Director, Employee Relations

Strategic Employee Relations Leadership

Provides strategic, operational, and consultative leadership across an integrated healthcare delivery system to foster a positive, high-performing work environment. Serves as a trusted advisor to leaders and employees at all levels, providing leadership on a complex range of employee relations matters for both management represented and union represented employees, in alignment with Sutter Health practices, policies, and local legislation. Leads proactive workplace initiatives and strategies, conducts workplace investigations and internal reviews, while providing leadership on performance improvement, behavior management, grievances, discipline processes, end-of-employment situations, coaching, and conflict resolution. Works in close partnership with legal, compliance, risk, security, communications, and key roles within the human resources community – providing consultation and partnership in crisis management, threat assessment, and safety matters – along with partnering on leave, accommodations, and other employee relations matters. The role is integral to enterprise transformation and restructuring initiatives, resulting in successful employee transitions. Develops and drives employee relations strategies and scalable practices across acute, ambulatory, ancillary, and home health settings, providing proactive education and coaching to build manager capabilities and skill sets. Leveraging data and analytics, develops strategies and plans to foster a positive work environment, address trends, enhance workforce effectiveness, and mitigate risk.

Job Description

The candidate selected for this role must live in the Northern California Sutter Health footprint and travel around the Sutter System is a part of this role. This is NOT a remote role.

Education

Bachelor's degree

Typical Experience

8 years recent relevant experience

Skills and Knowledge

• Progressive employee relations experience.
• Leadership experience managing managers and multi-site teams in complex environments.
• Exceptional people management skill sets with demonstrated ability to cultivate an engaging, high-performing, and inclusive culture
• Strong executive communication, influence, and cross-functional partnership and collaboration skills. Ability to operate within complex, matrixed environments.
• Demonstrated ability to leverage strong judgment and balanced approach, when navigating high risk, complex, or emotionally-charged matters
• Expert knowledge of federal and state employment laws, including NLRA, Title VII, ADA, FMLA or CFRA, and wage and hour requirements.
• Advanced investigative skills and experience in restructuring, performance improvement, discipline, leaves/accommodations, crisis management, threat assessment, and reputation matters. Experience advising senior executives.
• High proficiency in leveraging data and analytics to drive business and people outcomes.
• Cultural competence and demonstrated commitment to inclusion and belonging.
• Ability to lead effectively in fast paced clinical environments and maintain stability during operational disruption.

Job Accountabilities

• Develops and implements enterprise employee relations strategies and programs aligned with enterprise goals, patient care goals, safety priorities, and operational needs.
• Partners with leaders and the human resources community to develop proactive employee relations strategies and solutions leveraging metrics, reporting, and analysis to drive outcomes in issue prevention, enhanced manager capabilities, positive work environment, and risk mitigation.
• Takes a comprehensive approach to leveraging employee survey results, local climate indicators, workplace metrics, risk assessments, and listening strategies to develop strategic solutions.
• Partners with key stakeholders to develop solutions to enhance manager capabilities and deliver proactive employee relations education and guidance for managers and employees.
• Develops scalable, consistent, and simplified employee relations practices and policies.
• Builds and maintains an employee relations catalog, playbooks, and decision frameworks to enable consistent, high quality employee relations support across the system.
• Partners with key stakeholders to contribute to positive labor relations and preventative strategies, programs, and action planning.
• Provides individual coaching to leaders on interpersonal effectiveness, accountability, team dynamics, and culture building.
• Advises leaders on consistent performance management, corrective actions, performance improvement plans, and discipline / misconduct matters.
• Coaches leaders through difficult conversations, conflict resolution, behavior management, and documentation standards.
• Provides employee relations consultation to managers and employees to resolve conflict, improve communication and reinforce inclusion / belonging.
• Partners with key stakeholders to advise on accommodations, leave, and disability interfaces, and workers' compensation, in coordination with partners across the human resources and legal community.
• Leads or oversees objective workplace reviews and investigations involving workplace matters such as discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and other policy or Code of Conduct violations.
• Plays a key role in investigations and responses to workplace violence, employee safety, fitness for duty, clinical practice concerns, and brand/reputation matters – in collaboration with key partners in protective services, ethics/compliance, risk services, communications, legal, and clinical leadership.
• Maintains the highest standards of confidentiality, discretion, and ethical judgment in handling sensitive employee relations matters and investigations.
• Ensures documentation quality, defensibility, chain of custody, and readiness for executive review, audits, litigation, and external agency inquiries.
• Provides leadership and consultation in crisis events, including threat assessment and urgent employee relations matters requiring rapid response – in partnership with key stakeholders and cross-functional partners.
• Partners with Data & Analytics team to leverage dashboards that integrate employee relations metrics with workforce and clinical indicators such as turnover, absenteeism, staffing, patience experience, and safety.
• Uses trend analysis, predictive analytics, listening strategies, and end-of-employment insights to develop solutions, identify and address hotspots, anticipate workforce risks, and evaluate the effectiveness of employee relations interventions.
• Presents insights and recommendations to senior and executive leadership and influences cross functional action plans.
• Leverages enterprise case management tracking mechanism to monitor volumes, issues, actions, outcomes, and trends – while developing solutions.
• Plays an integral role in reorganizations, redeployments, and reductions in force, ensuring compliant, consistent, and dignified processes.
• In partnership with legal and key stakeholders, provides guidance and execution support for end-of-employment processes, including employee communications, claims and settlements, severance and separation programs, and outplacement services.
• Plays a key role in building the employee relations function and driving the transformation of our human resources operating model.
• Leads, develops, and structures a highly engaged and high performing employee relations team across multiple sites. Provides coaching and feedback to accelerate development and performance.
• Cultivates an inclusive and high-performance team culture.
• Establishes supervisory structures, staffing plans, coverage models, and standard operating procedures to ensure consistent and scalable practices.
• Continuously improve service delivery, cycle times, and stakeholder satisfaction – while leveraging data to balance team workloads.
• Manages the budget and optimizes systems, policies, and processes to increase effectiveness and efficiency.
• Leverages executive presence and sound judgment, acting as a trusted partner, key advisor to senior leaders on complex and sensitive workforce issues and strategies.
• Builds trusted, credible partnerships with clinical and operational leaders, HR business partners, labor relations, talent, legal, compliance, quality, security, and safety teams.
• Communicates, engages, and updates senior and executive leadership on critical matters and key strategies/programs – influencing across functions and at all levels to drive desired outcomes.
• Partners and influences key stakeholders to drive collaborative decision making that balances business needs, preventative considerations, employee experience, and risk mitigation.
• Partners with human resources community and leaders to play a key role in translating insights into proactive employee relations strategies and action plans that lead to positive employee experience, engagement, and preventative impact.

Job Shift: Days

Schedule: Full Time

Days of the Week: Monday - Friday

Weekend Requirements: As Needed

Benefits: Yes

Unions: No

Position Status: Exempt

Weekly Hours: 40

Employee Status: Regular

Sutter Health is an equal opportunity employer EOE/M/F/Disability/Veterans.

Pay Range is $181,875.20 to $291,012.80 / annual salary. Emeryville Pay Range is $202,030.40 to $323,232.00 / annual salary.

The compensation range may vary based on the geographic location where the position is filled. Total compensation considers multiple factors, including, but not limited to