Implementation & Adoption Lead

Cape Town or Johannesburg-Based | Scale-Up | Full-time, Permanent | Product Machine | Hiring Manager: Dawie van der Westhuizen

Jem is hiring an Implementation and Adoption Lead to own how our products land inside client operations and to build the rollout playbook the wider team will run with as we scale.

Jem is a fast-growing HR tech scale-up building payroll, HR, and benefits tools for frontline teams. We support deskless workforces across South Africa and are scaling rapidly. We have proven that WhatsApp clocking works at scale and are now expanding into rostering, with implementation and adoption as the next function we are investing in.

This is a hands-on role at the intersection of customer success, implementation, and product. You will partner directly with our design partners and live clients, work alongside our Product team to feed real-world adoption insights back into the build, and design the playbook that the rest of our CSM and implementation function will use as we grow.

This role suits someone who enjoys time on site with operations teams, has built rollout playbooks before, and wants to shape a function from the ground up rather than inherit one.

⭐️ Your Mission

Make sure Jem's products land inside client operations and drive measurable adoption across the partner portfolio.

Build the rollout playbook that the wider CSM and implementation function will repeat for every future client.

⭐️ What Success Looks Like

Measurable adoption uplift across clocking and rostering on your client portfolio, week over week

A documented rollout playbook (training curriculum, onboarding sequence, escalation tree, handover model) live and in use

A standing flow of adoption-blocker insights into the Product team, with structural blockers routed cleanly into the backlog

Clients running real workflows in Jem in production, not just signed up

A clear, defensible recommendation at month 5 on whether the role converts to permanent

⭐️ What You'll Do

Partner-side adoption (the live work)

Run training sessions with client teams on-site, including supervisors, ops managers, payroll teams, and others involved in day-to-day operations

Lead the weekly adoption rhythm with each client alongside our CSM team

Spend time in the client's daily ops where it helps, especially the first 4 weeks post-launch

Own adoption progress on your client portfolio, working with the client to keep momentum

Help clients design the incentive structures that get their teams engaged with the product

Product discovery on what stops adoption

Distinguish behavioural blockers (where the playbook is the answer) from structural blockers (where the product needs to evolve)

Bring structural insights into the Product team, write the problem statement, partner with product and engineering on the fix

Maintain the adoption-blocker log, reviewed weekly with the Product team

Build the rollout playbook

Training curriculum for client teams (supervisors, ops managers, payroll teams, and others as relevant)

Onboarding sequence: week 1 to week 4

Incentive design templates

Escalation tree

Handover model to CSM for steady-state clients

⭐️ You'll Thrive Here If You

Enjoy spending time on the floor with client teams and ops leaders

Have built and shipped a rollout playbook before, not just delivered training

Are commercially aware and outcome-driven, not activity-driven

Write clearly and crisply, especially when logging blockers and shaping problem statements

Care about both the live partner work and the artefact you leave behind

Work well in fast-moving, high-ownership environments

Want to shape a new function rather than inherit one

⭐️ Requirements

5 to 8 years in implementation, customer onboarding, or change management for B2B SaaS, ideally workforce management or payroll-adjacent

Track record of owning adoption outcomes across a portfolio of clients, beyond training and handover

Has built and documented a rollout playbook (training, onboarding sequence, escalation tree), with artefacts you can walk us through

Strong written communicator, comfortable logging blockers and writing crisp problem statements for a product team

Comfort travelling weekly to client sites

Open to a contract engagement with a clear path to permanent based on outcomes

Xhosa and/or Zulu speaking is strongly preferred. Many of the workforce we serve are Xhosa or Zulu first-language speakers, and engaging with them directly is a meaningful advantage.

⭐️ What You Can Expect From Us

Hybrid work environment with a 3-day office policy in our Cape Town or Johannesburg office

Competitive salary (65,000 - R85,000 monthly)

Great benefits (lunch 4 times a week, medical aid contribution, retirement annuity contribution, etc.) and 22 days of annual leave.

Direct line into the Product team, where what you learn on the ground changes the product within weeks, not quarters

Frontline exposure to building real adoption infrastructure inside a scaling SaaS business

High ownership and visible impact across customer success, implementation, and product

We respond to all applications. You can expect feedback on your application, even if we decide not to move forward.

To learn more about what Jem looks for beyond the CV, please check out our People Notes on the Jem Ideal Employee Profile here