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Salary: USD 199,750 - 246,750 / annual
Freshworks is seeking a Director of Performance Management & Employee Listening to lead a strategic transformation of how the company develops, evaluates, and listens to its people. This role sits at the center of two interconnected initiatives: redesigning the performance management system and shifting to a modern, continuous employee listening approach.
You will lead the end-to-end performance management transformation, moving from a process-heavy, subjective model to a streamlined, AI-assisted approach that is easier for managers, more consistent, and tightly connected to business outcomes. You will design the methodology, select and integrate tools, establish calibration approaches, and own the employee and manager experience. This includes coordinating across HR, Total Rewards, HR Technology, and business partners to deliver an integrated solution. You will build and maintain executive alignment, as this work is highly visible to senior leadership.
On the employee listening side, you will own the strategy and programs, including the continuous listening platform and pulse approach. You will drive the shift from periodic survey cycles to an always-on listening culture, designing the change management strategy that moves leaders from passive recipients of survey results to active owners of the feedback loop. You will build leader-facing tools and frameworks that make listening data accessible and actionable. You will stand up and lead a cross-functional employee experience working group bringing together leaders from People Analytics, Employee Experience, and the HRBP community to build a cohesive view of organizational health.
Change management and enablement are critical to your success. You will own the change strategy across both performance and listening initiatives, applying behavioral science principles to design interventions that shift behavior, not just awareness. You will design and deliver leader enablement programs that translate program changes into concrete behaviors. You will build a communication framework that keeps employees, managers, and senior leaders informed and aligned throughout multi-year transformation cycles. You will measure adoption and effectiveness, using data to identify where uptake is lagging and adjust accordingly.
You will work as part of a small, senior Workforce Strategy & Org Development team with high autonomy in your domain and the ability to lead through influence across a matrixed organization. While you will not manage a large team, you will move significant work through people who don't report to you. You will work alongside senior leaders and represent the People team in high-visibility conversations at the VP and executive level. Based at the San Mateo headquarters, you will command rooms, earn trust quickly, and bring both creative thinking and rigorous follow-through to everything you own.
REQUIREMENTS:
- 8–12 years of progressive experience in HR, people strategy, organizational effectiveness, or related field
- Proven experience leading complex, cross-functional transformation initiatives from design through execution in fast-paced environments
- Deep expertise in performance management design; must have built or significantly redesigned performance systems before and understand how to make them fair, scalable, and defensible
- Meaningful experience in organizational design and development; ability to help leaders think through structure and effectiveness and turn conversations into action
- Strong change management and enablement skills; proven ability to bring people along through transformation, build leader capability, and design adoption strategies that stick
- Familiarity with continuous listening platforms and methodology; experience driving leader adoption of listening tools is a strong plus
- AI-first mindset; curiosity about what AI makes possible in people practices
- Exceptional executive presence; comfortable presenting to C-suite leaders, communicating with clarity and confidence, able to hold your own in high-stakes rooms
- High attention to detail; commitment to getting things right and willingness to get into the weeds
- Strong cross-functional instincts; ability to build trust with Finance, Strategy, and Operations partners and design solutions that work for the business
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills; ability to translate complexity into clarity for any audience
