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Employee Relations Manager – Southeast
The Employee Relations Manager will lead the Employee Relations function for a designated group of Primark retail stores within an assigned region/area (multi-site role). This role will provide in-store and area leadership with guidance and support in the areas of colleague engagement, colleague recognition, conflict management, corrective actions, terminations, employment compliance practices, complaint resolution, investigations, policy interpretation, state/federal legislation compliance, legal risk mitigation, and other employee relations initiatives.
Reports to: Head of Employee and Labor Relations or Senior ER Manager
This role will:
Act as a Primark brand ambassador and role model in furthering our People First culture and always pushing to enhance our Colleague Experience. Help create an open, honest, fair, and transparent working environment. Act as a trusted advisor to the wider Retail Leadership Team and P&C function. Provide strategic and consultative advice and insights within the employee relations functional area to ensure a consistent and quality delivery of the Employee Relations Center of Expertise support, with focus on:
Colleague Engagement & Wellbeing
Learning and Development
Employment and Legal Compliance
Policy & Procedure
Investigations
Reporting & KPIs
Business Alignment & Change
Qualifications
Role Requirements
The Employee Relations Manager will lead the Employee Relations function for a designated group of Primark retail stores within an assigned region/area (multi-site role). This role will provide in-store and area leadership with guidance and support in the areas of colleague engagement, colleague recognition, conflict management, corrective actions, terminations, employment compliance practices, complaint resolution, investigations, policy interpretation, state/federal legislation compliance, legal risk mitigation, and other employee relations initiatives.
Reports to: Head of Employee and Labor Relations or Senior ER Manager
This role will:
Act as a Primark brand ambassador and role model in furthering our People First culture and always pushing to enhance our Colleague Experience. Help create an open, honest, fair, and transparent working environment. Act as a trusted advisor to the wider Retail Leadership Team and P&C function. Provide strategic and consultative advice and insights within the employee relations functional area to ensure a consistent and quality delivery of the Employee Relations Center of Expertise support, with focus on:
Colleague Engagement & Wellbeing
- Develop and encourage the growth of the Primark Culture, protecting and evolving the Primark DNA
- Reinforce and participate in colleague engagement events
- Reinforce existing colleague recognition programs and partner with in-store teams on future recognition opportunities
- Develop strong relationships with management and hourly colleagues to improve colleague engagement
- Help assimilate international assignees to the employee relations landscape specific to the US market
Learning and Development
- Coach and develop in-store P&C Manager capability and confidence to allow them to operate as a first point of contact on ER Matters and be an escalation path for issues they cannot resolve
- Coach and develop in-store retail leadership on effective colleague coaching, delivering colleague feedback, conducting investigations, creating and delivering colleague corrective action, conflict management, and other ER areas
- Create and/or revise as needed formal training content in areas such as Harassment Free Workplace, Violence Prevention, DEI, HIPPA, Labor Relations, and others as needed
- Facilitate formal training to US market colleagues and international assignees
Employment and Legal Compliance
- Ensure policy and regulatory compliance by taking proactive approaches to minimize exposure and costs by thorough oversight of internal store investigations, vendor investigations, and policy interpretation leading to consistent decisional outcomes
- Manage the investigation, response, and resolution of all state/federal agency charges or alleged violations, civil action lawsuits, and internal complaints
- Inspect and confirm in-store investigations are saved and logged with fully completed supporting documents
- Ensure all legally required trainings have been completed in your assigned stores and acknowledgement of completion archived appropriately
- Assess and evaluate the People Risks in your assigned stores and present appropriate solutions to de-risk any issues to Head of Employee and Labor Relations
- Inspect and confirm during in-store visits all legally required city/state/federal postings are present and up to date
- Reviewer and decision maker on adverse applicant background checks
- Liaison between in-store leadership and legal counsel
Policy & Procedure
- Proactively bring forward suggested new and revised employment policies, procedures and processes to improve efficiency of in-store P&C so they have the ability to provide a higher level of support to the stores and mitigate risk to the company
- Coach store management teams to enforce polices consistently and interpret polices as needed
- Partner with various business stakeholders to ensure governance, policies, job postings, job descriptions, Employee Obligations Agreements, job offers, candidate assessments, induction plans, trainings, corrective action documents, and off-boarding materials are in line with legal requirements and Primark policy/ protocol
- Partner with in-store leadership to drive compliance and improved behaviors related to attendance, punctuality and reliability
- Partner with EHS and in-store retail management and P&C teams to ensure employee health and safety policies are appropriately communicated within stores and compliant with all legal requirements
Investigations
- Support in-store retail management and P&C teams on employment investigations
- Lead investigator on highly complex in-store investigations and vendor investigations
- Manage high risk customer complaint investigations
- Ensure workplace investigations are conducted fairly, thoroughly, and legally prior to supporting an appropriate investigation outcome
Reporting & KPIs
- Monitor the KPIs that most impact the running of the business across the Area and take action as appropriate with insight led decision-making
- Support P&C Managers in tackling issues arising from KPI performance scores
- Communicate with US P&C LT and US Leadership Team insights on people matters that may require country-wide intervention
Business Alignment & Change
- Support the Head of Employee and Labor Relations in aligning the ER support to our retail and broader P&C partners as the Primark US brand rapidly grows and evolves
- Contract and support effectively various business stakeholders through revised global ways of working and US specific P&C alignments
- Lead the delivery of organizational change and act as a champion for change in business projects.
- Take a Global and Country perspective (as well as store) to partner with key stakeholders on the delivery of the people agenda and alignment to the direction set in the P&C Strategy and Purpose
- Use data, insights and research to influence decision making and alignment of P&C priorities to the business strategy
- Support P&C projects being developed and rolled out to the retail stores.
Qualifications
- Minimum of 7-10 years HR/ER experience and at least 4 years of Human Resource Manager or Employee Relations Manager level experience
- Preferably having worked as a multi-site HR Manager or ER Manager in the retail sector
- Preferably having conducted and managed internal investigations
- A big (and strategic) thinker, able to deal with ambiguity
- Strong consultative skills and highly effective in communicating clearly and persuasively with the ability to influence at all levels
- Excellent organisational skills and the ability to manage multiple high-priorities in a fast-paced environment
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with a high degree of commercial acumen
- Independent decision maker with the ability to collaborate on decision making if needed
- Self-starter; works well both independently and in a senior consultative in-store role
- Bachelor’s degree preferred
- SHRM-CP or SHRM-SCP preferred
Role Requirements
- This role is a multi-site retail field support role requiring on-site store visits 4 days per week (Store geography may be spread out – substantial travel required)
- This role will support our stores primarily in the Southeast market area and will support others as needed
- Area of responsibility will evolve as the Primark US business grows rapidly over the next few years
