Manager, Product Design

: 1227001 **Who we are** As the Working and Learning Company, we at Staples Canada, are dynamic, inspiring partners to our customers and the communities in which we live. At Staples, we inspire people to work smarter, learn more and grow every day. We look for people who are curious, approachable, and passionate, and who enjoy finding solutions. If that’s you, let’s work, learn, and grow together. **We are building an inclusive and diverse team** Staples Canada is creating an inclusive and diverse work environment. We welcome, value and thrive on perspectives and contributions from backgrounds that vary by race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, lifestyle, age, educational background, national origin, religion or physical ability. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know. **Some of what you will do** - Partner with the product team in the product discovery process. Provide leadership to drive the creation of best-in-class user experiences and align UX to business outcomes - Champion design best practices across teams, raising the visibility of work and ensuring partnership with stakeholders - Work with UX research and analytics teams to inform decision-making and identify emerging issues and trends - Proactively identify and drive opportunities to improve UX processes, people, and outcomes across large portions of the platform and team - Proactively identify and drive cross-team strategies that operationalize best practices and improve team health, processes, and standards - Support the execution of strategic initiatives in collaboration with internal and external stakeholders - Lead the design and delivery of design deliverables and creative assets - Ensure consistency, quality, and excellence across product areas - Be an expert facilitator that values diverse perspectives and opinions **Specifically, You Will** Manager, Product Design is given ambiguous goals and is expected to deliver the full strategy for workstream / LOB; generates appropriate strategy, innovation, and project plan over the medium term. Manager, Product Design requires manager to reduce roadblocks and influences LOB leaders. - Factors internal or external customer needs into team road mapping, ensuring initiatives support Staples' goals for a best-in-class customer experience - Proactively defines and communicates 6-12-month work plan, identifying opportunities to drive measurable impact against broader KPIs and OKRs - Holds team accountable for taking a scrappy, MVP approach, while keeping in mind foundational needs and scalability - Maintains accountability for prioritizing internal or external customer trust within all team initiatives, regularly benchmarking performance - Rallies cross-functional groups to mitigate a negative internal or external customer/user outcome and prevent future occurrences - Stays well-informed about company priorities and ensures team's work is aligned with organizational goals, often taking on additional work to support broader organizational efforts - Helps Staples build top talent by attracting strong performers to the company or their team, investing in success of new team members, and accelerating their team's development and performance - In scoping work plans, helps team consider resource constraints, interdependencies, total addressable opportunity, tradeoffs, etc - Shapes team's culture and norms; motivates and inspires team members, driving engagement, output, and satisfaction - Initiates and engages in difficult conversations constructively with empathy and objectivity using a solutions-oriented mindset - Develops direct and indirect team by holding a high bar for collaboration and results, and providing prompt and actionable feedback to all levels - Ensures full workstream and/or multiple projects contribute to the broader team agenda and cross-functional initiatives - Establishes regular tracking of key business metrics in area of expertise - Creates a brave space and ensures all teammates and partners are heard/seen/understood; encourages team members to surface differing ideas or feedback regardless of level or tenure - Builds and leverages strong relationships with leaders and partners to secure buy-in and resources - Celebrates team wins and willingly recognizes failures as "learning moments" - Drives a culture of learning across team by enabling team to dedicate time to development, actively sharing learning opportunities with them, and supporting different learning styles **Some of what you need** - Enabling people to contribute to their fullest potential - Proven track record of successfully leading design function across a product area - Ability to own end-to-end design process from initial concept to final implementation - Mastery of your craft including strong visual & interaction design skills, prototyping, and UX best practices - Data-driven and use quantitative as well as qualitative data sources