Senior Director, Employee Relations

About the Job:

The Senior Director, Employee Relations is the senior leader accountable for enterprise-wide employee relations strategy, governance, and outcomes. This role sets the direction for ER risk management, investigation standards, and decision quality across the organization, ensuring consistent, fair, and legally defensible practices at scale. The Sr Director leads the Employee Relations function, serving as a primary advisor to executive leaders, HR leadership, and Legal on high risk ER issues and systemic risk. The role provides leadership for complex matters and escalations, builds team capability, and drives continuous improvement of ER operating models, tools, and standards in partnership with key stakeholders.

What You'll Do:

• Enterprise ER Strategy, Governance & Risk Leadership

• Set enterprise ER strategy and governance, including standards for investigations, case management, escalation thresholds, and risk controls.

• Accountable for the organization's ER risk posture and precedent framework, ensuring consistent decision-making and defensibility across teams, functions, and geographies.

• Advise executive and senior business leaders on complex, high-stakes workforce decisions; align with HR and Legal on options, implications, and risk mitigation.

• Oversight, Escalations & Advisory

• Provide oversight for the most sensitive investigations and ER matters, ensuring rigor, defensibility, and alignment with enterprise standards.

• Translate complex risk scenarios into clear executive options and recommendations, driving timely, principled, and consistent outcomes.

• Partner with ER and HR leadership and Legal to identify emerging ER risks and trends, and drive enterprise actions to address systemic issues.

• Functional Leadership, Capability & Operating Model

• Lead and develop the ER team, setting expectations for quality, consistency, and service delivery; establish operating rhythms and performance standards.

• Provide coaching to ER leaders, HRBPs, and managers on complex or escalated matters; ensure appropriate escalation pathways and consistent application of precedent.

• Drive continuous improvement of ER operating models, tools, guidance, and analytics; partner cross-functionally to strengthen prevention, early intervention, and risk reduction.

• Enterprise Change, Workforce Actions & Stakeholder Leadership

• Lead ER strategy and governance for enterprise-wide change, restructures, reductions in force, or other high-impact workforce actions.

• Advise executives on decision sequencing, communications, and mitigation strategies to protect trust, employee experience, and risk posture.

• Represent ER in enterprise governance forums and high-visibility discussions, influencing outcomes and ensuring alignment across HR, Legal, and business leadership.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Business, Law or related field.
• 12+ years of progressive experience in employee relations, investigations, and/or HR risk leadership, including people and/or functional leadership.
• Demonstrated success leading enterprise-level, executive-impact ER strategy, escalations, and complex workforce actions.
• Exceptional judgment, executive presence, and ability to influence senior leaders across HR, Legal, and the business.
• Proven ability to think systemically about risk, precedent, and organizational impact.
• Advanced written and verbal communication skills, including executive‑level advisory materials.

Strategic ER Advisory & Risk Management

• Integrates investigation acumen, dispute resolution, statutes & regulation, and risk management
• Anticipates, assesses, and mitigates enterprise workforce risk
• Guides senior leaders through high-stakes, sensitive ER matters with clear recommendations

Organizational Savvy & Influence

• Combines organizational savvy + cross-functional partnering & negotiation
• Navigates complexity, aligns stakeholders, and drives outcomes without direct authority
• Operates effectively across leadership layers, including SLT-facing situations

Executive Communication & Narrative Building

• Synthesizes adaptive + technical communication
• Translates complex ER issues into clear, concise, executive-ready messaging
• Influences decisions through credible, calm, and structured communication

ER Practice Leadership & Continuous Improvement

• Draws from policy & procedure, project management, prioritization, professional curiosity
• Evolves ER approaches, modernizes processes, and scales best practices
• Balances day-to-day execution with forward-looking design

Workforce Insight & Organizational Dynamics

• Combines organizational dynamics + customer centricity
• Applies behavioral insight to diagnose issues, shape culture, and improve leader effectiveness
• Drives solutions that are practical, human-centered, and business-aligned

Integrity, Judgment & HR Ethics

• Anchored in HR ethics + crisis management
• Exercises sound judgment under pressure, especially in ambiguous or high-risk scenarios
• Builds trust through transparency, discretion, and consistency
• .

#LI-Onsite, #LI-Hybrid

Compensation Range:

Pay Range- Start:

$130,800.00

Pay Range- End:

$196,200.00

Geographic Specific Pay Structure:

Structure 110:

$143,920.00 USD - $215,880.00 USD

Structure 115:

$150,400.00 USD - $225,600.00 USD

We believe in fairness and transparency. It's why we share the salary range for most of our roles. However, final salaries are based on a number of factors, including the skills and experience of the candidate; the current market; location of the candidate; and other factors uncovered in the hiring process. The standard pay structure is listed but if you're living in California, New York City or other eligible location, geographic specific pay structures, compensation and benefits could be applicable, click here to learn more.

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Northwestern Mutual is an equal opportunity employer that welcomes talented individuals of all backgrounds. We are committed to creating and maintaining an environment in which each employee can contribute creative ideas, seek challenges, assume leadership and continue to focus on meeting and exceeding business and personal objectives.