What are the responsibilities and job description for the Director of Systems Change and Worker Voice position at Building Skills Partnership?
About BSP
Building Skills Partnership BSP is an award-winning nonprofit and nationally recognized for its innovative approach to workforce development and immigrant inclusion.
Founded in 2007, BSP offers programs throughout California, serving Los Angeles, Oakland, Orange County, Palo Alto, Sacramento, San Diego, and San Jose. BSP is a 501(c)3 non-profit and has strong collaborations with SEIU-United Service Workers West, commercial real estate partners, airports, building owners, and community leaders. The organization offers career and education programs that enable workers’ personal and professional success.
Mission
Building Skills Partnership mission is to improve the quality of life for property service workers from low-wage industries and their families by increasing their skills, access to education, and opportunities for career and community advancement.
Position Overview
The Director of Systems Change and Worker Voice is critical in driving BSP’s policy advocacy and worker empowerment efforts to enhance job quality and promote workforce development opportunities for property service workers. The Director of Systems Change and Worker Voice leads and accelerates BSP’s systems change efforts inclusive of these initiatives. In this role, the Director will mobilize to provide leadership for initiatives, collaboratives, projects, and program investments that ensure increased economic mobility and improved quality of life for workers and their families. A significant focus of this role is to identify and lead initiatives to promote policies that secure the inclusion, wellbeing and prosperity of property service workers and their families. BSP’s systems change and workers voice framework integrates workforce development with immigrant inclusion and community advancement to advocate for comprehensive solutions to achieving prosperity, belonging and wellbeing for California’s property service workers and their families. Central to this framework is BSP’s innovative high-road partnership between labor and management that is worker-centered, industry-led and aligned with key policy goals of equity, job quality, and sustainability
The Director will play a key role as a member of the executive team in amplifying worker voice, fostering worker engagement, and strengthening their leadership capacity. Additionally, the Director will be responsible for initially managing a researcher, a coordinator for worker voice and a policy analyst to support the organization's advocacy initiatives. The ideal candidate will have a strong understanding of labor issues, policy advocacy, and worker empowerment, particularly in the context of the janitorial, security and airport service industries and with immigrant workers. The Director will be grounded in social justice concepts of justice and equity.
- Provide internal and external leadership on advocacy strategy and other social justice systems change efforts for the organization statewide. Facilitate collaboration with organizational leadership to align policy advocacy efforts with the mission and goals of the labor management collaborative.
- Develop and implement an annual comprehensive policy advocacy strategies to advance job quality and workforce development opportunities for low-wage property service workers.
- Build and maintain strategic relationships with key stakeholders, including community organizations, policymakers, and other labor and industry advocates. Identify key coalition partnerships in achieving policy priorities and serve as BSP’s representative to those coalitions.
- Represent BSP in advocacy meetings with decision makers to educate and inform on the organization's priorities. Endorse policy advocacy platforms/letters that align with the organization's board-approved advocacy priorities. Draft all statements of support or other policy platform documents for BSP.
- Represent the organization in external meetings, conferences, and public events to raise awareness of priority issues and promote the organization's mission.
- Provide support to internal staff and external partner organizations in aligning their work to a common system change agenda (e.g., identifying opportunities for program work and systems to support specific goals).
- Supervise and develop staff team in the systems change and worker voice unit.
- Manage a policy analyst who will track legislation at the local, state, and federal levels, identifying advocacy opportunities that align with the organization's mission to improve the quality of life for low-wage property service workers and their families.
- Direct worker voice initiatives to ensure advocacy priorities derive from and respond to workers’ lived experience. Working with union and industry partners to enhance worker engagement and foster leadership development among workers.
- Oversee a researcher responsible for gathering and analyzing data relevant to advocacy efforts, with a focus on property service industry and commercial real estate changes and trends.
- Work with strategic partners to gather data, both qualitative and quantitative, to advance system change and worker voice agenda.
- Ensure grant and contract compliance, including grant reports, as related to system change and worker voice.
- Help to cultivate funder relationships and provide input to the development grant writing strategies, including assisting with the grants and report writing process in partnership with the development team.
- Communicate the objectives of system change and worker voice strategy to stakeholders and potential partners in the community, including but not limited to presentations to media.
- Partner with the Executive Director to engage the board of directors in systems change and worker voice strategy.
- Collaborate with organizational leadership to ensure cross-functional coordination and synergy.
Experience & Education:
- Bachelor's degree in a relevant field (such as labor relations, public policy, social work, or related disciplines) in addition to 8 years of work experience in the essential functions above. Advanced degree preferred.
- Strong planning and implementation experience; excellent ability to prioritize, organize, and manage multiple competing assignments and responsibilities.
- A high degree of professionalism and flexibility that allows for working collaboratively and effectively with partners and colleagues of diverse backgrounds and perspectives.
- Excellent ability to work well in a collaborative environment; ability to develop and maintain a good working relationship with staff, union members, industry representatives, members of the community, the media, colleagues in other foundations, and stakeholders in the nonprofit sector.
- Experience working with unions, labor organizations, or nonprofit advocacy groups is highly desirable. Five years of proven success in working with highroad labor-management partnerships.
- Strong knowledge of legislative processes at the local, state, and federal levels, with the ability to track legislation and identify advocacy opportunities, develop effective policy advocacy strategies.
Skills & Abilities:
- High level of personal and professional integrity, judgment and ethics. Passion for social justice, worker rights, racial justice and immigrant rights.
- Excellent leadership and management skills, with the ability to lead a team and work collaboratively across multiple functions.
- Analytical, research, writing, editing and oral communication skills, as well as the ability to articulate complex policy issues and to communicate them clearly and effectively to a variety of audiences. Ability to engage and build relationships with diverse stakeholders.
- At least 6 years progressive growth in program management, staff supervision.
- Familiarity with data analysis and research methodologies, with the ability to leverage data to inform policy recommendations. Working knowledge of Salesforce is a plus.
- Must be fluent in written and spoken Spanish
- Proficiency with Microsoft Office (Outlook, Word, Excel), Google suite.
- Grant writing, grant reporting and funder relationships
Job Type: Full-time
Pay: $104,629.21 - $108,238.92 per year
Benefits:
- Dental insurance
- Employee assistance program
- Employee discount
- Health insurance
- Life insurance
- Paid time off
- Professional development assistance
- Vision insurance
Schedule:
- 8 hour shift
- Monday to Friday
Education:
- Master's (Preferred)
Experience:
- Policy & process development: 6 years (Required)
- Social Justice Advocacy: 7 years (Preferred)
Language:
- Spanish (Required)
- English (Required)
Ability to Relocate:
- Alameda, CA 94502: Relocate before starting work (Required)
Work Location: In person
Salary : $104,629 - $108,239