You're an experienced People leader with at least 5 years navigating complex organizational dynamics and advising on sensitive employee relations cases. A Bache
Work type: hybrid
Location: Chicago, Illinois, United States
Salary: $92,000 – $114,900/yr
Type: Full-time
You're an experienced People leader with at least 5 years navigating complex organizational dynamics and advising on sensitive employee relations cases. A Bachelor's degree is required. **What makes it worth a look...** This full-time, hybrid role at Braven offers a competitive salary of $92,000 - $114,900 per year. Braven also provides unlimited vacation time, $25,000 in fertility benefits, 401K matching up to 5%, and 12 weeks of paid parental leave. **You might be a good fit if you...** * Have managed employee relations investigations and performance improvement plans. * Can synthesize people data and inform retention strategies. * Are proficient with G-Suite (Slides, Docs), Slack, and Asana. * Have experience working with HR, legal, or compliance functions.
Job Title: Director, People & Culture Business Partner
Team: People
Location: In-Person Chicago (IL)
Employment Type: Full-Time
FLSA Classification: Exempt
Start Date: ASAP
## About Braven
Braven is a national nonprofit that prepares promising college students to secure a strong first opportunity after college graduation through a career-accelerating program.
We work with higher education and employer partners to offer a life-changing experience that begins with a semester-long course for college students, followed by support that lasts through graduation.
Together, our ambition is to help rebuild the middle class and revitalize the American Dream.
To learn more, take a look at Braven’s Jobs Report.
## About the Role
In order to achieve its ambition of serving 80,000 to 100,000 Fellows over the next decade, Braven is hiring a Human Resources Business Partner who will serve as a trusted thought partner to the Head of People, bringing deep employee relations expertise and the strategic instincts of a senior people practitioner to one of the most consequential roles on the People team.
This role is the connective tissue between individual employee experience and organizational health. The HR Business Partner owns Braven's employee relations function end to end, serves as an embedded advisor to managers and staff across the organization, and partners closely with the Head of People on retention strategy, change management, and the people data insights that inform how the team operates and evolves. This person also ensures the Head of People can lead at the right altitude by owning knowledge management, synthesizing people data across functions, and serving as a strategic coordination resource across the People team.
This role requires someone who can hold complexity with care, moving fluidly between a sensitive employee relations matter and a high stakes briefing for an executive audience. This role reports directly to the Head of People and sits on the People leads team. There is no direct supervisory responsibility at this time.
## What You'll Do
Employee Relations and Organizational Business Partnering (40%)
• Serve as a trusted, visible business partner to managers, directors, and staff across the organization, providing counsel on people-related matters with a consistent, equitable, and legally sound lens.
• Own all employee relations investigations, performance improvement plans, and incident management for all cases below the Alignment Team level, ensuring fair process, thorough documentation, and timely resolution; partner with the Head of People and, where appropriate, General Counsel on complex or high-stakes matters.
• Coach and influence people managers on navigating employee situations, delivering feedback, and stewarding a culture of accountability and belonging; build a body of manager capability work over time that connects directly to employee experience and retention.
• Partner with the Director, Learning and Culture, and the Director, Learning and Development, to think comprehensively about the intersection of relations, culture, and development; this role has a genuine opportunity to shape how Braven grows its people, contributing to ERG strategy, belonging initiatives, and staff recognition in ways that make the employee relations function additive to culture rather than purely reactive.
• Coordinate with the Director, People Operations, on leave of absence and workplace accommodation cases, serving as an escalation resource for complex or sensitive situations, and identify and escalate broader employee relations risks to the Head of People at the right altitude and time.
Retention, Exits, and Change Management (30%)
• In partnership with the Head of People, own Braven's retention strategy: analyze patterns across exit data, engagement signals, and people trends to develop and implement targeted retention initiatives across the organization
• Own the exit interview process end to end: conduct exit interviews with departing staff, maintain a structured process for data collection and synthesis, and surface insights that inform retention strategy and organizational health
• Serve as the primary owner of change management efforts from an organizational and employee relations perspective, ensuring major decisions and initiatives are implemented with attention to staff impact, equitable process, and cultural continuity
• Partner with the Director, Learning and Culture, on the staff experience dimension of change and with the Director, Learning and Development, on the learning design dimension, maintaining clear ownership of the ER and organizational impact lens
• Analyze employee relations trends, ethics data points, and repeat risk indicators to proactively surface patterns and reduce ER volume and compliance exposure over time
People Team Strategic Support (20%)
• Serve as a senior thought partner to the Head of People across all People team functions, supporting effective decision-making, prioritization, and cross-functional alignment
• Own knowledge management for the People team: build and maintain a system of record for team resources, policies, and documentation, and champion best practices in knowledge sharing across the team
• Liaise with the Systems team data analyst and the Head of People to synthesize people data across functions, surfacing insights on ER trends, engagement signals, workforce patterns, and organizational health to inform People team strategy
• Partner with the Director, Talent Acquisition, on the org design and role structure dimension of workforce planning, bringing an equity and organizational effectiveness lens to headcount decisions
• Create briefing documents, slides, and other materials that accurately represent the Head of People's perspective to executive audiences and key partners
• Communicate People team updates, policy changes, and program launches to staff with clarity and care
General Support and Other Duties (10%)
• Support the People team in gathering and synthesizing organizational needs through surveys, listening sessions, and service level agreement reviews
• Communicate with contractors and draft scopes of work for the Head of People's review and approval
• Other duties as assigned
## Minimum Requirements
• Bachelor's degree
• At least 5 years of experience in a role that required navigating complex interpersonal and organizational dynamics, advising others through difficult situations, and driving fair, consistent outcomes
• Demonstrated experience managing sensitive or high-stakes cases that required sound judgment, thorough documentation, and the ability to hold multiple stakeholders' interests simultaneously
• Experience working with or alongside HR, legal, compliance, or operations functions in a way that required understanding organizational policy, risk, and process
• Proven project management skills with the ability to manage multiple workstreams, competing deadlines, and cross-functional stakeholders
Preferred Qualifications
• PHR/SPHR or SHRM-CP/SCP certification
• 1 to 3 years of experience in the nonprofit sector
• Genuine passion for People work and a belief that strong employee relations and strategic partnership are foundational to organizational health
• Ability to hold complexity: this person must be both a trusted confidant for employees navigating difficult situations and a strategic operator advancing organizational priorities
• Strong written communication skills, including the ability to craft clear, compelling materials for executive audiences
• Excellent capacity to independently discern what work is most important and take responsibility for actions, tasks, and deadlines
• Ability and comfort with building and iterating; capable of crafting innovative solutions while continuously refining and improving existing processes
• Dedication to maintaining confidentiality and professional integrity
• Experience working cross-functionally to build relationships, influence peers, and collaborate
• Strong proficiency in G-Suite (especially Slides and Docs), Slack, Asana, and people systems
• Demonstrated commitment to building welcoming, open, and collaborative environments
• You exemplify Braven’s core values
• Your experiences have informed your belief in Braven’s mission and have prepared you to work with, or for, Braven’s student Fellow population
_Please know that no one ever meets 100% of the preferred qualifications. If much of this describes you, we encourage you to apply._
Work Demands
• Ability to work in person in Chicago (IL)
• Ability to travel 4 to 5 times per year for team meetings and organizational events
Additional Requirements
• Authorized to work in the U.S.
• Braven does not offer employment visa sponsorship
Application & Interview Process
While the interview process may vary slightly, the general process will be:
• Phone screen with Talent Team member
• Performance Task
• Interview with Hiring Manager
• Panel Interview with Key Partners
• Reference Checks
## Compensation and Benefits
Braven offers competitive base salaries based on the midpoint of the market among not-for-profit organizations of similar size, with opportunities for salary growth over time. We believe in compensating staff members fairly in relation to each other, their qualifications, and their impact on behalf of the organization, and take internal and external equity seriously. Given our commitment to equity, Braven does not negotiate salary offers; instead, each salary offer is determined carefully using external and internal benchmarking.
Starting salary within the range is determined by role scope and qualifications, with new hires starting at the lower end to allow for growth with performance. Braven does not base compensation on individual candidate salary expectations and is committed to maintaining internal equity. The salary ranges, by geographic market, for this role are set forth $92,000 -$114,900 in Chicago. This is a full-time, regular, exempt, and benefits eligible position where you will be working at 100% capacity.
Braven also provides competitive, comprehensive benefits, recognition, and career development. While Braven reserves the right to change benefits at any time, current benefits include:
• Unlimited vacation time in addition to org-wide holidays and week-long shutdowns in July and the end of the calendar year (this is a minimum of 19 days per year)
• Braven supports your path to parenthood and beyond with $25,000 in lifetime Carrot benefits for fertility, family-building, and hormonal health
• Match of your 401K contribution up to 5% of your base annual salary, starting your first full month
• Coverage of 85% of health insurance premium for employee and dependents
• 12 weeks of paid parental leave
• A one-month paid sabbatical after 4 years on staff
Location
We gather in the office 3 days a week (Tuesday through Thursday) and work remotely 2 days a week (Monday and Friday). Therefore, we require teammates to live within commuting distance of one of our hubs: Chicago. We believe in the magic, connection, and collaboration that happens when people work together face-to-face, and we believe in giving people flexibility to focus, balance personal priorities, and save themselves two commutes per week.