Workday ERP Implementation Project Manager

RZ Strategies is seeking two mid-level Project Managers to join the team leading our enterprise Workday ERP deployment. This is a high-visibility program transforming how our client manages projects, finances, resources, and people across our engineering and design business groups.

These roles sit on the internal program team - not on the implementation partner side. You will own one or more workstreams end-to-end, driving alignment between business stakeholders, our system integrator, and our client’s functional and executive leadership. You will be expected to manage ambiguity, surface issues early, and keep decisions moving on a program where the stakes are real and the timeline is firm.

What You’ll Do

• Own the day-to-day delivery of one or more Workday workstreams - tracking progress, managing risks and issues, and holding the program team and SI accountable to plan.
• Partner with functional leads (Finance, HR, Project Controls, Operations) to drive configuration decisions, facilitate workshops, and ensure business requirements are captured and ratified.
• Maintain and manage program documentation - RAID logs, decision logs, status reports, meeting notes - with the discipline expected on an enterprise-scale deployment.
• Prepare and present workstream status to program leadership, the Executive Steering Committee, and external stakeholders - surfacing issues honestly and with recommended paths forward.
• Coordinate with Business Group Ambassadors and change management resources to ensure impacted teams are informed, engaged, and ready.
• Manage dependencies across workstreams, flag cross-functional impacts, and escalate when progress is blocked.
• Support testing cycles (SIT, UAT), cutover planning, and hypercare preparation within your workstream scope.
• Contribute to a program culture where decisions get made, documented, and held - not endlessly relitigated., This is not a project coordinator role with a PM title. It is not a role where you run status meetings and pass information up. You will be expected to own your workstream, manage your stakeholders, and drive decisions - including uncomfortable ones.

Do you have experience in Stakeholder management?, * 4-7 years of project management experience, including at least one full-lifecycle SaaS implementation as a workstream lead or PM - not coordinator.

• Direct experience managing workstreams on a Workday, SAP, Oracle, Salesforce, ServiceNow, or comparable enterprise platform implementation.
• Demonstrated ability to manage stakeholders at multiple levels - from functional team members to senior business leaders - with credibility and directness.
• Strong command of project management fundamentals: scope, schedule, risk, issues, dependencies, and status reporting.
• Experience working alongside a system integrator or consulting partner - understanding where the SI’s responsibility ends and yours begins.
• Comfortable operating in environments where requirements evolve, decisions are complex, and ambiguity is the norm.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication - you can write a clear status update, facilitate a difficult meeting, and present a risk to an executive without being asked to simplify it first.

Preferred

• Workday-specific implementation experience (HCM, Financials, or PSA/Projects) strongly preferred.
• Familiarity with professional services, engineering, or project-based industries.
• Experience on a program with multiple business units or a federated stakeholder model.
• PMP, PMI-ACP, or equivalent certification.
• Exposure to change management frameworks (Prosci or similar) - you don’t need to be a change manager, but you need to understand why the work matters., * Project management: 4 years (Required)

$95 - $100 an hour - Full-time, Contract, This is also not a role for someone whose only experience is on the SI side. We need someone who has sat where our business stakeholders sit - who understands the client experience of an implementation, not just the delivery side of one.

What RZ Strategies Offers

• A program with genuine executive sponsorship and a clear January 2027 go-live target.
• The opportunity to build internal implementation capability that will outlast this program.
• A collaborative team that takes the work seriously and treats each other well.
• Competitive compensation. Salary range to be discussed during screening.
• Chicago office available; remote candidates in Central or Eastern time zones preferred.

Pay: $95.00 - $100.00 per hour

Application Question(s):

• Which SaaS platform implementation did you lead a workstream on, and what did that workstream cover?