Senior Employee Relations Partner

Job Summary

The Sr. Employee Relations Partner serves as a trusted senior advisor and strategic partner to leadership and employees on matters related to workplace culture, performance, compliance, and risk mitigation. The Sr. Employee Relations Partner provides advanced employee relations consultation and collaborates cross‑functionally with Legal, Compliance, and Human Resources Centers of Excellence, including HR Business Partners, Talent Acquisition, Total Rewards, and Employee Learning & Experience to promote an equitable, compliant, and high‑performing work environment.

The Sr. Employee Relations Partner independently conducts complex, high‑risk investigations, provides strategic consultation to senior leadership, influences organizational culture through Employee Relations insights, and mentors Employee Relations team members. This role handles the most legally sensitive cases, including director‑level and above issues and discrimination, harassment, retaliation, workplace misconduct investigations.

Job Specifications and Core Competencies

Complex, High‑Risk Investigations & Legal Defensibility

– Independently lead complex investigations involving allegations of discrimination, harassment, retaliation, hostile work environment, leadership misconduct, ethics violations, and policy breaches.

– Serve as Employee Relations primary investigator for senior leadership and escalates executive leadership concerns to upper leadership.

– Write comprehensive, legally defensible investigative reports.

– Partner with Compliance and Legal on legally significant cases to ensure Employee Relations practices are aligned with federal, state, and local employment laws.

– Assist with initiatives to strengthen compliance readiness and audit preparedness.

– Assess patterns of behavior and identify systemic risk areas needing organizational intervention.

Strategic Consultation

– Serve as a subject matter expert for senior leaders on performance, culture, behavior, conflict resolution, and corrective action strategy.

– Identify organizational risks and recommend preventative measures.

– Provide strategic input into organizational culture, psychological safety, team climate, and leadership accountability trends.

– Coach and train leaders through complex and high‑risk Employee Relations matters.

– Influence leaders to adopt best practices in communication, documentation, and decision‑making.

Mentoring, Quality Assurance & Capability Building

– Review investigative work of Employee Relations team members to ensure quality, neutrality, completeness, and compliance.

– Coach and train Employee Relations team members on investigation techniques, case guidance, report writing, documentation standards and communication strategies to develop team capability.

– Serve as an escalation point for Employee Relations team members seeking technical or legal guidance.

– Conduct training and onboarding of new Employee Relations staff.

– Support quality assurance standards for Employee Relations.

– Participate in Human Resources annual policy review.

Organizational Impact & Culture Reinforcement

– Promote a culture of professionalism, accountability, equity, and psychological safety.

– Drive consistency and alignment across departments to ensure equitable treatment and fair application of policy.

– Coach and train leaders on performance management, difficult conversations, and building high‑performing teams.

– Responsible for educating new leaders during New Leadership Orientation and serve as the back‑up for educating new hires during New Employment Orientation on employee relations matters.

– Partner with HR Business Partners and Employee Learning & Experience to assist leaders on retention of top talent, skill readiness, and succession planning priorities.

– Provide progressive recommendations to reduce employee relations escalations and strengthen leader capability enterprise‑wide.

Data, Trend Analysis & Reporting

– Analyze complex data sets to identify Employee Relations trends, root causes, and emerging risks across business units.

– Assist with presenting findings and recommendations to Human Resources leadership and senior leadership.

– Assist with tracking Employee Relations KPIs: investigation timeliness, corrective action patterns, turnover drivers, repeat case trends and leadership escalations.

Other Duties as Assigned

– Support cross‑functional projects, department initiatives, and Human Resources‑led organizational priorities.

– Actively contribute to achievement of departmental goals, including specific departmental process improvement plans.

Reports to: Manager, Employee Relations

Qualifications

• Education: Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Public Administration, Psychology or related field required; Master's degree preferred.
• Certification: SHRMP‑CP, SCP, HRCI‑PHR, or SPHR preferred.
• Experience: 6 years in Employee Relations or equivalent, including complex, high‑risk investigations, performance management, compliance advisory, and training delivery.
• Software proficiency: High proficiency with HRIS software, Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook); advanced MS Office skills preferred.
• Strategic influence & leadership impact: Confidently consults with Directors, VPs and Executive leaders; makes sound recommendation in high‑pressure, ambiguous situations; strong emotional intelligence and diplomacy.
• Advanced investigative expertise: Mastery of witness interviewing techniques; ability to analyze conflicting evidence; skilled in legal‑style documentation and expert in neutrality, due process, and fairness.
• Complex consultation skills and ability to seek out information and work effectively with all levels of employees.
• Knowledge of employment law (Title VII, ADA, FMLA, ADEA, federal, state and local statutes).
• Ability to manage a high volume of Employee Relations cases and build strong working relationships across all levels of the organization.
• Excellent planning, organization and time‑management skills, attention to detail; ability to handle multiple tasks in a fast‑paced environment.
• Demonstrated knowledge of employment law; applies legal reasoning without overstepping into attorney functions.

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