Workday Platform & Governance Owner - Workday SME

Position Summary 

The Workday Platform & Governance Owner serves as the technical subject matter expert (SME) and governance authority for the Workday ecosystem supporting 10,000+ employees.  

This role is responsible for tenant management, security administration, production change control, configuration standards, and complex cross-module configuration within Workday. 

This position operates within IT, operating within a structured HRIS (functional design) and HRIT (technical delivery) model.  This role ensures Workday remains secure, architecturally aligned, compliant, and technically optimized. While HRIT Engineers own module delivery, this role serves as the enterprise technical SME across all Workday domains and provides hands-on configuration for complex or cross-functional initiatives. 

Key Responsibilities 

Enterprise Technical SME (All Workday Modules) 

• Serve as the senior technical authority across: 
• Core HCM 

• Position Management & Job Management 

• Benefits 

• Compensation & Advanced Compensation 

• Recruiting 

• Talent Management 

• Workday Learning 

• Payroll 

• Time Tracking & Absence 

• Security 

• Integrations (EIB, Core Connectors, APIs, Studio fundamentals) 

Responsibilities include advising HRIT engineers on complex configuration design, new releases, AI agents and new functionality, validating cross-module impacts, supporting troubleshooting of high-severity issues, and mentoring team members on advanced configuration practices. 

Hands-On Configuration Responsibilities 

• Configure complex cross-domain business processes 

• Design and implement advanced security groups and domain policies 

• Configure complex eligibility rules and condition logic 

• Support advanced compensation cycle setup 

• Configure complex Position Management structures 

• Build enterprise-impact calculated fields 

• Support integration troubleshooting 

• Perform configuration clean-up and technical debt remediation 

Tenant Management & Environment Governance 

• Create and Maintain Tenant Management Plan
• Oversee all Workday tenants (Production, Sandbox, Dev, Preview) 

• Coordinate sandbox refresh schedules 

• Enforce Dev → Test → Prod migration controls 

• Approve production configuration migrations 

• Oversee release preview cycles 

• Maintain production access governance 

• Support emergency change management 
• Lead governance processes, including prioritization of enhancements, upgrades and releases.

• Establish and enforce technical and application change management standards, ensuring compliance with documentation and audit requirements

Security & Access Governance 

• Maintain enterprise Workday security model 

• Monitor and remediate segregation of duties (SOD) conflicts 

• Conduct periodic security reviews 

• Review elevated access requests 

• Partner with IT Security and Audit teams 

Production Change Control & CAB Leadership 

• Chair Workday Change Advisory Board (CAB) for Intake and Demand

• Review cross-module impact of proposed changes 

• Validate testing documentation prior to approval 

• Maintain structured change control records 

Required Qualifications 

• 7–10 years HRIS experience 

• 5+ years advanced hands-on Workday configuration 

• Workday Pro Certifications 

• Deep expertise across all major Workday modules  

• Strong Position Management and Job Management experience 

• Experience designing and maintaining security architecture 

• Strong understanding of SOD and audit controls 

• Experience operating within a multi-tenant governance model 

Location:

• Three days a week at a Guardian office in New York, NY, Holmdel, NJ or Stanford, CT>

Salary Range:

$152,290.00 - $250,195.00

The salary range reflected above is a good faith estimate of base pay for the primary location of the position. The salary for this position ultimately will be determined based on the education, experience, knowledge, and abilities of the successful candidate. In addition to salary, this role may also be eligible for annual, sales, or other incentive compensation.

Our Promise

At Guardian, you’ll have the support and flexibility to achieve your professional and personal goals.  Through skill-building, leadership development and philanthropic opportunities, we provide opportunities to build communities and grow your career, surrounded by diverse colleagues with high ethical standards.

Inspire Well-Being

As part of Guardian’s Purpose – to inspire well-being – we are committed to offering contemporary, supportive, flexible, and inclusive benefits and resources to our colleagues. Explore our company benefits at www.guardianlife.com/careers/corporate/benefits. Benefits apply to full-time eligible employees. Interns are not eligible for most Company benefits.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Guardian is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will be considered for employment without regard to age, race, color, creed, religion, sex, affectional or sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, marital status, disability, military or veteran status, or any other classification protected by applicable law.

Accommodations

Guardian is committed to providing access, equal opportunity and reasonable accommodation for individuals with disabilities in employment, its services, programs, and activities. Guardian also provides reasonable accommodations to qualified job applicants (and employees) to accommodate the individual's known limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, unless doing so would create an undue hardship. If reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and/or to receive other benefits and privileges of employment, please contact [email protected]. Please note: this resource is for accommodation requests only. For all other inquires related to your application and careers at Guardian, refer to the Guardian Careers site.

Visa Sponsorship

Guardian Life is not currently or in the foreseeable future sponsoring employment-based visas (e.g., such as an H-1B). In order to be a successful applicant, you must be legally authorized to work in the United States, without the need for employer sponsorship/support now or at any time in the future.

Notice Regarding Guardian’s Use of Artificial Intelligence in Recruitment

As part of Guardian’s job application process, Guardian may use artificial intelligence tools (“AI Tools") to automate the sorting and filtering of information provided by applicants as part of its preliminary screening. This preliminary screening may be used to help identify applicant materials and resumes relative to their indication that the applicant meets the requirements for the specific job for which they are applying, as specified in the listing posted on Guardian’s jobs website (Careers at Guardian at https://www.guardianlife.com/careers). At Guardian, we do not use AI Tools to substantially assist or replace human judgment or discretionary decision making in our hiring process. All hiring decisions will be made by Guardian colleagues.

Please be aware that if you apply for a specific position with Guardian, you will have the choice of opting out of Guardian’s use of AI Tools during the job application process. If you would like to request an alternative process that does not utilize AI Tools or would like to request a reasonable accommodation, within ten business days of your position application, you must email your request to [email protected], making sure to provide your name and job requisition identification number. Guardian will retain your applicant materials and resume and all information therefrom in accordance with Guardian’s document retention policy, a copy of which you may request via [email protected].

Additionally, at applicable times, Guardian will make public the most recent bias audit results for such AI tools, which may be found here. 

Current Guardian Colleagues: Please apply through the internal Jobs Hub in Workday.