We need an HR leader who occasionally wonders why HR does things the way HR does things.
CommUnity is about to get a lot bigger.
Not "we hired twelve people this year" bigger.
We're growing from roughly 150 employees to nearly 400.
Quickly.
We operate 24/7 crisis services. Our employees answer calls and texts from people experiencing some of the hardest moments of their lives. They respond in the community. They work overnight. They support young people in crisis. They feed families. And now our work is expanding significantly across the country.
Which means this is probably a terrible time for mediocre HR.
So we're looking for someone exceptional.
Someone who can help us build a People & Culture function for a 400-person organization without turning CommUnity into the kind of workplace where employees need a flowchart to figure out who can approve a new stapler.
A few things we believe.
People are adults.
Most people want to do good work.
Managers should actually manage.
Employees deserve grace.
Grace and accountability can coexist.
Policies should solve actual problems.
Not every problem requires a new policy.
Sometimes the employee is right.
Sometimes the manager is right.
Sometimes everyone has made a bit of a mess and we need someone smart enough to help us untangle it.
HR should make an organization better - not merely less likely to get sued.
And "that's how we've always done it" is not a particularly compelling argument around here.
That's where you come in.
You'll be CommUnity's senior People & Culture leader and report directly to the CEO.
You'll supervise our HR Manager and help determine what the rest of the People & Culture team should look like as we grow.
Some things are already working beautifully. Some things were built for an organization less than half our new size. Some things probably need to disappear altogether. We want you to be able to tell the difference.
You'll have real authority to build.
That means looking at our HR structure, systems, policies, technology, onboarding, employee relations, performance management, manager development, workforce data and employee experience - and helping us create something that actually works for 400 employees. Not theoretically. Actually.
We want HR to be a place people trust.
That does not mean HR automatically takes the employee's side. It doesn't mean automatically taking management's side either.
It means listening. Being curious. Finding out what actually happened. Understanding context. Knowing employment law. Using good judgment.
Recognizing when someone needs compassion. Recognizing when someone needs coaching. Recognizing when a manager needs coaching. Recognizing when a system is causing the problem. And recognizing when someone simply isn't meeting expectations.
Then doing something about it. Fairly. Clearly. Promptly. Like a human.
You'll help us make managers better at managing.
We don't want managers shipping every uncomfortable conversation to HR. Your job isn't to become the principal's office.
We want you building managers who can give feedback, set expectations, resolve conflict, recognize great work, address poor performance and have difficult conversations without becoming either terrifying or completely useless.
HR should coach them. HR should challenge them. HR should occasionally save them from themselves. But HR shouldn't do their jobs for them.
Culture is part of your job. The real kind.
We're not talking about pizza parties. Although we're not opposed to pizza.
We're talking about the thousand little decisions that determine whether people experience an organization as fair, humane and trustworthy.
Who gets heard. How decisions get explained. Whether leaders do what they say they'll do. Whether good employees have opportunities to grow. Whether poor performance is allowed to become everyone else's problem. Whether employees can make a mistake without feeling like the world is ending. Whether policies make sense. Whether people feel comfortable saying, "Hey, I think we got this wrong." Whether our values survive becoming a much larger organization.
That's culture. You'll help us protect it - and evolve it as we grow.
You should probably enjoy data, too.
At 150 employees, you can know a surprising amount about what's happening by talking to people. At 400, that's no longer enough.
We want to understand our workforce: who's leaving, who's staying, where we're struggling to hire, whether new employees are staying, where attendance issues are emerging, where compensation is getting compressed, where employee relations concerns are clustering, and whether we're developing and promoting people from within.
We want someone who can turn workforce information into actual organizational decisions - not a 37-page report everyone politely ignores.
You might be our person if...
You have significant HR or People & Culture experience and know employment law well enough to understand when something is genuinely risky and when someone is just saying, "HR says we can't."
You've led people. You've built things. You've inherited things that made absolutely no sense and made them better.
You can move between strategy and reality without getting lost in either.
You're curious about why employees behave the way they do. You're equally curious about why organizations behave the way they do.
You can be warm without being a pushover. You can be firm without being authoritarian. You don't confuse professionalism with formality.
You can sit with an employee who's having a genuinely awful day and then walk into a leadership meeting and talk about turnover trends.
You're comfortable telling a manager something they don't particularly want to hear. You're willing to disagree with the CEO. Respectfully, preferably.
You believe HR should have a backbone, a brain and a heart.
And the idea of helping design the people function for a rapidly growing organization sounds exciting rather than horrifying.
Credentials are lovely. Judgment is better.
A bachelor's degree? Great. SHRM or another HR certification? Also great. Neither one automatically makes someone good at this job.
We're much more interested in what you've built, how you think, how you've handled complicated people situations and whether you understand how to create a workplace where employees and the organization can thrive.
Experience in behavioral health, healthcare, human services, nonprofits or another 24/7 environment would certainly help. Experience navigating rapid organizational growth would help even more.
We're looking for meaningful progressive experience in human resources, People & Culture, organizational development or a closely related field, including experience supervising others and handling complex employee relations matters.
What will you actually own?
Quite a bit. You'll lead CommUnity's People & Culture function, including:
People & Culture strategy and HR team development
Supervision and development of the HR Manager and other assigned People & Culture staff
Employee relations and complex workplace matters
Manager coaching and leadership development
Performance management and accountability systems
Workforce planning and organizational growth
Recruitment and retention strategy
Administration and implementation of CEO-approved compensation structures and pay practices
Employee engagement and workplace culture
HR policies, practices and employee handbook development
HR systems, workflows and process improvement
Workforce analytics and reporting
Employment law compliance
Investigations and appropriate response to workplace concerns
Leave, accommodation and other employment practices
Onboarding and employee experience
Succession planning and internal talent development
Partnership with leadership on organizational structure and workforce needs
You'll work closely with the CEO and organizational leadership while maintaining the independence and judgment necessary to lead a credible People & Culture function. The CEO retains authority for compensation philosophy, workplace culture vision and expectations and executive compensation decisions.
Here's the challenge.
By this time next year, we want CommUnity's People & Culture function to feel like it belongs in a 400-person organization - without CommUnity feeling like a 400-person bureaucracy.
Employees should know where to go for help. Managers should know how to manage. Performance problems shouldn't linger for six months because everyone is afraid to have a conversation.
Our systems should work. Our policies should make sense. Our HR team should know exactly what they own. Our leaders should understand what's happening in our workforce because we're measuring the things that matter.
Strong employees should see a future here. People who are struggling should get clear feedback and a fair opportunity to improve. And employees should still feel like people here.
That's the job.
One last thing.
CommUnity is growing because people have trusted us with some extraordinarily important work. We take that responsibility seriously.
We also know the people doing that work are our organization.
So we're not looking for someone to simply "run HR."
We're looking for someone to help us answer a much more interesting question:
How do you build an exceptional workplace for 400 people doing incredibly difficult work without losing the heart, soul and humanity of our organization along the way?
If you've spent your career thinking about that question too, we'd really like to meet you.
Pay: $78,000.00 - $90,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- 401(k)
- 401(k) matching
- Dental insurance
- Employee assistance program
- Flexible schedule
- Flexible spending account
- Health insurance
- Life insurance
- Paid time off
- Parental leave
- Retirement plan
- Vision insurance
Experience:
- Human resources management: 5 years (Required)
Location:
Work Location: Remote
