AVP, Workforce Evolution

Job Description

Sun Life Financial is a leading international financial services organization with assets under management of over CDN $1.5 trillion. Sun Life provides individuals and corporate clients with a diverse range of protection products (life and health) and wealth products (asset management, mutual funds, group pension and retirement, and individual annuity and savings). Chartered in 1865, Sun Life’s mission is to help its clients achieve lifetime financial security and live healthier lives.

Sun Life Financial has operations in Canada, Bermuda, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, the United States and the United Kingdom.

The People and Culture team provides full Human Resources support to over 30,000 employees globally. The team is organized and delivers work via a HRBP and Centre of Expertise model with HR practitioners based in each Sun Life region. Activities across the global team enable the successful support and delivery of business imperatives through our people ensuring Sun Life continues to achieve sustainable long-term growth.

What will you do :

The AVP, Workforce Evolution operates across HR groups to fill the critical gaps not owned by any single team. The focus is on proactive, future-focused digital, talent and workforce initiatives that proactively manages talent risks. The role is on the front line of leading and managing high-impact special projects that drive organizational transformation, effective organization design, and includes cross-functional initiatives related to digital innovation, talent optimization, and future workforce models.

The role will be instrumental in shaping the future of the workforce, leading workforce planning and addressing necessary job re-design, ensuring optimal use of talent and workforce effectiveness. The AVP, Workforce Evolution is an integrator acting as both a strategist and tactician and will be expected to do both.

The incumbent will apply strong problem solving and analytical capabilities, strategic thinking and insight generation. A high degree of initiative, ability to build relationships, coalesce themes and priorities across the global team while maintaining a comprehensive, broad orientation is required.

Key Responsibilities

• Catch and lead the initiatives that fall between established departments, including in partnership with other corporate functions.
• Lead cross functional task forces on priority topics (i.e. employee experience enhancements, digital transformation, Gen AI, M&A integration)
• Define problems, rally the right stakeholders, and push projects that do not have a natural owner to successful completion.
• Continuously anticipates future workforce and skill needs and creates plans to address changes to organizational and job design. This means using data-driven strategic workforce planning to identify emerging skill gaps, demographic shifts, or new roles required as the business evolves. The result is the proactive build of talent pipelines, upskilling / reskilling programs, and strengthened succession plans while re-designing how work gets done.
• Develop frameworks for workforce agility and resilience, ensuring Sun Life is prepared for emerging trends in the future of work.
• Drive change management efforts to support the adoption of GenAI and new ways of working.
• Engage and influence stakeholders across all levels, fostering a culture of innovation, continuous learning, and ethical AI use.
• Continuously research and benchmark emerging HR trends, and pilot innovative solutions (e.g. AI in HR) to enhance workforce effectiveness.
• Serve as a change agent to modernize HR practices, ensuring the organization’s people strategies remain cutting-edge and competitive.
• Stay abreast of the latest advancements in AI, Machine Learning (ML), Generative AI (e.g., Large Language Models, Diffusion Models), Predictive Analytics, and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) as they apply to HR and overall work and workforce design.
• Manage, lead and mentor direct team and serve as a thought partner to colleagues throughout the organization
• Skilled at teaching and sharing knowledge and best practices, creating a positive and motivating environment in which to perform and learn.

What do you need to succeed :

As this position is posted in several locations, we specify that bilingualism (French, English, both oral and written) is required for Quebec only for the frequent interactions with English and French-speaking colleagues or internal partners across Canada or worldwide