AVP, Global People Services in Waterloo

The AVP, Global People Services (GPS) – Pathways sets the global strategy, operating model, and service vision for colleague lifecycle moments, including onboarding, job changes, transfers, leaves, exits, organizational change, M&A, and other complex events. This global leader ensures accurate, consistent, compliant, and experience-led delivery while balancing enterprise standards with local requirements. The role improves colleague experience, efficiency, controls, and service resilience, with high-touch oversight for executive, confidential, and business-critical transactions.

Key Accountabilities

• Set the global strategy for colleague pathways.
• Define the global Pathways strategy, roadmap, operating model, service standards, and decision rights.
• Establish a scalable enterprise approach for colleague lifecycle events while accommodating local legal, regulatory, and cultural requirements.
• Anticipate workforce needs and identify opportunities to improve service through digital capabilities and leading practices.
• Lead global delivery of high-volume, complex, and high-risk colleague transitions with accuracy, timeliness, care, and compliance.
• Set process standards and escalation models that enable consistent regional execution.
• Coordinate delivery across People & Comms, Payroll, Benefits, Mobility, Legal, Employee Relations, People Technology, People Partners, and business leaders.
• Manage service risks, capacity constraints, process gaps, and downstream impacts while building accountability and continuous improvement.
• Establish differentiated service and governance for executive, VIP, confidential, urgent, and business-critical cases.
• Oversee sensitive transitions and escalations requiring discretion, speed, accuracy, and senior judgment.
• Define clear criteria for high-touch handling, stakeholder visibility, and executive escalation.
• Make sound decisions in complex situations, balancing policy, colleague experience, risk, and business needs.
• Advise and influence senior stakeholders on pathway strategy, priorities, dependencies, risks, and actions.
• Resolve cross-functional ownership and accountability issues and represent GPS in senior enterprise forums.
• Build trusted relationships through transparency, judgment, and dependable delivery.
• Build a digital-first mindset that challenges the team to solve service needs with technology, automation, and AI before adding manual work or capacity.
• Simplify and standardize processes to reduce variation, handoffs, rework, escalations, and inconsistent colleague experiences.
• Accelerate adoption of digital tools, workflow automation, self-service, analytics, and AI capabilities to improve quality, speed, scale, and operational efficiency.
• Create scalable global playbooks, intake and routing models, controls, and quality standards designed for automated and digitally enabled delivery.
• Embed continuous improvement by using data, root-cause analysis, colleague feedback, and performance insights to identify, prioritize, and measure technology-enabled improvements.
• Build an integrated, digitally enabled global model that improves colleague experience, resilience, efficiency, and automation.
• Lead teams through transformation while maintaining delivery stability, stakeholder readiness, and adoption.
• Establish dashboards and performance routines that give senior leaders visibility into priorities, capacity, risks, and outcomes.
• Develop global talent and a culture of ownership, learning, and service excellence.

Leadership Expectations

• Operate as an enterprise leader, balancing colleague experience, efficiency, compliance, and business outcomes.
• Exercise sound judgment, build trusted senior relationships, and create clarity and accountability across a global matrix.
• Champion simplification, automation, continuous improvement, and a high-performing service culture.

Key Outcomes / Measures of Success

• Clear global strategy, operating model, and performance visibility for Pathways.
• Improved colleague experience, transaction accuracy, cycle time, data quality, and compliance.
• Reduced defects, rework, escalations, manual processing, and downstream payroll or access issues.
• Consistent global delivery with appropriate local flexibility and strong execution of executive, confidential, and complex cases.
• Increased automation, stakeholder confidence, service resilience, and positive audit and risk outcomes.

Key Partnerships

• GPS, People & Comms COEs, People Partner Teams, Corporate Functions.

Experience and Qualifications

• Significant leadership experience in global HR operations, colleague lifecycle administration, shared services, service delivery, or HR transformation in a complex organization.
• Proven ability to set strategy, design operating models, standardize global processes, lead transformation, and deliver scalable outcomes.
• Strong knowledge of lifecycle events and their colleague data, payroll, benefits, technology, compliance, and cross-functional dependencies.
• Demonstrated discretion and judgment in executive, confidential, sensitive, and high-risk matters.
• Strong executive presence, stakeholder influence, communication, and decision-making in a global matrix.
• Experience using technology, automation, metrics, colleague insights, and controls to improve service while maintaining delivery stability and data integrity.

When you join our team: We’ll empower you to learn and grow the career you want. We’ll recognize and support you in a flexible environment where well-being and inclusion are more than just words. As part of our global team, we’ll support you in shaping the future you want to see.