Associate Director, Product Owner - SAP HR S4, Strada and Mercans Payroll

Job Purpose: • The Associate Director, Product Owner - SAP HR S4, Strada and Mercans Payroll is responsible for maximising the value of their HR Product portfolio by translating business needs into a prioritised backlog and leading delivery across the HR product lifecycle, within strategic and financial guardrails set by the Senior Director, People Services & Reward, and VP HR Digital & Tech. They work closely with business stakeholders to define outcomes and ensure delivered functionality is usable, secure, compliant, supportable, and aligned to product strategy. The SAP HR S4 Payroll Product Owner guides delivery and operational support teams to ensure requirements are clear, value-driven, and data-informed, while overseeing iterative delivery that improves product performance, adoption, and operational effectiveness.  • This role operates under GSK's "Performance with Choice" hybrid working approach, typically expecting 2–3 days per week in the office, with the specific pattern agreed between the successful candidate and their manager based on role and team needs.  Responsibilities: • Serve as the functional and technical SME for SAP HR S4 Payroll, offering expert guidance on configuration, statutory compliance, and best practice.  • Partner with business stakeholders to understand functional needs, refine requirements, and define product outcomes that support business priorities, within guardrails set by the Senior Director, People Services & Reward, and VP HR Digital & Tech.  • Serve as the escalation point for HR Product teams and business users on functional product issues, guiding decisions within agreed financial, risk, and architectural guardrails set by the Director, Workday, Payroll & Time Product Manager and VP, HR Digital & Tech.  • Own and manage the Product backlog (e.g. Jira, ADO etc), ensuring requirements (e.g., epics, features, user stories) are well-defined and supported by minimum data inputs (e.g., cost drivers, user volumes, risk/sensitivity, process impact, dependencies).  • Make prioritisation decisions for the Product backlog based on value, cost, risk, business continuity, and resource capacity, escalating only where strategic trade-offs are required by the Senior Director, People Services & Reward, and VP HR Digital & Tec.  • Lead the Product team’s delivery activities, guiding Engineers, Architects, and Testers to ensure solutions are fit-for-purpose, secure, compliant, supportable, and aligned to architectural standards.  • Drive operational readiness by applying a delivery readiness checklist covering support model requirements, training needs, continuity planning, configuration/runbook documentation, release notes, and user onboarding.  • Define and maintain the Product performance dashboard, tracking adoption, cycle time/throughput, stability/defects, UX signals (e.g., CSAT, SUS, completion rates), and support effort; use performance insights to drive continuous improvement.  • Ensure product changes follow required security controls, risk assessments, data handling policies, and regulated change processes, obtaining approvals from relevant SMEs where required.  • Support Solution Architects to assess design options and manage cross-Product dependencies, contract/interface impacts, and sequencing needs to support interoperability and consistent business outcomes.  • Contribute to the improvement of delivery practices within the Product, promoting agile (i.e. SaFe, Scrum etc), iterative, value-driven, and data-led ways of working, including meaningful measurement of benefits and operational impact.  Required skills : • 15 to 19 years of experience working in product delivery, digital solutions, business systems, or process-led technology roles.   • In-depth knowledge of SAP payroll