Senior Director, Employee Relations and Talent Acquisition

Description

ABOUT ASPIRE

Aspire Public Schools operates a network of high-performing, college preparatory charter schools serving TK-12 scholars in communities across California. Founded in 1998—in an effort to transform the inequitable racial, social, and gender outcomes that our communities persist through—Aspire is one of the largest and most forward-thinking open-enrollment public charter school systems in the nation.

Our purpose is to prepare our scholars for success in college, career, and life. At Aspire, we set a foundation for our scholars to gain knowledge, skills, and power to access and make choices for their families and post-secondary lives. Every day, our community of students, families, teachers and staff comes together to learn, work, and play in an environment grounded in our values of Bienestar (Well-Being), Culture of Belonging, Community Partnership, Agency & Self-Determination, and Joy.

JOB SUMMARY

The Senior Director of Human Resources serves as the executive Human Resources leader for Aspire Public Schools' Bay Area Region, responsible for developing and executing the region's comprehensive people strategy in alignment with organizational priorities, instructional goals, and student outcomes.  This role partners closely with Home Office Human Resources teams to ensure effective delivery of org-wide HR operations while serving as the strategic HR leader for the Bay Area region. 

This leader works closely with the Bay Area Executive Director and serves as a strategic member of the Bay Area Regional Leadership Team, this leader partners closely with Human Resource leaders across all regions to ensure the Bay Area has the talent, leadership capacity, organizational systems, and employee relations and talent infrastructure necessary to achieve exceptional outcomes for students.

The leader will oversee  workforce planning, talent acquisition, employee relations, leadership development, organizational effectiveness, and compliance in partnership with Employee Services.  The Senior Director designs and continuously improves regional Human Resources systems, standard operating procedures, and tiered supports that build the capacity of school leaders to effectively lead people while ensuring consistency, legal compliance, and a positive employee experience across the region.

The Senior Director balances strategic leadership with operational excellence, driving continuous improvement through scalable systems, executive coaching, workforce analytics, and organizational change management.

KEY AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY

People Strategy & Organizational Effectiveness 

• Develop and lead the Bay Area People Strategy aligned to Aspire's organizational priorities and instructional vision.

• Partner with the Superintendent, Executive Director, Head of Human Resources and the Senior Director of Employee Services,  to align human capital investments with regional strategic priorities.

• Design organizational structures and workforce strategies that strengthen school performance and long-term sustainability.

• Lead long-term workforce planning, succession planning, leadership pipelines, and organizational design.

• Utilize workforce analytics to proactively identify organizational trends and recommend strategic actions.

• Lead cross-functional organizational change initiatives, including restructuring, school transitions, leadership changes, and organizational growth.

• Establish annual people priorities and measurable outcomes for the region.

• Ensure regional HR strategy aligns with enterprise Human Resources priorities while responding to unique Bay Area needs.

 Employee Relations Systems, Leadership Development & Organizational Support 

• Design and continuously improve regional employee relations systems and standard operating procedures that promote consistency, compliance, and timely resolution of employee concerns.

• Develop a tiered employee relations support model that clearly defines responsibilities between principals, school site leaders, regional leaders, and Human Resources.

• Build leadership capacity by coaching principals and regional leaders to confidently navigate performance management, employee coaching, conflict resolution, documentation, and disciplinary action.

• Create practical tools, decision trees, templates, and resources that enable leaders to independently manage routine employee relations matters.

• Establish clear escalation protocols for increasingly complex employee relations issues.

• Lead investigations involving complex employment matters, discrimination, harassment, retaliation, misconduct, and policy violations.

• Identify recurring employee relations trends and redesign systems to reduce risk and improve organizational effectiveness.

• Monitor consistency of employee relations practices across schools while balancing legal compliance and leadership autonomy.

• Lead professional learning for leaders related to employee relations, California employment law, documentation, investigations, and performance management.

 Talent Strategy & Workforce Planning  

• Lead comprehensive regional talent strategy from workforce planning through onboarding and retention.

• Lead the Bay Employee Relations and Talent team which includes Talent Recruiter, Credentials Analyst, and Director of Teacher Residency & Rivet. 

• Supervise members of the  Bay Employee Relations and Talent team.

• Develop proactive recruitment strategies aligned to projected staffing needs.

• Build diverse leadership and teacher pipelines.

• Design retention strategies informed by workforce analytics.

• Oversee executive, principal, regional, certificated, and classified hiring.

• Improve hiring systems and candidate experience.

• Partner with leaders on succession planning and internal talent development.

• Develop metrics to evaluate effectiveness of recruitment and retention strategies.

 LEADERSHIP & ORGANIZATIONAL IMPACT

• Sets the strategic direction for Human Resources across the Bay Area Region.

• Designs organizational systems that improve leader effectiveness and employee experience.

• Builds the Human Resources capacity of school and regional leaders through coaching, systems, and professional learning.

• Creates scalable employee relations structures that allow leaders to effectively address people issues at the appropriate level.

• Drives organizational consistency while empowering school leaders with increased ownership and decision-making.

• Uses workforce analytics to improve organizational performance.

• Advises executive leadership on workforce risks, opportunities, and organizational effectiveness.

• Represents the Bay Area in enterprise Human Resources strategy and policy development.

• Leads through organizational change with a systems-thinking approach.

SCOPE OF RESPONSIBILITY

• Provides strategic human resources leadership for a designated portfolio of Bay Area schools.

• Serves as the primary HR business partner to school leaders and regional leadership.

• Oversees talent acquisition, employee relations, performance management, compliance, retention, and workforce planning across assigned schools.

• Partners with leaders to build strong workplace culture, improve employee engagement, and support organizational effectiveness.

• Ensures consistent implementation of HR policies, practices, and employment law compliance across the Bay Area.

• Partners closely with the Home Office team, including HR Operations, Benefits, and Payroll, to ensure consistent delivery of organization-wide HR services across the Bay Area region. 

• Performs other duties as assigned or needed

QUALIFICATIONS

Education

• Bachelor’s degreeor equivalent work experience in Human Resources, Talent Acquisition, or a related field. 

• Master's degree preferred in Human Resources, Organizational Leadership, Business Administration, Education, or related field preferred.

Experience

• 7+ years of progressively responsible experience in Human Resources, Talent Acquisition, Employee Relations, or related fields.

• 3+ years of leadership experience managing people, programs, and organizational initiatives.

• Demonstrated experience conducting workplace investigations and/or resolving complex employee relations matters.

• Experience leading recruitment strategies, workforce planning, and retention initiatives.

• Experience supporting K–12 education organizations strongly preferred.

Competencies:

• Demonstrated ability to lead recruitment function in a fast paced, customer centric environment

• Experience recruiting within education, public sector, nonprofit, healthcare, or similarly complex organizations. 

• Demonstrated commitment to people-first strategies and approaches

• Self-driven with superior organizational skills, integrity and great follow through; able to lead multiple projects and still meet all deadlines.

• Ability to think strategically and tactically

• Strong verbal, written communication and presentation skills

• Excellent interpersonal skills; proven experience working and collaborating well with various levels 

• Very proficient in Microsoft Outlook/Word/Excel/ PowerPoint 

• Ability to educate others and build trust

• Deep knowledge of California employment law, employee relations practices, and talent acquisition strategies.

• Strong investigation, conflict resolution, and mediation skills.

• Ability to build relationships quickly.  Understand and use relationships to drive effective collaboration with peers and stakeholders.

• Comfort working with data, conducting analysis, seeking insights and making inferences from data to drive future planning

• Curious, innovative, creative and constantly looking for ways to improve 

• Exemplifies Aspire values and high levels of integrity and humility, and interest in Aspire Public Schools mission, vision, value statements, standards, policies and procedures, operating instructions, confidentiality standards, and the code of ethical behavior

Physical requirements:

• Moving self in different positions to accomplish tasks in various environments including tight and confined spaces.

• Remaining in a stationary position, often standing or sitting for prolonged periods.

• Moving about to accomplish tasks or moving from one worksite to another.

• Assessing the accuracy, neatness and thoroughness of the work assigned.

• Communicating with others to exchange information.

• Repeating motions that may include the wrists, hands and/or fingers.

Work authorization requirements: 

• Clear the Department of Justice background screening

• Authorized to work in the United States

• Provide health (TB) clearance (must update every four years)

WORK ENVIRONMENT

The work environment characteristics are representative of those in a normal office, classroom/school setting which one might encounter while performing the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. 

The Senior Director spends the majority of their time partnering directly with school and regional leaders through regular on-site presence across the Bay Area. Success in this role requires visibility, relationship-building, coaching, and in-person support of leaders while leveraging remote work flexibility for focused planning and administrative responsibilities. 

• Work indoors in a standard office environment, computer lab, and/or classroom environment

• Work is performed in indoor and outdoor environments

• Exposure to dust, oils, and cleaning chemicals

• Some exposure to childhood and other diseases in a school environment

• May be required to work outside of typical work days and office hours to meet operational deadlines

EEO STATEMENT

Aspire Public Schools provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training.

This position description intends to describe the general nature and level of work being performed by people assigned to this position. It is not intended to include all duties and responsibilities.  The order in which duties and responsibilities are listed is not significant.