HR Manager

We are seeking a hands-on HR Manager to own employee relations, performance management, and compliance at our structural steel fabrication shop. Join our growing team in a direct, high-accountability environment with ESOP opportunities.

Description

Rebellion Fabrication is a structural and architectural steel fabricator and one of the region's fastest-growing shops. We build big things for demanding clients, and we've grown by hiring great people and holding a high bar.

Our team is split between the shop floor-welders, fabricators, material handlers, and painters, and the office. We run on EOS, and we have three core values that show up in real conversations, not on a wall.

We have also committed to becoming an ESOP. The people building this company will have the opportunity to own it, which shapes how we hire, develop, support, and hold our people accountable.

We're hiring our first dedicated HR Manager. The hard conversations, the investigations, and the follow-through all land here.

The role

This is a hands-on HR role. You'll be on the shop floor, involved in real conversations, and responsible for making sure important issues are investigated, documented, and resolved.

The President currently holds many of these accountabilities and is hiring someone to fully own them. You'll work alongside our recruiter and executive assistant, but there is no HR department operating beneath you. You must be comfortable building structure while also doing the everyday work required to make it successful.

This is not a leadership-team seat or a broad people-strategy role. It is an execution and ownership role for someone who wants to be close to the workforce, equip supervisors to lead effectively, and bring consistency to the employee experience.

What you'll own

• Employee relations and investigations: You own employee issues start to finish. You investigate, you document, you close it. You're the person employees come to before something becomes a complaint, and it ends with you instead of moving up the org.
• Supervisor capability and process integrity: Training and equipping supervisors to lead performance and accountability conversations effectively. You'll participate in terminations and step in when decisions are moving forward without the necessary facts, documentation, or process.
• Performance conversation follow-through: Supervisors own their teams and their conversations. You'll make sure they have the tools and confidence to handle them-and that those conversations happen when they should. When follow-through falls behind, you'll address it directly and escalate persistent gaps to Operations.
• New-hire integration through 90 days: Partnering with supervisors to build and execute clear 90-day plans, including the first week, first 30 days, required training, testing, and performance expectations. You'll check in with both the new hire and the supervisor to catch gaps early and identify when a new hire may not be the right long-term fit.
• Compliance and safety-sensitive HR: Owning post-incident investigation and documentation, workers' compensation claims and carrier communication, OSHA 300 recordkeeping, recordability decisions, and required employment postings. You'll act directly when HR or compliance involvement is needed, regardless of reporting lines.

The shop and Operations team will continue to own safety execution, including training, lockout/tagout, and close-call reviews.

What is not in this role

Compensation architecture, benefits strategy, organizational design, recruiting strategy, culture direction, and safety-program execution are owned elsewhere in the organization.

You'll be expected to contribute thoughtful input and identify potential issues, but you will not carry final ownership of these areas.

Who thrives here

• You build trust quickly with a skilled-trades workforce and can walk onto a shop floor without being viewed as an outsider. You're approachable, practical, thick-skinned, and able to bring an appropriate sense of humor to a direct, non-corporate environment.
• You have the backbone to speak up in both directions. Holding an employee accountable is the easier half. The harder half is challenging a decision that isn't yours to make, whether it's above you or beside you, while it's still being made.
• You're the person who notices the thing that didn't happen. A plan nobody followed bothers you more than a plan that doesn't exist.
• You take an assignment and close it out. You don't need to be aimed, redirected, or checked on, and you'd rather finish three things than start ten.
• You're willing to do the unglamorous work. You don't need a large HR team or an established department to be effective, and you're comfortable building processes while actively managing the work.
• You're comfortable being the person who doesn't have the answer yet, and you'd rather find out than guess.

Experience in manufacturing or construction is valuable, but it isn't the only path to credibility here. People who have worked in hospitals, corrections, logistics, restaurants, the military, field services, agriculture, or similarly direct and demanding environments may bring the same strengths.

We will not screen out a strong candidate simply because they have not worked in a traditional blue-collar setting.

Practical details

• Based primarily at our Wahoo shop and fully on-site. This is not a remote or hybrid position.
• Presence at our Elkhorn location approximately two to four times per month.
• Reports to the President. No direct reports.
• Up to $125,000, depending on experience.
• Benefits and participation in the ESOP as it is established.

How to apply

Apply through our posting. Candidates who move beyond the initial conversation should expect a working interview involving real scenarios from our workplace, along with time in the shop with members of our Operations team.

We would rather determine early-on both sides-whether the environment, expectations, and responsibilities are the right fit.

Rebellion Fabrication is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic.