Experience Solutions Designer

About the Role

If you’re passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country—and you’re committed to working hard to play your part in building that future—consider WGU as the next step in your career. Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.

Responsibilities

• Plan and manage medium-scale university-level projects impacting segments of faculty, students, and operations across departments.
• Determine organizational readiness and develop project schedules by analyzing organizational assets, enterprise environmental factors, task dependencies, resource requirements, work breakdown, and departmental strategy and priorities.
• Leverage a system-thinking approach when presenting to college leadership and primary stakeholders to influence decision-making, gain buy-in, and support systemic change that improves faculty engagement and student outcomes.
• Responsible for planning, organizing, monitoring, and documenting all phases of projects.
• Analyze current state business processes and identify improvement opportunities in policies, business processes, services, and service level agreements.
• Collaborate with cross-functional leadership to develop key features of faculty engagement and student-centric models, including modular support/employment models and continuous improvement processes.
• Develop and deliver project and solutions updates, communications, and reports used to drive priorities and allocation of resources across WGU departments.
• Develop and maintain professional working relations and communication with stakeholders, project team members, departments, and outside contacts.
• Ensure projects meet organizational standards and are managed in accordance with applicable policies, processes, and procedures.
• Document project deliverables, outputs, and notes that capture why key project decisions were made.
• Assess project impact on faculty and student experience and outcomes.
• Deliver financial and quality commitments according to the strategic plan.
• Perform other related duties as assigned.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in a related field from an accredited college or university (education verified).
• Two (2) years of related experience in a role that required extensive project and change management skills in a large and distributed organization.
• Direct experience testing, developing, implementing, and measuring the impact of technology or business processes.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master's degree from an accredited college or university.
• Five years of experience as the assigned project manager of executive-sponsored projects, with sole responsibility for project initiation, planning, execution, monitoring, and closure.
• Three years of experience in higher education and competency-based education.
• Demonstrated experience managing teams and initiatives to impact student outcomes through specific interventions.
• Experience in supervising and leading people.
• Demonstrated professional experience in communication to a broad audience base, with a technical writing emphasis.
• Demonstrated professional experience managing complex projects and working cross-functionally.
• Proficient in project management software tools and collaboration software.

Skills

• Demonstrated strong verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to interact and tailor messages effectively with people at all levels of the organization.
• Deep analytical knowledge in interpreting multifaceted problems and complex data to meet business goals and objectives.
• Strong critical thinking and problem-solving skills while working within a collaborative matrix organization.
• Systems thinker who can identify systemic structures contributing to outcomes, identify high-leverage activities to impact outcomes, and articulate the implications of business decisions.
• Proficiency in project management, change management, and data analytics.
• Excellent presentation and communication skills to a broad audience across multiple departments and stakeholders, with a technical writing emphasis.
• Ability to develop a business case and models.
• Highly organized and detail-oriented.
• Proven ability to take initiative and be both innovative and flexible.
• Experience leading teams and working well in a team environment.
• Strong technical and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to plan and meet schedules for both individual and collaborative projects.
• Ability to create concise, informative reports on projects and initiatives.
• Ability to clearly document and catalog information and progress on assigned projects.
• Proficiency with Office 365 applications, live event tools, CRM software, and data visualization applications.
• Design-thinking and documented use of technology-based educational delivery systems.
• Ability to understand current/changing business processes, and participation in defining application and platform functionality.
• Ability to build consensus and motivate others.

Competencies

• Works to achieve operational targets within job areas impacting department, function, or office results. Work is performed independently on moderately complex projects and assignments with some guidance required for direction and complex tasks. Sets objectives for oneself to meet the goals of projects or assignments.
• Problem Solving & Decision Making: Responsible for employing adjustments or recommended enhancements to systems and processes to solve problems or improve the job area's effectiveness while leveraging a systems-thinking approach. Problems faced may require an understanding of a broader set of issues and job areas.
• Communication & Influence: Collaborates with contacts typically within the job area to obtain or provide information requiring some explanation or interpretation.
• Systems-thinking approach.
• Leadership & Talent Management: May provide guidance and assistance to entry-level professionals and/or support employees. Demonstrates the WGU leadership principles in all aspects of service to students, employees, and partners of WGU.

Benefits

• Eligible for bonuses.
• Medical, dental, vision, telehealth, and mental healthcare.
• Health savings account and flexible spending account.
• Basic and voluntary life insurance.
• Disability coverage.
• Accident, critical illness, and hospital indemnity supplemental coverages.
• Legal and identity theft coverage.
• Retirement savings plan.
• Wellbeing program.
• Discounted WGU tuition.
• Flexible paid time off for rest and relaxation with no need for accrual.
• Flexible paid sick time with no need for accrual.
• 11 paid holidays.
• Up to 12 weeks of parental leave.

Pay

A reasonable estimate of the current salary range is $75,200.00 - $112,700.00. The salary range for this position takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to skill sets; experience and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs. At WGU, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their position, and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case.

Schedule

• Full-time, regular position (classified for 40 standard weekly hours).
• Occasional travel of up to 20%, including required attendance at designated company summits (typically one to two per year). Additional travel may include conferences, visits to company locations, and other business-related events as needed.

Physical Requirements

• Prolonged periods sitting at a desk and working on a computer.
• Must be able to lift 15 pounds at times.