Human Resources Manager

Human Resources Manager

Job Description

DEPARTMENT: Administration

REPORTS TO: CEO

LOCATION: Santa Rosa Headquarters

FLSA STATUS: Regular, Full Time, Exempt

JOB CLASSIFICATION: L6 - Senior Managers

Position Summary

This position reports to the CEO and oversees Human Resources including staff culture, compensation and benefits, Ceres' performance review process, staff training and promotion pathways, and compliance with HR laws and regulations.


The Human Resources Manager role requires the ability to maintain confidentiality about sensitive human resources issues, along with personal tact, integrity, judgment, and initiative. The position manages the HR Coordinator and staffs the board HR Committee.

Essential Functions and Responsibilities

Strategy and Organizational Leadership (10%)

• Translates Ceres's strategic priorities into annual goals; tracks external trends, opportunities, and threats, and integrates learning into on-going planning; ensures that goals and plans are transparently developed with clear accountability.
• Nurtures a collaborative, unified, positive, equitable, and inclusive culture across Ceres; models teamwork, effective decision-making, and candor in interactions; and ensures a positive and empowering performance culture, with the right role clarity and tools for colleagues to succeed. Consistently models Ceres' Operating Principles and Operating Agreements.
• Participates in regular meetings of senior management, the board of directors and select committees of the board; helps create the overall organizational strategy and key indicators of success; creates and coordinates organizational processes and technology needed for the definition, tracking and reporting of program and department performance; creates and continually represents a unified leadership perspective.
• Participates in the budget-development process and maintains a high level of fiscal responsibility.

Human Resources (90%)

• Oversees the development and implementation of policies and practices that strengthen Ceres' ability to attract and retain talented staff, including recruiting, onboarding, training and staff development, performance reviews, compensation, and organizational culture.
• Ensures compliance with all employment regulations and best practices, including required/mandated trainings, workplace safety programs and injury and illness prevention plans, workplace violence prevention requirements, timesheet reporting and wage and hour regulations, CFRA, FMLA, COBRA, ADA and EEO, unemployment insurance, worker's compensation and other applicable state and federal laws.
• Develops and oversees effective systems for recruiting, hiring and onboarding new staff, including ensuring that 30-60-90 day reviews are completed in a way that contributes to retention of the right staff.
• Conducts or oversees workplace investigations involving employee complaints, policy violations, harassment, discrimination, retaliation, and other employee relation matters, ensuring timely, impartial, and well documented investigations.
• Oversees employee leave administration, including CFRA, Pregnancy Disability Leave, ADA/FEHA accommodations, worker's compensation leave, bereavement leave, and related interactive process requirements.
• Oversees compensation practices, conducts compensation analyses, supports pay equity initiatives, and ensures compliance with California pay transparency and equal pay requirements.
• Leads decision-making and processes around difficult staff situations including restorative conversations and planned and unplanned terminations. Ensures thorough and accurate documentation of any HR issues to back-up performance-related decisions and compliance with all processes; provides effective guidance to managers.
• Serves as a point person for HR questions from staff and managers.
• Establishes and manages annual performance review process, including training managers. Ensures managers are documenting any performance issues. Reviews documents for areas of concern and to identify additional training/resources needed.
• Administers and manages employee benefits programs (health insurance, 401k, vacation and sick time, professional development and wellness dollars), ensuring compliance with regulations and plan requirements; maintains accurate benefits deductions in payroll system.
• Oversees biweekly payroll processing.
• Ensures compliance with California wage and hour requirements, including meal and rest period requirements, timekeeping practices, final pay obligations, payroll audits, timecard attestation, and wage statement compliance.
• Conducts, analyzes and reports on Ceres' annual employee engagement survey, identifying positive progress as well as areas for attention.
• With CEO and senior leaders, oversees staffing and salary decisions that are fair, equitable and assist in retaining key staff, and fosters practices that support and strengthen Ceres' culture and values.
• Maintain the organization's Bamboo HR platform, ensuring accurate and up to date documentation for all employees.
• Maintain HR records and documentation in compliance with personnel file, medical file, I-9, and record retention requirements under federal and California law.
• Supports the staff Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging team and the Culture Champions team.
• Provides staff support to the board HR Committee including working with the committee chair to create the agenda.

Qualifications

• A commitment to Ceres Community Project's Mission and Operating Principles.
• At least 3 years managing HR for a high-growth nonprofit organization with at least 30 employees.
• High-level knowledge of HR benefits and compliance including FLSA, EEOC, ADA, DOL, OSHA, EDD and CFRA FMLA, worker's compensation, unemployment insurance, wage and hour laws, leave administration, employee relations, and workplace investigations.
• Advanced technology skills including HR platforms (Bamboo/Trax preferred), databases (Salesforce preferred), and MS Office Suite (Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint, SharePoint).
• Experience in a senior management role, partnering with executive staff, resulting in the development and implementation of creative HR and/or operational strategies.
• Proven track record of success facilitating progressive organizational change strategies within a rapidly growing organization; ability to engage and influence direct and indirect reports and peers.
• Highly developed communication skills with the ability to represent the organization across a wide range of internal and external stakeholders and constituencies; understanding of and ability to manage highly confidential information; and plan and execute difficult performance review, feedback and termination conversations.
• Entrepreneurial team player with the ability to effectively manage multiple, high-stakes projects and to adapt to rapidly changing priorities.
• Understanding of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion principles and desire to implement them at
• Ability and desire to be in a work environment that values working as a team, relationships, and giving and receiving honest feedback
• BA or equivalent experience.

Physical Demands

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by a staff member to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to stand or sit at a workstation; use hands and fingers to operate a computer keyboard and mouse; talk and hear to communicate with coworkers.

Light to moderate lifting of up to 30 pounds, bending, stooping and climbing a ladder is occasionally required.

Regular, predictable attendance is required.

Work Environment

The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those a teammate encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• Moderate noise (i.e., nonprofit setting with office equipment, conversation from adjacent coworkers).
• Ability to work indoors for the majority of the day.
• Ability to sit or stand at a computer terminal for an extended period of time.
• Occasional evening hours; very rarely weekend hours.

This job description is not an exclusive or exhaustive list of all job functions that an employee in this position may be asked to perform from time to time. All employees are to maintain a positive work atmosphere by acting and communicating in a manner so that you get along with customers, clients, co-workers, management and stakeholders.


Operating Principles

• Heart Centered & Love Guided - We are committed to expressing love, trust, respect and integrity in our lives, work, and organization.
• Everything Matters - Nothing is left out. We work to have every action and choice lead to the greatest positive impact.
• Young People are the Future - Young People are intelligent, responsible, capable, creative, and caring, and must be central participants in shaping our collective future.
• Equitable, Diverse, and Inclusive - We commit to championing policies and practices of social equity that build a diverse, inclusive, and healthy workplace and food system.

About Ceres Community Project

Founded in 2007, Ceres Community Project works to foster health for people, communities and the planet through love, healing food and empowering the next generation.

Ceres Community Project's Community Health model provides free and low-cost 100% organic medically tailored meals, nutrition education and caring support to people living with serious, chronic and complex health conditions. The model embeds a Youth Development Program where 14-19 year-old youth learn to grow, cook and eat healthy foods, develop job and leadership skills, and experience their value as contributing members of the community. A robust adult volunteer program supports all aspects of Ceres' work and strengthens social connections and healthy eating across the community. Ceres' Community Health model improves healthy eating behaviors among clients, teens and adult volunteers and educates the whole community about the link between healthy eating and the health of both people and planet. It also strengthens the social fabric of the community, another factor that is at the root of health. In times of disaster, Ceres is an emergency nutrition provider for our community.

Ceres delivers meals throughout Marin, Sonoma, Napa and Solano counties. Our operations include a Santa Rosa, California headquarters location and two youth-run 1.5-acre food productions gardens. Ceres has trained more than 15 communities around the United States and internationally to replicate our model. We are also active at the state and national level advocating for policies that support equitable access to healthy food and health care, including reimbursement for medically tailored meals by insurers. For more information, please visit

Ceres Community Project is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All employment decisions at Ceres are made without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, national origin/ancestry, age, disability, marital & veteran status or any other status protected by laws or regulations