Director of Performance Management & Employee Listening

Job Description

Director – Global Talent Management | Freshworks

The Tone:
This is a full-time role at Freshworks, located in San Mateo, CA. Freshworks is fundamentally rethinking its approach to how employees are developed, evaluated, and heard, and this role is central to that transformation. The company is committed to building a sustainable culture of high performance and creating an employee experience that is genuinely differentiated. This position focuses on leading a comprehensive redesign of performance management and a shift to continuous employee listening.

The TL;DR
• Role: Full Time
• Type: Full-time
• Location: In-person, San Mateo, CA

• Team: Small, senior Workforce Strategy & Org Development team; leads through influence.
• Mission: Lead the transformation of performance management and employee listening to cultivate a high-performance culture and differentiated employee experience.
• Tech Stack: Continuous listening platform, AI capabilities

What You’ll Actually Do
• Lead: Lead a meaningful transformation of how Freshworks approaches performance management, moving to a streamlined, AI-assisted model.
• Design: Design and own the end-to-end performance system, including methodology, tools, calibration, and the overall employee and manager experience.
• Own: Own the employee listening strategy and programs, driving a shift to an always-on listening culture and translating signals into leadership action.
• Own: Own the change management and enablement strategy for both performance and listening transformations, focusing on durable behavior change.
• Stand up: Stand up and lead a cross-functional employee experience working group to mature the interpretation of employee signals and provide a centralized view of organizational health.

The Must-Haves
• Background: Director-level with 8–12 years of progressive experience in HR, people strategy, or organizational effectiveness.
• Experience: Proven experience leading complex, cross-functional transformation initiatives and deep expertise in performance management design and organizational design and development.
• Skills: Strong change management and enablement, exceptional executive presence, high attention to detail, strong cross-functional instincts, and excellent written and verbal communication.
• Bonus: Familiarity with continuous listening platforms and methodologies, experience driving leader adoption of listening tools, and an AI-first mindset.