Purpose & Overall Relevance for the Organization
The Senior Manager GBS HR Services Workforce Administration will be accountable for the end-to-end delivery, governance, and continuous improvement of Workforce Administration services delivered from GBS Porto.
Reporting to the Director GBS HR Services, this role leads teams responsible for the employee lifecycle from hiring through offboarding, including employee lifecycle activities, while ensuring accurate, timely, compliant, and employee-focused service delivery.
This role plays a critical role in combining people leadership, operational ownership, and strong business partnership (HR Business Partners, Payroll, Talent Acquisition, specialist functions, and market stakeholders) translating business needs into clear service priorities and sustainable operational solutions.
Key Responsibilities
Workforce Administration Operations Ownership
- Own and oversee end-to-end Workforce Administration services across the assigned scope, covering hiring, onboarding, employee data and organizational changes, contract and employment documentation, personal and job changes, leave and absence administration support, and offboarding.
- Ensure consistent execution of global and local processes, policies, controls, and service-level expectations, with a strong focus on data quality, timeliness, compliance, and employee experience.
- Act as the senior operational escalation point for complex, sensitive, high-risk, or cross-functional cases, ensuring clear ownership and appropriate resolution.
- Maintain effective operational governance through performance reviews, service metrics, case trends, root-cause analysis, and structured follow-up on risks and actions.
Business Partnership & Stakeholder Management
- Build trusted partnerships with HR Business Partners, Payroll, Talent Acquisition, HR Centers of Excellence, Legal, Finance, Data Privacy, HR Transformation & Solutions, and market stakeholders.
- Understand business priorities and workforce needs, translate them into practical service solutions, and align stakeholders on responsibilities, dependencies, risks, and expected outcomes.
- Influence across functions and geographies without relying on formal authority, managing competing priorities while protecting service quality and compliance.
- Represent GBS Porto HR Services in regional and global forums and contribute with an operational perspective to policy, process, system, and organizational decisions.
People Leadership & Team Management
- Lead and develop a multi-level Workforce Administration organization, setting clear direction, priorities, performance expectations, and decision rights.
- Set clear performance goals, priorities and KPIs aligned with HR Services objectives.
- Create an accountable, collaborative and customer-focused culture; coach team leaders and subject matter experts in critical thinking, proactive decision-making and stakeholder management.
- Own workforce and capacity planning, skills development, succession, knowledge management and business continuity.
- Conduct regular performance reviews, coaching conversations, and development planning sessions.
Compliance, Data Quality & Improvement
- Ensure compliance with employment requirements, internal policies, data protection, records management and internal controls; oversee risk mitigation, audit readiness and remediation.
- Drive data quality and preventive controls across the employee lifecycle, addressing root causes and downstream impacts.
- Lead process standardization, simplification, automation and digital enablement; use service data and stakeholder feedback to prioritize and sustain improvements across GBS.
Key Relationships
- GBS HR teams including Payroll, Time management, Enablement & Solutions
- Employees, HR Business Partners and market HR leadership
- HR Transformation & Solutions
- HR CoEs: Rewards, Mobility, Talent, Learning
- Legal and Finance, and External authorities, and suppliers where applicable
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities
- Deep knowledge of Workforce Administration and employee lifecycle operations is mandatory
- Strong business partnering capability: understands stakeholder needs, challenges constructively, aligns interests and converts requirements into executable solutions.
- Proven people leadership experience, including leading team leaders or multi-level operational teams.
- Excellent stakeholder management, influencing, and communication skills, including engagement with senior leaders.
- Ability to read, write and communicate in English in a business settingStrong analytical and critical-thinking skills, with the ability to use data to identify patterns, make decisions, and prioritize action.
- Continuous improvement, change leadership and growth mindset.
- Ability to operate effectively in a global, matrixed, fast-changing environment and to balance strategic priorities with operational delivery.
- Good knowledge of HR Systems including SAP / SuccessFactors, development tools, performance tools, etc.
Requisite Education and Experience / Minimum Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in HR, Business Administration or related field preferred
- 8+ years of overall work experience in HR Operations/Services
- Proven experience in people management and operational leadership, with proven ability to manage a medium-sized team and experience in managing managers (team leaders/supervisors)
adidas celebrates diversity, supports inclusiveness and encourages individual expression in our workplace. We do not tolerate the harassment or discrimination toward any of our applicants or employees. We are an equal opportunity employer.