Managing Director of Human Resources

Overview

The Managing Director of Human Resources ensures the HR function of the People Team meets the highest standards of customer service and leverages their knowledge of best practices to assure alignment of the HR function with the overarching People Team Strategy. As a champion of Ascend’s mission, culture and values, this individual partners with the organization’s leaders to help them lead their teams, navigate and resolve employee relations issues, and support programs that develop a best-in-class People experience.

Why extraordinary professionals teach at Ascend

Ascend is the largest Brooklyn-based public charter school serving over 5,000 K-12 students in 17 schools. We exist to serve every student – to help them embody their inherent excellence by providing rich, joyful learning experiences that unlock a life of boundless choice.

Access to education is a social justice issue. As educators, we center justice and live out our commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Anti-Racism (DEIA) by ensuring that our students have the skills, tools, and confidence they need to thrive today and in the future. We are proud to have a workforce that mirrors the diversity seen in our students. Working at Ascend provides a community focused on developing an environment of support and belonging. Educators collaborate closely and encourage each other to achieve great outcomes.

Our schools honor, nurture, and challenge the whole child. Ascend fosters critical thinking skills and a love of learning through an inquiry-based learning approach, Responsive Classroom model, and anti-racist education. We are deeply committed to advancing educational equity for all of our students. Students at Ascend benefit from a rich and rigorous liberal arts curriculum that nurtures natural curiosity about the world and guides them to think critically and independently.

For more information on Ascend Public Charter Schools’ model, approach, and core values, please visit our website.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree required, master’s degree preferred
• Minimum 7 years of relevant HR experience
• Strong technical understanding of HR functions, including but not limited to compensation, performance management, employment law, and leadership development
• Unimpeachable personal credibility
• A steward of ethical behavior who actively supports a diverse, inclusive, and welcoming workplace culture
• Incisive thinker with a strong analytic capacity
• Ability to passionately align with Ascend’s educational and workplace philosophies
• Ability to develop others through coaching, feedback, and professional development
• Ability to build trusting relationships and influence at all levels of the organization without direct authority
• Ability to analyze complex, sometimes ambiguous information and acquire data from multiple sources when solving problems
• Impeccable written, verbal, and presentation skills, with a sharp attention to detail
• Ability to work in a fast-paced environment under tight deadlines, navigating systems and an emerging organization of scale and complexity
• Superb organizational, project management, and process-building skills
• HR professional certification(s) preferred

Responsibilities

• Provide management and oversight to team members to ensure strong results through goal-setting, accountability, and professional development to ensure that the team meets their KPI.
• Ensure systems are in place to provide excellent customer service to all Ascend staff
• Collaborate with the Senior Managing Director of People and the Chief People Officer to execute on the strategic vision and build out the HR function, including but not limited to policies, employee relations, employee engagement, performance management, compensation, benefits, onboarding, and offboarding
• Collaborate closely with People Team leaders to drive staff satisfaction and retention through the integration and alignment of onboarding, performance management, response to staff satisfaction surveys, and exit interviews
• Strengthen the connection that network team members have to the organization and mission; promote a network culture that ensures high retention
• Build an exceptional network office culture by overseeing staff meetings, celebrations, response to network satisfaction data and feedback, and the performance management cycle
• Nurture a culture of diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism
• Increase our employee retention, particularly at the school level, through analyzing data, surveys, exit interviews, and other tools to devise strategies to increase retention
• Ensure that a strong performance management model is in place across the network, including planning organizational and individual goals, assessing performance, developing professional skills, and recognizing contributions that advance Ascend’s mission
• Collaborate across schools and departments to ensure the successful implementation of performance management systems as well as a consistent replication of Ascend’s culture and core values across sites and teams
• Provide management training and professional development opportunities for school directors and schools’ directors of operations
• At the network office, systematically enhance leadership and managerial capability through differentiated trainings, coaching, and support that reinforce Ascend’s approach to talent development
• Act as a trusted advisor, coach, and consultant to senior leaders to improve their leadership capability, team effectiveness, and performance.
• Working with legal counsel, develop and manage workplace protocols, complaint procedures, and policies governing employee grievances and separations; resolve employee relations matters
• Coach supervisors in carrying out their responsibilities for employee relations matters
• Establish, communicate, and interpret HR policies and procedures, and ensure compliance
• Make recommendations for improvement of the network’s policies, procedures, and practices
• Advise on performance management issues and lead investigations and remediation
• Maintain knowledge of industry trends and employment legislation, and ensure compliance with federal, state, and local law and regulation
• Lead the development and administration of network-wide compensation strategies aligned with our philosophy and talent strategy
• Partner with the finance team in the selection, management, and administration of health and welfare benefit programs and retirement funds and manage relationships with vendors
• Oversee build out of HRIS system to streamline people processes and enable sophisticated analyses of Ascend’s workforce
• Work closely with payroll to ensure timely and accurate processing of people management transactions via the HRIS
• Map human resource processes and determine how to more efficiently and effectively integrate with current HRIS and payroll systems

Staff and reporting relationships

The Managing Director of Human Resources reports directly to the Senior Managing Director of People and directly manages four to six professionals.

Compensation

Initial salary offers for this position range from $135,000 - $145,000. Salaries are determined using an equitable compensation scale that accounts for years of experience and levels of attained education.

Diversity at Ascend

Ascend is committed to building a diverse and inclusive community, both through our hiring practices and our focus on creating a culture and environment where diverse perspectives, ideas, and identities are valued and integrated into our way of working and educating students. Ascend staff represent a wide diversity of racial, socio-economic, gender, religious, and national identities—opening a window to the entire Ascend community on the richness of humanity. We welcome all applicants who share our mission and vision to join us in our deeply consequential work.