Senior Project Manager

The Zellis group; Watford; On-site; GBP 60,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading HR & Payroll solutions provider in Watford is seeking an experienced Senior Project Manager to oversee implementation projects. This role requires a proven track record in managing complex, high-budget projects effectively and involves close collaboration with various stakeholders. The ideal candidate will have experience in the HR software sector and demonstrate exceptional project management skills. The position offers a competitive salary and extensive benefits.

Benefits

Competitive salary plus cash car allowance

25 days annual leave plus birthday off

Private medical insurance

Life assurance 4x salary

Enhanced pension scheme with company contributions

Flexible benefits across financial & personal wellbeing

Qualifications

• Experience leading medium-large scale implementation projects.
• Strong understanding of project KPIs and objectives.
• Experience in HR & Payroll software sector preferred.

Responsibilities

• Lead and manage implementation projects with a focus on quality and budget.
• Partner with customers for successful project delivery.
• Manage project risks and improvements based on lessons learned.

Skills

Project Management

Budget Management

Stakeholder Engagement

Risk Management

Agile Methodologies

Job description

Overview

About the role

The ZCS Senior Project Manager will lead and manage one or more specific implementation projects, often with complex multi-workstream delivery and transformative customer change. This will include responsibility for the customer relationship, project plans, objectives, deliverables and milestones, risks and issues, status reporting and governance and the budget and P&L for medium-large (often £300k+) projects and commercial margin of the delivery. The role will work closely with the ZCS Engagement Director, Implementation Consultants, Test Managers/Leads, Service Readiness and Zellis Product & Technology colleagues, and will partner with customer Project and Test managers to achieve the relevant delivery milestones on time, at the highest level of quality and on budget. The role will also involve interfacing with Customer and Zellis Exec to present ongoing status, risks and issues on projects under governance, and support continuous improvement initiatives to feed lessons learned back into the ZCS programme and project methodology.

Responsibilities

• Partner with the customer Project and Test Managers to develop a “One Team” approach to end-to-end delivery to ensure all project and change activities are delivered on time, at the highest level of quality and on budget.
• Develop, agree and maintain a detailed project plan with the customer, based on the Zellis standard project Implementation methodology, including deliverables, milestones and entry and exit criteria as relevant.
• Manage and coordinate all project or change activities in accordance with the project plan, including successfully transitioning the service to a live state with ongoing ownership from the Application Support team.
• Work with the Implementation Director or Engagement Directors to manage project and change KPIs, status reporting, commercial margin and budget and P&L.
• Report on ongoing project performance to the customer and Zellis stakeholders, including Project Steering Groups, Zellis ZCS Implementation Director and Zellis Exec as required.
• Manage scheduling, preparation and facilitation of project or change governance meetings (milestones or stage gate reviews and sign-off meetings) and inform project stakeholders of progress.
• Manage ongoing project or change risks and issues (including mitigation and resolution), ensuring they are reported and escalated in a timely fashion.
• Identify and recommend ongoing continuous improvement proposals to the ZCS Implementation methodology, based on lessons learned, to ensure it follows best practice and evolves with improved customer experience, automation, innovation and the latest agile or iterative delivery methodologies in a customer-friendly way.
• Onboard, manage, coach and support all project resources in executing their activities and act as the point of escalation for execution issues beyond the relevant workstreams.
• Facilitate the provision of software, infrastructure, supporting tools and resources for each phase of the project to ensure prerequisites and ongoing support are in place.

Skills & Experience

• Experience leading on medium-large scale Implementation, software, advisory or Managed Services customers with medium-large scale employee volumes (over 10,000 EEs and £300k budgets).
• Managing and owning project KPIs, objectives, financial measures, planning, resourcing, deliverables, change controls and successful outcomes with internal and customer stakeholders (including C-Suite level with Engagement Director support).
• Acting as project lead across complex projects, including over multiple workstreams (cross customer, third party and internal cross functional).
• Planning, scheduling and delivering work for self and others to meet given objectives, outcomes and KPIs; monitors self and others against agreed delivery timelines.
• Understands, applies and advises appropriate methods, tools, applications and processes (driving continuous improvement of standard operating processes).
• Significant influence within areas of multi-specialism (internally and with customers).
• Partners, consults and facilitates collaboration between stakeholders (internally and externally).
• Follows an expert approach to identifying and resolving highly complex risks and issues; anticipates and raises business or reputationally impacting risks and issues to enable mitigation.
• Defines problem statements and completes root cause analysis for risks and issues.
• Acts as a point of escalation, managing difficult conversations.
• Follows set development path for their role/multi-specialism; takes the initiative to develop skills and knowledge by identifying appropriate development opportunities.
• Maintains awareness of developing practices and their application and takes responsibility for driving own development; contributes to the development of others.
• Experience working in the HR & Payroll software, financial technology/services or outsourcing industry (preferred).

Benefits & Culture

At Zellis we create market-leading HR & Payroll products and services to power exceptional employee experiences. Our multi-award-winning products pay over five million employees a year, with almost half (42%) of the FTSE 100, 50% of the top retailers and 30% of the top universities in the UK & Ireland as customers, making us the largest provider of Payroll and HR software and managed services. Our vision is to be the clear leader in pay, reward, analytics, and people experiences. We’re passionate about creating an environment where people want to join, belong to, and be part of a progressive organisation. Our values, defined with input from our 2,000 colleagues, are lived every day: Unstoppable together; Always learning; Make it count; Think scale.

Our people are critical to our ongoing success; we’re proud of our inclusive culture that gives you the platform to grow, challenge the status quo and play a crucial role in further enhancing our market position as the leading provider of HR & Payroll software and services. With Zellis you’ll have the chance to stretch and challenge yourself in an environment that’s varied, flexible and hugely supportive.

We also love to reward and recognise our brilliant colleagues. As part of your benefits package, you’ll receive:

• A competitive base salary plus cash car allowance.
• 25 days annual leave, plus your birthday off and the opportunity to buy additional holiday.
• Private medical insurance.
• Life assurance 4x salary.
• Enhanced pension scheme with company contributions up to 8.5%.
• A huge range of additional flexible benefits across financial & personal wellbeing, lifestyle & leisure.