functional workstreams.
• Maintain process documentation and communicate changes to HR teams and the broader HR community.
• Monitor best practices, industry standards, and local requirements and update processes as needed.
• Oversee vendors, service levels, operational metrics, change management, and team development.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in human resources, business, information systems, or a relevant field; equivalent experience may substitute.
• 10–15 years of human resources experience, preferably in shared services and across APAC countries.
• Experience with HR administration, payroll, and systems in a large, complex enterprise.
• At least 3 years of team management and development experience.
• Strong HR systems experience, preferably including Workday, and experience with ticketing systems such as ServiceNow.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office and intermediate Excel skills, including pivot tables, charts, and VLOOKUPs.

Key competencies

• Strong communication, stakeholder relationship-building, customer focus, and influencing skills.
• Ability to operate autonomously, prioritize rigorously, and make sound decisions in ambiguous situations.
• Ability to lead, coach, and develop high-performing teams and build bench strength.
• Understanding of payroll, compliance, data privacy, shared services, and end-to-end employee lifecycle processes.
• Ability to lead change, system implementations, process transformation, and continuous improvement.

About Wabtec