The Opportunity

The University of Southern California’s (USC’s) Information Technology Services is seeking a talented Senior Business Analyst with an exceptional commitment to service excellence to join its team. As the Senior Business Analyst, you will be an integral member of the Product Strategy and Design team, collaborating with diverse and talented team members to help solve multidimensional information technology problems, improve customer experience, and generate value for our campus stakeholders across a broad base of departments and constituencies.

The Senior Business Analyst provides essential support for payroll operations including configuration of the Workday system for timekeeping, payroll, payroll accounting, and payroll tax.

THE WORK YOU WILL DO

The Senior Business Analyst leads the planning, design, and configuration of the Workday system for university central payroll. This role owns requirements, conceptualizes designs, and influences future state business processes in support of accurate and timely pay processing. This role leads collaborative efforts across a broad range of business partners and stakeholders including students, faculty, and staff. The Senior Business Analyst effectively documents current and future state processes, tests the effectiveness of developed solutions, and enables the adoption of new business processes through training support.

The Senior Business Analyst:

• Leads planning, design, and conception of university applications’ functionality. Owns requirements, conceptualizes designs, and influences future-state business processes in support of core organizational functions for the university. Communicates and presents recommended improvements and solutions to business processes and decision-making rationale. Delivers engaging experiences that balance customer needs, business goals, and technical realities by working collaboratively across the organization, with fellow analysts and others (e.g., user experience researchers, product managers, designers, developers).
• Develops Human Centered Design (HCD) processes and approaches to deliver a broad range of sustainable solutions. Engages in standard business analysis methodology, outlining problems, opportunities, and solutions, and identifies process-improvement efforts across the organization.
• Builds and delivers design solutions that meet customer needs and expectations. Leads user research efforts to gain understanding of customer and stakeholder pain points, challenges, and needs.
• Maintains currency on emerging technologies and approaches, leveraging the latest industry knowledge to drive innovation and continuous improvement for the organization. Seek opportunities for innovation and maximizing system functionality by continually developing skills, knowledge, and abilities.
• Delivers high-quality project analysis documentation (e.g. business requirements, scope matrices, use cases, future state proposals, user acceptance technology [UAT] plans). Actively mitigates risk by owning tasks, resources, and changes. Enables the release management process by anticipating risks and providing strategic recommendations for releases.
• Leads collaborative engagement efforts with a broad range of business partners and stakeholders, including students, faculty, and staff, to solve issues productively and comprehensively. Utilizes leading practices to effectively anticipate, prioritize, analyze, and articulate problems, evaluate and document problem alternatives, manage constraints, and suggest interim and long-term solutions.
• Aids the cultivation of an inclusive environment and a culture of trust and transparency, sharing information broadly, openly, and deliberately. Builds and maintains collaborative relationships with diverse groups of peers, team members, and leadership. Actively embodies ITS values and behaviors (e.g., accountability, ethics, best-in-class customer service).
• Collaborates with team members and management, implementing effective solutions to support the Product Strategy and Design department’s vision. Maintains currency with technology, standards, and best practices. Supports process improvement efforts within the team and across the ITS organization.
• Performs other related duties as assigned or requested. The university reserves the right to add or change duties at any time.

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS

The candidate for the position of Senior Business Analyst must meet the following qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree or Combined experience/education as substitute for minimum education.
• Minimum of 5 years of experience
• Proven record of delivering end-to-end, user-centered products, considering stakeholder requirements, user research, market analysis, data, customer feedback, and technical constraints or opportunities.
• Experience leading requirement-gathering interviews or sessions.
• Proven experience utilizing analytics tools to measure results of user-centered products, documenting success, presenting opportunities, and supporting decision-making.
• Experience developing test strategies and plans, using widely accepted test methodologies or frameworks and proven analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Proven ability to facilitate collaboration across a broad audience of stakeholders and drive consensus in alignment with university policies, processes, and procedures.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office tools and applications.
• Experience operating with Lean and Agile methodologies, and familiarity with computer programming concepts, including software development lifecycles. Proven time management and prioritization skills to make efficient, logical decisions in a rapidly changing environment.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills, with experience presenting technical topics in a business-oriented fashion to non-technical audiences.
• Proven experience establishing strong working relationships with a wide range of team members and clients, utilizing clear and effective functional documentation skills.
• Ability to provide strategy and recommendations on design and development methodologies, and leverage lessons learned from past experiences to drive continuous improvement of application and business process solutions.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

The ideal candidate for the position of Senior Business Analyst has the following qualifications:

• 2 years of experience with Workday Payroll configuration and support OR 2 years of experience implementing payroll in a higher education environment.
• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field such as business administration, computer science, computer information systems, etc.
• Eight or more years of experience in one of the following fields: business administration, information technology, or higher education.

In addition, the successful candidate must also demonstrate, through ideas, words and actions, a strong commitment to USC’s Unifying Values of integrity, excellence, community, well-being, open communication, and accountability.

THE TEAM

The ITS vision aligns strategy, business, and services; affirms ITS cultural values; empowers cross-functional teamwork; embraces world-class best practices; and promotes innovation, excellence, agility, and efficiency. To achieve this vision, ITS is committed to providing a modern technology infrastructure that is resilient and delivers the performance necessary to meet the demands of a growing customer base, training in the latest technologies for its highly productive and motivated workforce, outstanding customer experience, and technology services that are aligned with the university’s mission to provide exceptional learning opportunities for students. ITS is creating a workplace where employees can develop cutting-edge skills, take pride in the services they provide, and have access to the roles and career paths that align to their abilities and potential.

We are looking for top talent to join us on our journey.

ITS CULTURE

USC’s ITS organization represents a diverse and talented team, committed to supporting a collaborative culture and delivering secure and innovative IT services, core to the mission of USC. ITS values accountability, excellence, and commitment to exceptional customer experience. ITS strives for a supportive and inclusive culture that encourages employees to do their best work every day and where individuals are recognized and celebrated for their contributions.

About USC

USC is a leading private research university located in Los Angeles, with a diverse community of students, faculty, and staff across multiple campuses and global locations. As one of the largest private employers in the region, USC offers a dynamic work environment and the opportunity to contribute to meaningful work that supports education, research, and service.

Salary and Benefits

The annual base salary range for this position is $124,938.50 to $ $146,020.08. When extending an offer of employment, the University of Southern California considers factors such as (but not limited to) the scope and responsibilities of the position, the candidate’s work experience, education/training, key skills, internal peer alignment, federal, state, and local laws, contractual stipulations, grant funding, as well as external market and organizational considerations.

To support the well-being of our faculty and staff, USC provides benefits-eligible employees with a broad range of perks to help protect their and their dependents’ health, wealth, and future. These benefits are available as part of the overall compensation and total rewards package. You can learn more about USC’s comprehensive benefits here.

Come join the USC ITS team and work as a trusted partner in shaping an environment of innovation and excellence.

USC is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, disability, or any other characteristic protected by law or USC policy. USC observes affirmative action obligations consistent with state and federal law. USC will consider for employment all qualified applicants with criminal records in a manner consistent with applicable laws and regulations, including the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for employers and the Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance, and with due consideration for patient and student safety. Please refer to the Background Screening Policy Appendix D for specific employment screen implications for the position for which you are applying. 

We provide reasonable accommodations to applicants and employees with disabilities. Applicants with questions about access or requiring a reasonable accommodation for any part of the application or hiring process should contact USC Human Resources by phone at (213) 821-8100, or by email at uschr@usc.edu. Inquiries will be treated as confidential to the extent permitted by law.

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