Manager, Experience Design Strategy

You are as unique as your background, experience and point of view. Here, you’ll be encouraged, empowered and challenged to be your best self. You'll work with dynamic colleagues - experts in their fields - who are eager to share their knowledge with you. Your leaders will inspire and help you reach your potential and soar to new heights. Every day, you'll have new and exciting opportunities to make life brighter for our Clients - who are at the heart of everything we do. Discover how you can make a difference in the lives of individuals, families and communities around the world.

Job Description:

***Please note this is a 13-month contract opportunity***

About the role:

Reporting to the Director, Experience Design Strategy and sitting in the Global Client Experience and Marketing department, the candidate will lead initiatives focussed on advancing, promoting, and helping to scale the Experience Design (XD) practice globally within Sun Life. Experience Design (XD) is the practice of designing experiences for our end users, including approaches such as design thinking, UX, service design, research, and DesignOps.

This role is a 13 month contract to cover a maternity leave and the main priorities will be to evolve and refine a newly developed framework to support career development for XD practitioners, identify and manage relevant learning and development sessions to advance the skills and capabilities of practitioners, work with regional teams to identify and create case studies to showcase the benefits of XD ways of working, and to work with their team member to support the ongoing evolution of XD communities with the goal of providing thought leadership in the XD space. Throughout everything, there will be flexibility in the role for how it can evolve and grow with the organization’s needs over time.

The successful candidate will need to communicate and collaborate effectively with a variety of design and business leaders, brand teams, and other key stakeholders. This would be done both individually and in group settings to evangelize and help evolve the mindset and practice of experience design throughout the organization.

What will you do?

• Directly manage the rollout of Sun Life’s XD career framework and lead the efforts to integrate into regional teams.
• In collaboration with regional leaders and practitioners, identify topics that are most relevant to career development in the XD practice and create supporting educational resources and sessions.
• Identify remarkable experiences being created by XD teams globally and effectively communicate the work and resulting value to broader audiences through a variety of mediums, including documenting key aspects in case studies.
• Manage the pipeline of case studies to continually demonstrate the impact of XD, as well as highlight opportunities for learning about and further embedding XD into our ways of working.
• Manage and update content for the internal central repository of XD resources to enable learning and growth of XD.
• Support the growth and evolution of the XD community strategy to ensure engagements are relevant and valuable to leaders and practitioners globally.
• Build and maintain key relationships in Canada, US and Asia to collaborate on XD strategy, share successes, and leverage common approaches.
• Keep abreast of industry trends, digital technology and advancements ensuring Sun Life provides best in class services for our customers.

What do you need to succeed?

• Minimum of 7 years of experience in the XD, Design Thinking or UX field with a degree in a related field.
• 3 to 5 years experience leading a Client-centric process, including leading workshops and creating experience design related assets and deliverables for audiences with varying levels of familiarity or expertise in XD.
• Excellent communication, presentation, and design skills.
• Highly engaging, positive, motivated, organized, and optimistic.
• Proficiency influencing a variety of stakeholders to aligning with common approaches.
• 3 to 5 years experience managing a team and effectively leading it to deliver on priorities.
• Demonstrated subject matter expertise in solutions that leverage a user centric process.
• Knowledge of current digital UX related standards and trends.
• Ability to successfully manage and deliver on multiple projects in a high-paced environment.

Preferred skills:

• Experience with project planning and change management an asset.
• Experience partnering with diverse clients and various departments within a team environment. Agency/consulting experience a definite asset.

What's in it for you?

• Hybrid work environment
• A friendly, collaborative, and inclusive culture
• 20 vacation days per year
• Flexible Benefits from the day you join to meet the needs of you and your family
• The opportunity to move along a variety of career paths with amazing networking potential
• Access to our Global Learning Centre, available 24/7 for your learning needs
• Wellness programs that support the three pillars of your health - mental, physical and financial

Recent Awards:

• We are honoured to be recognized as a 2022, 2023 and 2024 Best Workplaces in Canada by Great Place to Work® Canada
• Great Place to Work® list for Best Workplaces for #HybridWork 2022
• Great Place to Work® list for Best Workplaces for Professional Development in Canada 2022
• Named “Best Places to Work” by Glassdoor, 2021 and 2023

The Base Pay range is for the primary location for which the job is posted. It may vary depending on the work location of the successful candidate or other factors. In addition to Base Pay, eligible Sun Life employees participate in various incentive plans, payment under which is discretionary and subject to individual and company performance. Certain sales focused roles have sales incentive plans based on individual or group sales results.

Diversity and inclusion have always been at the core of our values at Sun Life. A diverse workforce with wide perspectives and creative ideas benefits our clients, the communities where we operate and all of us as colleagues. We welcome applications from qualified individuals from all backgrounds.

Persons with disabilities who need accommodation in the application process or those needing job postings in an alternative format may e-mail a request to thebrightside@sunlife.com.

At Sun Life we strive to create a flexible work environment where our employees are empowered to do their best work. Several flexible work options are available and can be discussed throughout the selection process depending on the role requirements and individual needs.

We thank all applicants for showing an interest in this position. Only those selected for an interview will be contacted.

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