Assistant Director, Employee Experience

Posted 2 Days Ago
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New York, NY, USA
Hybrid
119K-187K Annually
Expert/Leader
Fintech • Insurance • Financial Services
Start-Up Vibes with The Stability of a Fortune 100 Company.
The Role
Leads enterprise employee experience strategy and execution through human-centered design, journey mapping, stakeholder facilitation, data insights, and systems thinking. Designs scalable solutions, frameworks, and practices across People teams and business functions, guiding initiatives from problem discovery through activation, measurement, and refinement. Influences senior stakeholders, aligns cross-functional teams, and improves employee experiences, connection, and organizational performance.
Summary Generated by Built In
About the Role
Both a strategic thought-leader and hands-on employee experience architect, experienced at facilitation, human-centered design, systems thinking, prioritization and execution, working across the enterprise to translate NM's employee value proposition into connected, practical and scalable experiences that deliver a distinctive employee experience.
What You'll Do in the Role:
  • Works closely with key stakeholders to understand critical employee interactions and journeys, designs and executes cross-functional solutions to enable the desired employee experience, and embeds experience insights into the way work gets done
  • Responsible for designing and advancing employee experience strategies, solutions, practices and insights activation that addresses priority employee and business needs,
  • Provides human-centered design, journey mapping, facilitation and consultation to move stakeholders from understanding the current experience to designing and activating EX data insights shaped solutions.
  • Partners closely with People Function COEs, BHR and HR Solutions to influence priorities
  • Develops a deep understanding of employee needs, experience patterns, and data and insights to influence and shape People Function solutions.
  • Regularly brings together teams and key stakeholders across the enterprise to build shared understanding, gather input, create alignment, promote integration and drive end-to-end collaborative design and implementation.
  • Uses data and insights to identify priorities, inform decisions, shape solutions and recommend action, influencing stakeholders including at People Function XLT level. Develops repeatable approaches, frameworks, tools and practices to deploy and embed employee experience data insights across the enterprise, enabling leaders, People teams and experience owners to act consistently at scale.
  • Leverages data, research, and insights to design and build integrated employee experiences across key employee experience moments, processes, tools and people practices, reducing friction and strengthening employee connection, community and organizational performance.
  • Leads employee experience efforts from problem framing and solution design through activation, measurement and refinement, working through and alongside the teams accountable for solution design.

What You Bring to the Role:
  • Bachelor's degree in related field with minimum of 10 years of relevant experience.
  • Demonstrated experience using employee insight, human-centered design and systems thinking to shape and activate employee experience solutions.
  • Ability to work across the enterprise (home office and field) to educate and inspire collective action at all levels.
  • Ability to negotiate, influence, and build credibility and strong partnerships in a matrixed organization across business functions and levels.
  • Excellent storyteller, including written, verbal, and presentation skills.
  • Strong systems thinking and influencing skills.
  • Comfort with ambiguity and proven ability to perform in "start-up" mode.
  • Proven ability to lead multiple complex, cross-functional experience initiatives from discovery and design through activation, measurement and improvement.
  • Skilled in operating at both strategic and tactical levels.
  • Ability to translate complex or ambiguous experience challenges into clear problem statements, design choices, practical solutions and activation paths.
  • Experience developing scalable frameworks, tools, practices or approaches that enable others to deliver improved employee experiences.
  • Comfortable flexing as priorities and work changes.

Skills You Have
  • Business Influence
  • Collaborative Partnership & Planning
  • Stakeholder Relationship
  • Strategic & Systems Thinking
  • Technical & Digital Acumen

#LI-Hybrid
Compensation Range:
Pay Range - Start:
$124,400.00
Pay Range - End:
$186,600.00
Geographic Specific Pay Structure:
Structure 110:
$118,960.00 USD - $178,440.00 USD
Structure 115:
$124,400.00 USD - $186,600.00 USD
We believe in fairness and transparency. It's why we share the salary range for most of our roles. However, final salaries are based on a number of factors, including the skills and experience of the candidate; the current market; location of the candidate; and other factors uncovered in the hiring process. The standard pay structure is listed but if you're living in California, New York City or other eligible location, geographic specific pay structures, compensation and benefits could be applicable, click here to learn more.
Grow your career with a best-in-class company that puts our clients' interests at the center of all we do. Get started now!
Northwestern Mutual is an equal opportunity employer that welcomes talented individuals of all backgrounds. We are committed to creating and maintaining an environment in which each employee can contribute creative ideas, seek challenges, assume leadership and continue to focus on meeting and exceeding business and personal objectives.
Skills
Performance Metrics (NM), Talent Strategy (NM), Technical & Digital Acumen (NM), Learning Agility & Critical Thinking (NM), Collaborative Partnership & Planning (NM), Human-Centered Solution Design (NM), Interpersonal & Organizational Effectiveness (NM), Customer Centricity (NM), Continuous Improvement (NM), HR Practices Acumen (NM), Change Management (NM), Stakeholder Relationship (NM), Accountability (NM), Strategic & Systems Thinking (NM), Adaptive Communication (NM), Executive Presence (NM), Business Influence (NM), Consulting (NM)
FIND YOUR FUTURE
We're excited about the potential people bring to Northwestern Mutual. You can grow your career here while enjoying first-class perks, benefits, and our commitment to a culture of belonging.
  • Flexible work schedules
  • Concierge service
  • Comprehensive benefits
  • Employee resource groups

Skills Required

  • Bachelor's degree in a related field
  • Minimum 10 years of relevant experience
  • Experience using employee insights, human-centered design, and systems thinking to shape and activate employee experience solutions
  • Ability to work across the enterprise to educate and inspire collective action at all levels
  • Ability to negotiate, influence, and build credibility and strong partnerships in a matrixed organization
  • Excellent written, verbal, storytelling, and presentation skills
  • Strong systems thinking and influencing skills
  • Comfort with ambiguity and ability to operate in startup mode
  • Ability to lead multiple complex, cross-functional experience initiatives from discovery and design through activation, measurement, and improvement
  • Ability to operate at both strategic and tactical levels
  • Experience developing scalable frameworks, tools, practices, or approaches to improve employee experiences
  • Flexibility as priorities and work change

What the Team is Saying

Chris
Chester

Northwestern Mutual Compensation & Benefits Highlights

  • Retirement Support — Retirement benefits include a pension-style cash balance plan alongside a 401(k), positioning long‑term savings as a standout. Materials also highlight employer contributions and plan features that can be especially valuable for employees who stay multiple years.
  • Parental & Family Support — Parental leave is described as 12 weeks fully paid for all parents, with added support for fertility treatments and up to $10,000 for adoption or surrogacy expenses. This breadth of family‑building assistance elevates the perceived value of the benefits package.
  • Leave & Time Off Breadth — Time off includes a PTO program that starts near 19 days and increases with tenure, plus paid volunteer hours. Such policies signal meaningful flexibility for rest and community engagement.

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The Company
HQ: Milwaukee, WI
8,400 Employees
Year Founded: 1857

What We Do

You’ll Like It Here At Northwestern Mutual, we believe that our lives and our work matter. And that doing what’s right is good for everyone. We follow through by designing tech that improves the community and cultivating creative ways to make finance accessible anywhere. These guiding principles have allowed our company to grow for more than 160 years. Here, you’ll be with a team who emphasizes integrity and prioritizes security to design experiences that better everyone. You’ll work in cross functional teams to create optimal solutions that are rooted in innovative strategy and thoughtful execution. And you’re provided development tools and opportunities to become a leader all with the support of a collaborative team. You’ll be surrounded in a culture that values innovation and works to always evolve to stay ahead of trends and client needs. We are intentional in seeking out team members who will challenge us. Our employees choose us for the career opportunities, commitment to philanthropy and desire to have a meaningful impact in the lives of our clients. You have career passions and goals. We have ambition and opportunity for you to grow your future in tech. Discover today: https://careers.northwesternmutual.com/

Why Work With Us

We invest in our people. We know careers are about choices, so we provide intentional opportunity. Here you can build creative ways to make finance accessible anywhere and revolutionize traditional processes. As a mutual company, our focus is our people — whether professional development or investments in the community. 

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Northwestern Mutual Offices

Hybrid Workspace

Employees engage in a combination of remote and on-site work.

We offer a flexible, hybrid approach for our employees . Teams are in the office a few days a week and work from home the others.

Typical time on-site: Flexible
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HQMilwaukee, WI
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