Director, People & Culture

Job Title: Director of People & Culture
Reports To: Chief Operating Officer (COO)

Job purpose: The Director of People & Culture serves as an operational and strategic leader with complete ownership over the organization's People Operations. Reporting directly to the Chief Operating Officer, this role leads the HR department through a pivotal phase of growth-transforming core HR operations into a scalable service engine capable of supporting multi-site and multi-state expansion.

Beyond core operations and multi-state compliance, this leader serves as the architect for workplace culture, employee engagement, and retention. The ideal candidate blends systems-building expertise with proven people leadership-elevating internal HR teams, championing the employee experience across clinical and non-clinical staff, and preparing leaders to navigate rapid multi-state growth.

Duties & Responsibilities

• Partner with executive leadership to drive workforce planning and capacity modeling for multi-site expansion, integrating formal succession planning, high-potential talent identification, and career-pathing frameworks to strengthen internal leadership pipelines.
• Transform and streamline the HR operating model across the employee lifecycle, maximizing existing HRIS capabilities to automate manual processes, ensure data integrity, and establish scalable, standardized service delivery workflows.
• Track and analyze key workforce metrics and executive KPIs to evaluate organizational health and guide strategic planning.
• Serve as the People Operations lead for multi-site and multi-state expansions-designing standardized, rapid-deployment HR toolkits and establishing cross-state compliance frameworks for opening new locations.
• Direct and oversee the end-to-end management of payroll, employee benefits, and leave of absence programs, ensuring strict adherence to multi-state regulations
• Guide annual open enrollment strategy, carrier/broker negotiations, monthly billing reconciliations, and competitive regional compensation benchmarking to attract talent in tight, diverse labor markets.
• Design, implement, and facilitate a comprehensive Leadership Development framework aimed at upskilling clinical supervisors, practice managers, and department heads across all sites.
• Architect and execute a multi-site employee engagement and retention strategy tailored to reduce burnout, elevate morale, and build a unified culture across dispersed regional and multi-state locations.
• Establish measurable employee experience benchmarks and report progress regularly to executive leadership.
• Provide direct leadership, coaching, and strategic direction to the HR team.
• Act as the primary escalation point for complex employee relations, high-risk investigations, multi-state labor considerations, and sensitive matters.
• Ensure full organizational compliance with federal, state, and local labor standards (FLSA, FMLA, ADA, OSHA, Title VII) across all operating states, alongside strict healthcare regulatory mandates (HIPAA, state licensing boards, mandatory certifications).
• Other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Healthcare Administration, Organizational Development, Business Administration, or related discipline; Master's degree (MSHR, MBA, or MHA) preferred.
• 10-12+ years of progressive HR experience, including at least 3-5 years directly managing HR teams and driving operational transformation.
• Proven experience leading a human resources function at the director level within a multi-entity or operationally complex organization.
• Demonstrated experience leading multi-state organizational expansion, including opening new clinic locations, scaling distributed workforces, and managing cross-state employment compliance.
• Demonstrated experience designing, launching, and facilitating leadership development curricula alongside high-impact employee engagement and retention strategies across distributed operational teams.
• Strong knowledge of employee relations, HR administration, compensation and benefits, payroll oversight, and regulatory compliance.
• Strong operational background in healthcare, clinical systems, or heavily regulated multi-site/shift-based operations.
• High-level expertise in HRIS evaluation, implementation, and optimization ( ADP Workforce Now) and survey/analytics tools.
• Professional HR certification is strongly preferred (SHRM-SCP, SPHR) or relevant talent/OD credential (e.g., ATD, CPTD).
• High emotional intelligence, executive presence, change management capability, strategic systems thinking, and data-informed decision-making.

Physical requirements:
The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job.

While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to talk or hear. The employee frequently is required to stand; walk; use hands to finger, handle or feel; and reach with hands and arms. The employee is required to walk between multiple office locations that include the use of stairs (elevator is only available in some instances).

This position requires the ability to occasionally lift office products and supplies, up to 20 pounds.

Direct reports:
HR professionals: HRBPs, specialists, and coordinators