Director, HR Business Partner

People strategy with enterprise impact.

Irvine, CA

About the role

Are you a strategic HR leader who thrives on translating business priorities into workforce, organizational, talent, and change strategies? The Director, HR Business Partner leads strategic HR partnership across assigned U.S. client groups, provides leadership to the HRBP team, and serves as a senior advisor to executives and business leaders. 

You’ll ensure HRBP resources remain focused on high-impact, long-term, and elevated-risk matters while routine and moderately complex employee matters are addressed through the tiered People support model. You’ll also provide enterprise leadership across the U.S. People function, drive consistent and defensible people decisions, lead complex organizational transformations, and may represent the Chief People Officer, U.S. on specifically delegated matters. 

What you’ll be doing

As a senior leader within the U.S. People team, you’ll support assigned client groups while providing broader functional leadership across the U.S. HRBP operating model. 

Leadership of the HRBP and Tiered Support Model 

• Directly manage the People and Employee Relations Partner and assigned HR Business Partners, with accountability for work allocation, capability development, performance management, escalation quality, and consistent application of the HR service model. 
• Provide functional leadership for the U.S. HRBP model and informal leadership across the U.S. People team, bringing the appropriate partners together to resolve cross-functional issues and opportunities. 
• Lead and reinforce the Tier 3 HRBP model, ensuring HRBP capacity is focused on strategic, organizational, executive-level, and elevated-risk matters. 
• Establish clear handoffs with Service Hub, the People and Employee Relations Partner, HR Operations, Legal, and Centers of Expertise; monitor recurring themes, escalation quality, and service-model effectiveness. 
• Build HRBP and People Partner capability through coaching, feedback, shared tools, case calibration, and consistent decision frameworks. 

Executive and Strategic Business Partnership 

• Serve as the primary strategic People advisor to assigned executives, senior leaders, and leadership teams. 
• Develop a deep understanding of the assigned business model, financial priorities, operating performance, customer requirements, and workforce cost drivers. 
• Translate business priorities into integrated workforce, organization, talent, leadership, and culture strategies with clear outcomes and ownership. 
• Provide candid, data-informed counsel on people implications, tradeoffs, precedent, risk, capability, capacity, cost, and employee experience. 
• Anticipate talent and organizational needs through proactive engagement with leaders and mobilize appropriate internal or external resources. 
• Represent the Chief People Officer, U.S. in designated forums and assume specifically delegated responsibilities as business needs require. 

Organization Design, Workforce Strategy, and Business Transformation 

• Lead organization design and operating-model work, including structure, spans and layers, decision rights, role clarity, leadership capacity, critical capabilities, workforce cost, and implementation risks. 
• Challenge headcount requests by distinguishing capacity or capability gaps from process, prioritization, accountability, or role-design issues. 
• Partner with leaders to develop workforce, staffing, succession, and retention plans that support business strategy and sustainable growth. 
• Lead the People workstream for restructures, integrations, reductions in force, leadership transitions, and operating-model changes. 
• Establish change governance, decision rights, sequencing, workforce impact assessments, communications, risk controls, and adoption measures. 
• Lead or coordinate People activities for M&A due diligence, integration planning, workforce assessment, organization design, employee communications, and post-close stabilization. 
• Advise leaders on workforce, role, and skill implications of AI adoption and new ways of working. 

Talent, Succession, Performance, and Leadership Effectiveness 

• Lead talent reviews, succession planning, performance calibration, and critical-talent risk discussions for assigned client groups. 
• Challenge succession plans and ensure development, readiness, retention, and contingency actions are implemented and monitored. 
• Advise executives on leadership-team effectiveness, role clarity, decision-making, accountability, succession depth, and capability gaps. 
• Coach leaders on complex talent decisions, sustained underperformance, executive performance concerns, retention risks, and difficult conversations. 
• Partner with leaders and Centers of Expertise to translate capability needs into targeted development actions. 
• Lead annual performance and compensation review cycles and facilitate fair, consistent, and business-aligned outcomes. 

Employee Relations, Employment Risk, and Governance 

• Provide senior oversight and decision support for highly complex, sensitive, executive-level, or precedent-setting employee relations matters. 
• Determine investigation strategy and ownership; partner with Legal and outside counsel as appropriate; review findings and recommendations; and ensure responses are consistent, defensible, and timely. 
• Advise senior leaders on elevated performance matters, termination-adjacent decisions, policy exceptions, and material legal, financial, employee-relations, or reputational risks. 
• Balance business needs, legal and compliance requirements, employee experience, consistency, and business continuity when recommending action. 
• Provide governance and business input on U.S. People policies, standards, and precedent-setting decisions. 
• Ensure compliance with applicable federal, state, and local employment requirements and coordinate responses to audits, agency matters, or legal claims. 
• Resolve sensitive and complex matters with sound judgment, appropriate transparency, disciplined escalation, and minimal unnecessary disruption. 

People Analytics, Business Insights, and Organizational Outcomes 

• Use business and People data to identify workforce, talent, engagement, performance, and organizational risks and opportunities. 
• Develop and test hypotheses, quantify risks, present options and recommendations, and measure the business impact of People interventions. 
• Monitor agreed actions and outcomes, adjusting plans where results do not meet business or employee needs. 
• Represent business reality and emerging needs to HR planning and Centers of Expertise, flagging downstream impacts early. 
• Ensure business decisions are accurately translated into required Workday and downstream transactions through partnership with HR Operations, Rewards, and other process owners. 

U.S. People Leadership and Enterprise Initiatives 

• Take ownership of significant U.S. People projects and enterprise initiatives, establishing scope, governance, stakeholder alignment, milestones, risks, and measurable outcomes. 
• Identify and implement HR best practices, operating improvements, and scalable approaches that improve organizational effectiveness and the employee and leader experience. 
• Co-develop and facilitate leadership workshops, team-effectiveness sessions, talent discussions, and change interventions. 
• Build strong partnerships across the global People team and ensure U.S. priorities and risks are represented in global programs and decisions. 
• Maintain the utmost confidentiality and professional judgment when handling sensitive business and employee information. 

What you’ll bring

• Think you could make a difference here? We’re looking for an experienced HR leader who combines executive influence, business and financial acumen, people leadership, and sound judgment in complex, high-risk situations. You will also bring some of the following: 
• 12+ years of progressive HR experience, including substantial HR Business Partner experience and increasing leadership responsibility. 
• Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, or a related discipline, or equivalent relevant experience. An advanced degree and/or SHRM-SCP, SPHR, or comparable certification is preferred. 
• Demonstrated experience directly advising C-suite executives and senior leadership teams. 
• Proven people-management experience, including developing HR Business Partners or comparable HR professionals. 
• Experience operating within a shared services, tiered support, or Center of Expertise model and maintaining clear service and escalation boundaries. 
• Demonstrated success leading complex, multi-function or multi-site organizational change, including restructures, integrations, reductions in force, or operating-model changes. 
• Advanced organization design, strategic workforce planning, succession, talent, and change management experience. 
• Advanced employee relations and employment-risk expertise, including complex investigations, executive-level matters, terminations, and partnership with counsel. 
• Deep knowledge of U.S. employment law and HR best practices in a multi-state environment. 
• Ability to interpret financial and operating information and translate it into workforce implications and recommendations. 
• Strong People analytics capability, including problem diagnosis, development of options, executive recommendations, and measurement of outcomes. 
• Experience supporting M&A due diligence, integration, or significant workforce transition work is preferred. 
• Advanced communication, facilitation, executive presence, and the ability to simplify complexity and influence action. 
• Intermediate proficiency with Workday, ServiceNow, Microsoft tools, and Copilot.