Job DescriptionRole OverviewThe Director, HR Experience (US, EMEA, India, Japan) is a senior leadership role responsible for enabling and continuously improving a high-quality, consistent employee and manager experience across multiple regions. Positioned between HR Operations, HR Centers of Excellence, and HR Business Partners, this role serves as the connector that ensures enterprise people strategies, programs, and processes are delivered in a cohesive, intuitive, and experience-led way.
This role leads a global HR Experience Partner team focused on shaping end-to-end people journeys, strengthening manager effectiveness through scalable experiences, and supporting the activation of regional talent strategies through thoughtful, localized delivery. The Director ensures that core HR programs are implemented with consistency and clarity, reducing friction for managers and employees while respecting regional and regulatory nuances.
Working in close partnership with HR COEs, HR Operations, and HRBPs, the Director translates people strategies, policies, and programs into practical, usable experiences centered on key moments that matter across the employee lifecycle. The role enables leaders and HR partners by improving how people processes are experienced, understood, and adopted.
Operating at the intersection of experience optimization, operational execution, and change enablement, the Director, HR Experience leverages employee insights, operational data, and continuous feedback loops to identify pain points, improve usability, and elevate how employees and managers experience HR at scale. The Director, HR Experience Partner serves as a critical connector between the business and how HR is experienced and understood.
Essential Duties & Responsibilities:Uplevel Manager Capability- Partner with Talent Development & Inclusion (TD&I) to enable and embed core people-leader capabilities through locally relevant, experience-led delivery.
- Build, develop, and lead a high-performing global HR Experience Partner team that provides just-in-time coaching, practical guidance, and manager-ready frameworks developed by TD&I and COEs.
- Strengthen manager confidence, consistency, and accountability by translating leadership capability frameworks into clear expectations, tools, and moments-that-matter across the employee lifecycle.
- Serve as a frontline experience multiplier, ensuring managers consistently understand how to apply people practices-not just what to do.
Deliver HR Programs Through Experience-Led Activation- Drive the activation, adoption, and consistent experience of core HR programs across regions in close partnership with HR Operations and COEs.
- Translate global HR initiatives into manager-ready practices that are intuitive, locally applicable, and scalable.
- Enable leaders to engage effectively with HR programs by simplifying complexity and reinforcing expectations through coordinated communications, tools, and reinforcement.
- Provide feedback loops to COEs and HR Operations to improve program usability and effectiveness based on lived manager and employee experiences.
Support the Business through Integrated enablement- Partner closely with HR Business Partners, Legal, HR Operations, and Centers of Excellence to deliver integrated, experienced-led people solutions aligned to evolving business priorities.
- Act as a connector that balances business needs, employee experience, and risk awareness, ensuring consistency without sacrificing local relevance.
- Enable HRBPs and leaders by clarifying roles, decision pathways, and escalation points within people processes.
- Identify friction points between the business and HR and proactively address them through experience improvements and enablement.
Drive Country-Level HR Compliance and Governance- Collaborate with Legal, Employee Relations, and regional HR teams to ensure people practices comply with local employment laws, regulatory requirements and internal governance standards.
- Interpret complex employment regulations and convert them into clear, practical guidance that empowers managers to make compliant, people-centered decisions.
QualificationsRequired:- 10+ years of progressive experience in employee experience, HR transformation, organizational effectiveness & manager enablement, with demonstrated impact in complex, matrixed organizations; experience in technology or manufacturing environments strongly preferred.
- Demonstrates strong regulatory acumen by partnering with Legal, Employee Relations, and regional HR teams to ensure people practices meet country-specific employment requirements, while translating complex regulations into clear, actionable guidance that enables managers to make compliant, informed decisions
- Proven ability to build, lead, and scale high-performing global teams across multiple regions, cultures, and regulatory environments, with a focus on consistency of experience and local relevance.
- Strong track record partnering with senior leaders, HR Business Partners, HR Operations, and Centers of Excellence to translate people strategies into practical, manager-ready experiences that address leadership, talent, and organizational needs.
- Strong coaching, facilitation, and communication skills, with the ability to leverage storytelling to enable manager effectiveness, and drive alignment across diverse stakeholder groups without direct authority.
- Sound judgment and strong influencing capability, grounded in accountability, trust, inclusion, and respect, with the ability to balance business priorities, employee experience, and risk considerations.
- Demonstrated ability to operate effectively in ambiguity, manage multiple large-scale initiatives simultaneously, and adapt approaches in fast-changing, global business contexts.
Salary Range: 191,900.00-255,800.00
Compensation & Benefits Details- An employee's pay position within the salary range may be based on several factors including but not limited to (1) relevant education; qualifications; certifications; and experience; (2) skills, ability, knowledge of the job; (3) performance, contribution and results; (4) geographic location; (5) shift; (6) internal and external equity; and (7) business and organizational needs.
- The salary range is what we believe to be the range of possible compensation for this role at the time of this posting. We may ultimately pay more or less than the posted range and this range is only applicable for jobs to be performed in California, Colorado, New York or remote jobs that can be performed in California, Colorado and New York. This range may be modified in the future.
- If your position is non-exempt, you are eligible for overtime pay pursuant to company policy and applicable laws. You may also be eligible for shift differential pay, depending on the shift to which you are assigned.
- You will be eligible to be considered for bonuses under either WD's Short Term Incentive Plan ("STI Plan") or the Sales Incentive Plan ("SIP") which provides incentive awards based on Company and individual performance, depending on your role and your performance. You may be eligible to participate in our annual Long-Term Incentive (LTI) program, which consists of restricted stock units (RSUs) or cash equivalents, pursuant to the terms of the LTI plan. Please note that not all roles are eligible to participate in the LTI program, and not all roles are eligible for equity under the LTI plan. RSU awards are also available to eligible new hires, subject to WD's Standard Terms and Conditions for Restricted Stock Unit Awards.
- We offer a comprehensive package of benefits including paid vacation time; paid sick leave; medical/dental/vision insurance; life, accident and disability insurance; tax-advantaged flexible spending and health savings accounts; employee assistance program; other voluntary benefit programs such as supplemental life and AD&D, legal plan, pet insurance, critical illness, accident and hospital indemnity; tuition reimbursement; transit; the Applause Program; employee stock purchase plan; and the WD Savings 401(k) Plan.
- Note: No amount of pay is considered to be wages or compensation until such amount is earned, vested, and determinable. The amount and availability of any bonus, commission, benefits, or any other form of compensation and benefits that are allocable to a particular employee remains in the Company's sole discretion unless and until paid and may be modified at the Company's sole discretion, consistent with the law.
