Employee Relations Manager

You in This Role are a strong Employee Relations leader who thrives in fast-paced manufacturing environments and genuinely enjoys being highly visible and engaged with employees and leaders across the floor.

This is not a desk-based HR role. You will spend your time walking the floor, building relationships, coaching managers, conducting investigations, resolving employee concerns, supporting accountability, and helping create a workplace that is safe, respectful, high-performing, and employee-focused.

At Unusual Machines, we are scaling rapidly, and this role will play a critical part in supporting our growing hourly workforce across manufacturing, warehouse, and operational teams. You will serve as a trusted employee advocate, operational partner, and culture ambassador while helping ensure consistency, compliance, communication, and strong leadership across all shifts.

A Day in the Life

No two days look exactly the same - and that is exactly what makes this role exciting.

One moment you may be supporting a manager through a difficult employee conversation, helping resolve a workplace concern, or conducting an investigation. The next, you may be onboarding new employees, answering benefits questions, coaching leaders on policy interpretation, supporting attendance accountability, or walking the manufacturing floor checking in with employees.

You will partner closely with manufacturing leadership, operations, safety, and HR to help maintain a culture that is:

• Safe
• Respectful
• High-performing
• Employee-focused
• Operationally excellent

You will play a visible role in helping employees feel supported while also ensuring leaders maintain accountability and consistency across the organization.

What You’ll Do

• Serve as the primary HR and Employee Relations partner for hourly manufacturing and operational employees across assigned facilities
• Build strong relationships with employees and leaders through consistent floor presence and visibility
• Conduct employee relations investigations involving workplace concerns, policy violations, attendance issues, and employee complaints
• Coach leaders through corrective actions, documentation, employee conversations, performance concerns, and terminations
• Support a positive employee experience through engagement initiatives and culture-building efforts
• Partner with managers to maintain fair, consistent, and legally compliant employment practices
• Assist with onboarding, orientation, employee check-ins, and integration of new hires
• Support employee leave administration, benefits questions, workers compensation coordination, and employee accommodations
• Assist employees and managers with timekeeping support, missed punches, PTO corrections, and HRIS-related questions
• Maintain accurate employee documentation and compliance records
• Support OSHA, labor law, I-9, E-Verify, and workplace compliance initiatives
• Partner with recruiting and operations teams during hiring events, career fairs, and onboarding surges
• Support multiple facilities and operational groups as the company continues to scale
• Partner closely with fellow Employee Relations Managers during shift overlap periods to ensure continuity and communication across all shifts
• Help build scalable HR processes, programs, and infrastructure during a period of rapid company growth

Requirements

What You Bring

• 5+ years of HR or Employee Relations experience
• 3+ years supporting manufacturing, warehouse, distribution, or other high-volume operational environments
• Strong employee relations and investigation experience
• Experience supporting multi-shift operations
• Strong judgment, professionalism, and emotional intelligence
• Ability to remain calm and solution-oriented in fast-paced environments
• Strong communication and conflict resolution skills
• Experience coaching leaders through difficult employee situations
• Comfortable working independently while also collaborating closely with operations and HR leadership
• Hands-on, highly visible leadership style
• Experience using HRIS, ATS, payroll, or timekeeping systems
• Strong working knowledge of employment law and HR compliance practices
• Comfortable walking manufacturing floors and working in active production environments
• Equivalent experience is valued more heavily than formal education

Benefits

• Salary range: $80,000 – $95,000 annually
• Equity eligibility
• Medical, dental, and vision coverage
• PTO and paid holidays
• Catered Lunch 5 days a week
• 401K
• Career growth opportunities

Unusual Machines is a U.S.-based drone and drone parts company focused on the small and First-Person View (FPV) segments of the drone market. Our brands - Rotor Riot and Fat Shark - are two of the most respected names in FPV and have helped shape the industry through e-commerce, product development, and a deep connection with the pilot community.

We’re expanding into enterprise and defense - bringing our obsessive attention to performance, design, and U.S.-based manufacturing into high-stakes environments like search and rescue, STEM education, and military innovation. With several of our products already approved by the Defense Innovation Unit, we’re solving procurement issues for customers who demand speed, agility, and compliance.

If you love working at the intersection of community, content, and cutting-edge technology, you’ll feel right at home here.

We are an equal opportunity employer that does not discriminate on the basis of race, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, protected veteran status, disability, age, or other legally protected status.

Unusual Machines participates in E-Verify. E-Verify is an Internet-based system that compares information from an employee's Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, to data from U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration records to confirm employment eligibility.