Hybrid Program Manager

at Canada Life

• Job title: Program Manager
• Job type: Full Time
• Experience level: Mid level, Senior
• Salary: CA$90,400 - CA$140,400 per year
• Degree requirement: Bachelor's Degree
• Location requirements: Hybrid, Toronto, Canada

About the role

• Program Manager managing strategic initiatives for company operations in Canada. Collaborating across teams to enhance customer and advisor experiences while ensuring strategic objectives are met.

Responsibilities

• Act as the first point of contact for Canada Operations initiatives that impact clients, advisors, or operations teams.
• Lead strategic initiatives’ intake, planning, delivery and governance based on business goals and organizational strategies.
• Partner with various stakeholders across Canada Operations to understand the project charter and help define preliminary requirements to deliver business results.
• Define scope and resource requirements, along with project dependencies.
• Collaborate with Canada Operations leaders to align subject matter experts to support projects.
• Foster dynamic and collaborative relationships with leaders across Canada Operations.
• Be responsible for collecting and providing program roadmaps, estimates and resource needs for annual planning.
• Oversee and govern planning and delivery of the assigned strategic initiatives, provide expert knowledge towards ambiguous situations, identify and resolve problems across multiple domains, and perform risk assessment, planning and analysis across the entire program.
• Lead the implementation of solutions that may require the modification of business processes, systems, products, and can require significant departures from traditional approaches.
• Manage senior stakeholder relationships, partnering with management in the development of strategic and operational plans.
• Develop and manage an effective delivery network across project managers and other leaders.
• Assess impact on people, processes and systems; understand the importance of and adheres to control standards, audit practices, compliance, etc.
• Support development of initiative-level business cases.
• Define the governance structure and ensures work is completed with an appropriate level of detail and quality, optimizing resource usage.
• Provide team leadership towards the achievement of strategic objectives, including feedback to people leaders on performance, development, resource assignment, etc.
• Oversee the coaching and mentorship, lifecycle and development of resources, providing guidance on complex issues.
• Oversee the management of resourcing over a large body of work crossing multiple projects or initiatives.
• Communicate with and report to stakeholders to provide an integrated perspective on all program activities.
• Actively promote and influence the need for continuous improvement.
• Act as a change leader ensuring effective implementation and sustainable success of solutions engaging teams and stakeholders throughout the project lifecycle to deliver results.

Requirements

• 5+ years Project management experience and/or education an asset
• Post-secondary degree or certification
• Drive to foster and maintain a culture of excellence by prioritizing innovation and industry best practices
• Agile mindset with a demonstrated ability to work through ambiguity and successfully manage multiple, time-sensitive, concurrent, deliverables
• Ability to influence the creation of solutions and recommendations for efficient and effective processes and performance
• Credibility to foster collaborative relationships, provide trusted advice - across businesses - to effectively assess, build, and execute on initiatives
• Solid planning and organization skills
• Effective communication skills across all levels of the organization
• Demonstrated relationship building skills at all levels
• Understanding of technology and business projects, the impact to Canada Operations, as well as the impact to customers and advisors
• Results oriented
• Strong influencer
• Strong communication and listening skills, ability to inspire, provide vision, and articulate the path forward
• Driven to improve - the organization, processes, service performance, efficiency, etc.
• Deep understanding and experience within Operations
• Strong product, process and systems knowledge within IW/IS/WS/CanOps preferred
• Computer savvy – adept at Office 365 applications.

Benefits

• Opportunities for career advancement, access to industry-leading learning programs and up to $2,000 annually towards education reimbursement.
• Flexible health and dental benefits, plus a $5,000 mental health benefit to support your well-being.
• In addition to regular vacation and personal days, we support community involvement with a volunteer day.
• Company-matching pension plan, share ownership program and additional investment options.
• Employee recognition programs, service milestone celebrations, employee discounts and more!
• We provide a workplace where employees feel connected and supported through Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), mentorship programs, social clubs and events.