Position Summary
The Senior Human Resources Manager is the strategic leader of the Human Resources function and the primary people-business partner to the CEO and leadership team. This position owns the company's people strategy and is accountable for workforce planning, training , talent acquisition, employee relations, leadership development, performance management, compensation programs, compliance, retention, and organizational effectiveness.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities
HR Leadership and Business Partnership
- Lead the Human Resources function and establish clear ownership, priorities, service standards, operating processes, and accountability across the HR team.
- Partner with the CEO and leadership team to align HR strategy with business objectives, operational priorities, workforce requirements, and long-term growth plans.
- Develop annual and quarterly HR goals, metrics, and action plans and provide regular updates and recommendations to executive leadership.
- Lead, coach, and develop the HR team, including clear role definition, performance expectations, and career development.
Talent Acquisition and Workforce Planning
- Own recruiting strategy and workforce planning for skilled manufacturing, engineering, quality, operations, administrative, and leadership positions.
- Partner with department leaders to forecast staffing needs, prioritize requisitions, define candidate profiles, and maintain accountability for timely hiring decisions.
- Develop talent pipelines and partnerships with technical schools, colleges, industry groups, recruiting agencies, and community organizations.
- Use recruiting data to improve time to hire, cost per hire, offer acceptance, quality of hire, candidate-show rates, and new-hire retention.
Employee Relations and California Compliance
- Serve as the primary HR advisor for complex employee relations matters, workplace investigations, complaints, corrective actions, performance concerns, attendance issues, and separations.
- Coach managers and supervisors on consistent application of company policies, documentation standards, conflict resolution, and employee communication.
- Ensure compliance with federal, California, and local employment laws, including wage-and-hour, EEO, anti-harassment, leave, accommodation, and recordkeeping requirements.
- Oversee FMLA, CFRA, PDL, ADA/FEHA accommodation, and other protected leave processes in partnership with the HR Generalist.
Performance Management and Leadership Development
- Own the company's performance-management framework, including goal setting, introductory reviews, annual reviews, performance improvement plans, talent reviews, and development planning.
- Create consistent tools and expectations for employee feedback, documentation, accountability, and recognition.
- Coach managers and supervisors on performance conversations, employee development, conflict management, and effective leadership practices.
- Develop and implement supervisor and leadership-development programs that strengthen frontline management capability and accountability.
Training and Organizational Development
- Own the company-wide training strategy and partner with Operations, Quality, Safety, and department leaders to identify workforce and leadership skill gaps.
- Ensure a current and effective training matrix is maintained for required compliance, safety, quality, technical, and leadership training.
- Oversee training program design, scheduling, records, completion tracking, and effectiveness measurement, with administrative support from the HR team.
- Support organizational development and change-management initiatives as the company grows.
Compensation, Benefits, and HR Programs
- Lead compensation planning and market benchmarking in partnership with Finance, including salary ranges, pay recommendations, promotions, internal equity, and retention adjustments.
- Partner with Finance and executive leadership on bonus and incentive-program design, administration, and communication.
- Provide strategic oversight of employee benefits, leave administration, workers' compensation, payroll-related HR changes, and HRIS processes.
- Review benefits offerings and support annual renewal and open-enrollment decisions to balance employee value, competitiveness, and cost effectiveness.
- Ensure appropriate controls, approvals, documentation, and communication for employee status, compensation, payroll, and benefit changes.
HR Policies, Systems, Metrics, and Continuous Improvement
- Own the employee handbook, HR policies, standard operating procedures, forms, governance, and related communication.
- Ensure HR policies and practices remain current, compliant, practical, and consistently applied.
- Establish a focused HR scorecard and report meaningful workforce metrics, including headcount, turnover, retention, recruiting, attendance, training completion, performance reviews, employee relations, and workers' compensation trends.
- Improve and digitize HR workflows, forms, surveys, records, and reporting through effective use of HRIS, applicant-tracking, payroll, and document-management systems.
- Ensure HR documentation and training records support company quality system, audit, and regulatory requirements.
Employee Engagement and Culture
- Develop practical initiatives to improve employee communication, engagement, recognition, retention, and workplace culture.
- Use exit interviews, employee feedback, turnover data, absenteeism trends, and workplace observations to recommend and implement improvement actions.
- Promote a professional, respectful, inclusive, accountable, and safety-focused workplace.
- Support company meetings, employee communications, engagement activities, recognition programs, and other culture-building initiatives.
Qualifications and Skills
- Strong working knowledge of California employment laws and HR compliance requirements.
- Demonstrated experience leading employee relations, workplace investigations, corrective actions, performance management, and terminations.
- Experience leading recruiting and workforce planning for difficult-to-fill positions.
- Data-driven approach to program management, with experience building KPIs and translating insights into action. Comfortable with AI tools and enthusiastic about putting them to work.
- Demonstrated ability to leverage business acumen and interpersonal savvy to influence senior business leaders.
- Excellent written and verbal communication, organization, analytical, coaching, and interpersonal skills.
- Proficiency with HRIS, applicant-tracking, payroll, reporting, and Microsoft Office systems.
- Proven experience managing HR operations in a fast-paced manufacturing environment supporting hourly and salaried employees across multiple shifts.
Education / Experience
- Bachelor's degree in Human resources, Business Administration, Organizational Development, or a related field, or equivalent relevant experience (advanced degree preferred).
- 7-10 years of progressive Human Resources experience, including leadership roles.
- At least 3 years of HR management or senior HR leadership experience.
- HR leadership experience in manufacturing, machining or another regulated operational environment is strongly preferred.
- Experience developing training matrices, leadership-development programs, performance-management systems, and HR metrics is preferred.
- Experience with ADP Workforce Now, BambooHR, or comparable HR and payroll systems is preferred.
- SHRM-SCP, SPHR, SHRM-CP, or PHR certification is preferred.
- Experience supporting ISO 9001, ISO 13485, or similar quality-management and audit requirements is preferred.
Work Environment
This is an on-site leadership position supporting a manufacturing operation.
Other Duties
This job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of every activity, duty, or responsibility required of the employee. Duties, responsibilities, reporting relationships, and organizational needs may change at any time, with or without notice, consistent with applicable law.
Benefits:
- Health Insurance (Medical/Dental/Vision)
- Safe Harbor 401(K) plan
- 401(K) match
- Paid time off (vacation/sick/holidays/floating holiday)
- Referral program
