Director of HR

Horwitz is a leading mechanical contracting and engineering firm serving commercial, healthcare, industrial, and institutional clients across the Midwest. For more than a century, Horwitz has built its reputation on craftsmanship, innovation, and long-standing client relationships. Our teams deliver complex HVAC, piping, plumbing, and mechanical systems with a commitment to safety, quality, and performance. With $300+ million in annual revenue and a dedicated workforce of 700 employees across multiple locations, Horwitz is a premier provider of mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and building automation services across the Midwest.

As Horwitz continues to expand its footprint, we are seeking a dynamic and strategic Director of Human Resources to lead our people operations during a period of significant organizational growth and evolution. This role will evolve, offering the opportunity to scale our culture and operational excellence in tandem with our growth. We are looking for a Human Resources leader who is excited by the prospect of building systems today that will support a much larger organization tomorrow.

As a key member, you will be responsible for harmonizing our human capital strategy with our long-term business goals and providing strategic partnership to senior leaders. Our Director of HR role has ownership for all aspects of Human Resources across the employee lifecycle, including talent acquisition, learning & development, engagement, talent management, compensation & benefits, employee & labor relations, and regulatory compliance. This role is designed for a visionary leader who can transition seamlessly from high-level strategy to hands‑on execution.

Horwitz has a strong culture based on our core values of Safe, Accountable, Professional, Motivated, Can Do, and Curious. The Director of Human Resources must embody and champion these values, along with fostering a workplace culture that prioritizes well‑being, engagement, and inclusion.

Key Responsibilities:

These responsibilities generally describe the nature of the position and may not be all inclusive:

• Strategic Leadership & Business Partnership
  • Executive Partnership: Act as a trusted advisor to the CEO and leadership team, collaborating to set, communicate, and activate the overarching business strategy.
  • HR Strategy: Lead the HR team to develop and deploy Human Resources vision and strategy to enable targeted business results. This includes setting HR goals and metrics, plus evaluating and setting appropriate resourcing strategies and plans to provide HR support, including both internal headcount and external partnerships.
  • Organizational Effectiveness: Continuously evaluate and evolve the organizational design and structure to support a scaling business and multi-regional operations. Work with leaders across the organization to build change management capability and ensure systems and behaviors support collaboration and teamwork.
  • M&A Integration: Provide critical HR support for M&A, including due diligence, cultural integration, and organizational alignment to ensure seamless transitions for newly acquired entities.
• Human Resources Operations
  • Talent Strategy: Oversee the full talent lifecycle, ensuring we attract, hire, and retain top‑tier technical and professional talent in a competitive industrial market. Enhance performance management and succession planning processes and tools to drive transparent feedback and support business performance and individual growth.
  • Learning & Development (L&D): Architect an enterprise L&D strategy, including training programs and technology support. Implement robust L&D programs that focus on technical upskilling, leadership development, career pathing, and HR compliance to maintain our edge in the MEP and automation sectors.
  • Culture & Engagement: Define and foster a high‑performance culture that reflects Horwitz’s values, ensuring employee engagement remains high across diverse job sites and office locations. Sponsor DEIB efforts, ensure efficient and effective employee relations and labor relations processes, and lead improvements to engagement survey and recognition activities.
  • Compensation & Benefits: Develop and manage a competitive, data‑driven compensation and benefits strategy with plans and structures that attract and retain key talent while remaining fiscally responsible.
  • Compliance & Risk: Ensure all HR policies and practices comply with federal and state regulations.
  • HRIS: Identify and invest in HR systems that will enable transparency, efficiency, consistency, data‑driven decision making, and self‑service for leaders, team members, and HR, while accommodating field and multi‑location needs.
• Functional Excellence
  • Team Leadership: Lead and coach a high‑performing HR team, elevating their skills, capabilities, and ways of working to provide best‑in‑class service to the organization.
  • Continuous Improvement: Increase clarity, efficiency, and standardization of HR processes.
  • External Perspective: Participate in HR function and construction industry organizations to represent Horwitz and bring best practices and innovative approaches back to our team.
  • Business‑Aligned Flexibility: Build HR programs, policies, and operating standards that provide appropriate consistency and clear organizational guardrails while allowing division leaders the autonomy to address their unique workforce, market, and operational needs.

Skills and Abilities:

• Ability to anticipate future consequences and trends accurately and create and communicate competitive strategies.
• Skilled at leading large‑scale organizational change and helping employees navigate transitions.
• Understands how compensation structures affect profitability, employee performance, retention, and business growth. Uses financial and market data to develop compensation and incentive models that reward results, reinforce accountability, attract and retain talent, and support the company’s short‑and long‑term financial objectives.
• Strong relationship builder who thrives in operational, team‑based environments.
• Exceptional verbal and written communication skills, a high degree of professionalism and tact, influence skills, and the ability to build trust, rapport, and collaboration with field technicians and executive stakeholders alike.
• Willingness and ability to occasionally travel to job sites or off‑site training locations.

Experience & Education:

• Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, or a related field. An MBA or Master’s in HR/Organizational Development is highly preferred.
• 10+ years of progressive HR leadership experience, preferably within the construction, engineering, or industrial services industries.
• Demonstrated experience setting HR strategy, supporting senior leaders, and supervising diverse HR teams.
• Proven track record of leading HR workstreams through the Mergers & Acquisitions lifecycle.
• Demonstrated experience building scalable Learning & Development frameworks from the ground up.