Senior HR Business Partner (Operations & Union Labor)

Title: Senior HR People Operations and Labor Leader

Location: Friendly, West Virginia, United States

Travel Requirements: Occasionally

Relocation Assistance? - Yes, for the ideal candidate

Pay: $100,000 to $125,000/year DOE

Type: Direct hire/full-time

The People Operations and Labor Leader is a pivotal on-site role within our organization. This leader focuses on enhancing the employee experience and optimizing workforce performance. This leader is responsible for developing and implementing human resources and labor relations strategies that align with the company's goals and core values, foster a high-performance culture, and ensure compliance with employment laws to support local business objectives.

Strategic planning, hands-on management, and a focus on continuous improvement in HR practices are essential for a People Operations and Labor Leader to create a supportive and productive work environment.

Key responsibilities include, but are not limited to, talent acquisition/recruiting, managing the employee lifecycle, employee/labor relations, collective bargaining, performance management, coaching, training, compensation, and benefits. This leader is responsible for 400 employees at the Sistersville, WV plant and 25 at the Texas City, TX manufacturing facility and will require travel as needed.

HR Advising / Coaching / Business Partnering:

• Advise leaders and first-level supervisors regarding managing employees.
• Participate in cross-functional collaborative discussions and working sessions.
• Facilitate team sessions and develop content based on needs.
• Lead local leadership and strategic workforce planning.
• Union interface on all contractual and policy issues, collective bargaining, grievances, and arbitration – internal and external
• Design community relationships to brand the company and ensure Sustainability goals are met.

Employee Life Cycle Management:

• Design new employee site-specific orientation.
• Advice on changes in employee activities such as adjustments, promotions, compensation, benefits, rewards, and recognition.
• Employee Relations / Labor Relations:
• Lead conversations with employees and managers.
• Address employee concerns, issues, and investigations promptly, escalating risks and solution patterns.
• Lead local labor relations, grievance process steps, union avoidance, and union activity.
• Implement, design, and drive local HR programs, policies, practices, and tools locally, including performance management, Goals, and Objectives, Development Planning, Change Management, Corrective Action, Relocation, etc. – partner with Center of Excellence (COE)
• Advocate for employees by resolving conflict and seeking win-win solutions, promoting positive and effective associate relations and influencing a focus on human issues in the organization

Talent Acquisition and Development:

• Lead local recruiting efforts, including workforce planning, attraction initiatives or partnerships, and preparing hiring managers & teams.
• Partner with the Talent Acquisition team to develop a strategy to fill vacancies.
• Participate in the interviewing and selection process to facilitate the selection of qualified and diverse candidates.
• Employee Development: Identify high potentials, successors & development opportunities.
• Training: Facilitate training on key company processes to ensure leaders, managers, and employees have a solid understanding and drive common practices throughout the company.

Compliance and Policy:

• Stay current on legal and compliance requirements within the state, country, and employee population.
• Local policy upkeep, changes, and implementation
• HR Skillset Development

Advanced HR Acumen

• Build/maintain external market knowledge to support local needs.
• Initiate continuous improvement to HR processes to eliminate waste and raise service levels, including process documentation, workflow optimization, and reassessing the value of work tasks.

Additional Details:

• 7 years’ experience with hands-on labor relations/union activities at a manufacturing site
• Experience managing core Human Resources activities such as recruiting, employee relations management, employee life cycle activities, performance management, employee development, compensation & benefits, etc.
• Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources, Labor Relations, or a related discipline.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office Suite and HRIS technology (Outlook, PowerPoint, Excel, Word, SharePoint)
• Knowledge of Federal and State labor laws, specifically West Virginia and Texas states (NLRB, preferred).
• Experience with union grievance process and serving /managing grievance activities.
• Strong influencing skills.
• Demonstrated ability to coach managers and leaders in employee and labor relations.
• Excellent verbal & written communication skills
• Capable of multi-tasking and managing competing priorities

The following are preferred for this role

• Master's in human resources, Labor Relations, or Industrial Relations
• Workday HRIS experience