Director Employee Relations

About Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota

At Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, we are committed to paving the way for everyone to achieve their healthiest life. We are looking for dedicated and motivated individuals who share our vision of transforming healthcare. As a Blue Cross associate, you are joining a culture that is built on values of succeeding together, finding a better way, and doing the right thing. If you are ready to make a difference, join us.

The Impact You Will Have

The Director Employee Relations (ER) is a hands-on, working leader responsible for both personally managing complex employee relations matters and leading a team of Employee Relations and Leave of Absence (LOA) professionals. This role provides enterprise operational, governance, and risk leadership for ER execution, translating ER strategy into disciplined day-to-day decision-making and applying advanced judgment, critical thinking, and risk assessment to high-stakes cases, investigations, and employment actions.

The Director Employee Relations independently leads the most complex and sensitive ER and LOA matters while also setting standards, guiding team capacity, and ensuring consistent, defensible outcomes across the ER and LOA functions. Serving as a primary escalation point for HRBPs and leaders, this role balances speed, consistency, legal defensibility, and reputational considerations, delivering clear, well-reasoned recommendations to employment counsel and senior HR leadership.

Collaboration is central to the role. The Director Employee Relations works closely with Legal, HR Business Partners, Total Rewards, Talent Acquisition, People Analytics, Organizational Development, Compliance, and Enterprise Learning. In addition to team leadership and direct case execution, the role owns ER and LOA governance and infrastructure, manages compliance hotline issues, identifies patterns and systemic risk, strengthens leader capability, and leads updates to HR-related policies and practices to improve upstream prevention, decision quality, and enterprise stability.

Your Responsibilities:

• Provides day-to-day leadership for the Employee Relations and LOA functions while personally handling complex, high-risk ER matters, setting priorities, capacity plans, quality expectations, and holding accountability for consistent enterprise practice.
• Owns and executes enterprise ER work, including direct management of sensitive investigations and employment actions, as well as intake, triage, prioritization, assignment, and execution across misconduct, performance issues, ADA/LOA intersections, and policy violations.
• Defines and enforces escalation thresholds, decision-rights, and role clarity between HRBPs and Employee Relations, ensuring disciplined, consistent, and defensible application of policy and judgment.
• Leads and oversees complex, high-risk investigations (e.g., protected class, retaliation, senior leader, systemic issues), applying critical thinking to assess facts, credibility, impact, and risk, and producing high-quality, legally sound written outcomes.
• Owns ER governance, including investigation frameworks, associate handbook, documentation standards, case management processes, government reporting, response timelines, decision consistency, and audit readiness.
• Applies analytical and strategic thinking to monitor ER performance and enterprise risk indicators-including case volume, cycle time, repeat patterns, and risk hotspots-and uses insights to reduce recurrence and strengthen prevention.
• Translates ER case data and investigation trends into actionable enterprise insights that inform policy updates, leader capability gaps, training priorities, and emerging people risks; partners with HR, Legal, and Compliance on upstream mitigation strategies.
• Serves as a senior escalation and advisory partner to HRBPs and leaders on high-impact employment decisions-including corrective action, PIPs, terminations, and RIF planning-strengthening leader decision-making while preventing risk drift, inconsistency, or unnecessary enterprise exposure.
• Acts as a key advisor during high-visibility or enterprise-impacting ER matters, considering legal, regulatory, cultural, and reputational risk in recommendations and outcomes.
• Provides strong people leadership by hiring, developing, and retaining talent; setting clear expectations; coaching employees through ongoing performance management; delivering timely, constructive feedback; and modeling organizational values and behaviors
• Leads process improvement by identifying, streamlining, and implementing more efficient and effective ways of working.

Required Skills and Experience:

• Accepting this director level position at BCBSMN requires signing an Agreement Regarding Non-Disclosure of Confidential Information and Non-Competition as a condition of employment.
• Bachelor's Degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Legal Studies, Industrial-Organizational Psychology or related field.
• 7+ years of progressive HR experience, with at least 3+ years in leadership / management roles.
• Strong enterprise judgment with the ability to assess risk and make sound recommendations.
• Proven expertise in complex employee relations matters and investigations, including protected class, retaliation, senior leader, and systemic issues.
• Ability to analyze information, solve problems, and work collaboratively with others to address difficult, high-stakes decisions.
• Exceptional written, verbal, and analytical communication skills, including the ability to produce clear, legally sound documentation and executive-level insights.
• Ability to communicate clearly and respectfully, actively listen, and adapt messages to the audience to support collaboration and results across the organization.
• High school diploma (or equivalency) and legal authorization to work in the U.S.

Preferred Skills and Experience:

• Master's degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Legal Studies, Industrial-Organizational Psychology
• Certification PHR/SPHR
• 10+ years of Employee Relations and/or broader HR experience, including enterprise-level risk exposure and leadership or people-management responsibilities.

Role Designation

Hybrid

Anchored in Connection

Our hybrid approach is designed to balance flexibility with meaningful in-person connection and collaboration. We come together in the office two days each week - most teams designate at least one anchor day to ensure team interaction. These in-person moments foster relationships, creativity, and alignment. The rest of the week you are empowered to work remote.

Compensation and Benefits

$135,500.00 - $182,900.00 - $230,300.00 Annual

Pay is based on several factors which vary based on position, including skills, ability, and knowledge the selected individual is bringing to the specific job.

We offer a comprehensive benefits package which may include:

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance
  
• Life insurance
  
• 401k
  
• Paid Time Off (PTO)
  
• Volunteer Paid Time Off (VPTO)
  
• And more
  

To discover more about what we have to offer, please review our benefits page.

Equal Employment Opportunity Statement

At Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, we are committed to paving the way for everyone to achieve their healthiest life. Blue Cross of Minnesota is an Equal Opportunity Employer and maintains an Affirmative Action plan, as required by Minnesota law applicable to state contractors. All qualified applications will receive consideration for employment without regard to, and will not be discriminated against based on any legally protected characteristic.

Individuals with a disability who need a reasonable accommodation in order to apply, please contact us at: View email address on click.appcast.io.

Blue Cross® and Blue Shield® of Minnesota and Blue Plus® are nonprofit independent licensees of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.