Director of HR Business Partnerships & Employee Relations

About Us

Headquartered in Portland, Oregon, TEC has 30+ locations from Seattle to San Diego to the Midwest, serving thousands of customers across Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Arizona, Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota.

TEC Equipment features Mack and Volvo heavy-duty trucks, Hino and Isuzu medium duty trucks, Stoughton trailers and Cottrell auto transport trailers. We offer a large and desirable inventory of new Mack and Volvo heavy-duty trucks and all makes of used trucks. Our full-service line-up also features quality parts, state-of-the-art service, collision centers and fuel, leasing/rental, financing, and insurance. Our locations are authorized service centers for Mack, Volvo, Cummins, Meritor, Eaton and Fuller warranties. TEC truly offers the convenience of one-stop shopping for all trucking-related needs.

Overview

The Director of HR Business Partnership & Employee Relations owns the strategic and human-judgment side of TEC's people function — partnering with senior leaders to shape the organization, and handling the sensitive, risk-laden situations that protect both employees and the company. Reporting to the EVP of Corporate Services, this role serves as the strategic HR business partner to leaders across the enterprise: advising on organization design, applying compensation plans and structures with managers, and bringing workforce data to bear on people decisions. It also leads employee relations, workplace investigations, and performance management, setting the standard for fair, consistent, and defensible handling of employee matters. The Director co-leads the HR function as a peer to the Director of HR Operations — partnership and people judgment on one side, systems and operations on the other.

Responsibilities

Serve as a Strategic HR Business Partner

• Organization Design: Partner with senior leaders across the enterprise to shape and optimize organizational designs — structures, roles, spans, and reporting relationships — that fit the business model and scale with growth. Advise and recommend; senior leaders decide.
• Compensation Application: Work with managers to apply compensation plans and structures to real pay decisions — translating the models, ranges, and data that HR Operations develops into fair, consistent, well-reasoned outcomes. Guide leaders through comp conversations.
• Workforce Strategy: Partner with leaders on applying the workforce planning materials to their markets — anticipating capability needs, succession, and staffing ahead of demand rather than reacting to it.
• Trusted Advisor: Serve as the strategic people advisor to business-unit leaders, bringing an HR perspective to their planning and helping them make better people decisions.

Lead Employee Relations

• ER Case Management: Own the intake, triage, and resolution of employee relations matters across the enterprise. Bring consistency, fairness, and sound judgment to every case, and maintain defensible documentation throughout.
• Workplace Investigations: Lead prompt, thorough, and impartial investigations into complaints, misconduct, and policy violations. Reach well-reasoned findings and recommend action that is fair and legally sound.
• Conflict Resolution: Serve as a neutral resource for resolving workplace conflict before it escalates. Mediate disputes and coach parties toward durable resolution.

Own Performance & Disciplinary Management

• Performance Management: Own the performance-management framework — coaching plans, improvement plans, and the difficult conversations that come with them. Help managers address performance honestly and early.
• Disciplinary & Termination Process: Guide managers through disciplinary action and terminations, ensuring decisions are consistent, well-documented, and defensible. Serve as the check that protects both the employee and the company.
• Manager Coaching: Coach leaders across the enterprise on handling people issues — raising the quality and consistency of people decisions rather than owning them outright.

Advise on Policy, Risk & Compliance

• Policy Interpretation & Advising: Serve as the go-to interpreter of HR policy and employment law in live situations. Advise leaders on the right course of action when the answer isn't in the handbook.
• Situational Compliance & Risk: Own the risk-sensitive side of compliance — investigations, disciplinary defensibility, and matters with legal exposure. Partner with Legal on high-risk situations.
• Accommodations & Protected Leave (Advisory): Own the judgment calls on contested accommodations and situations that intersect with protected leave, partnering with HR Operations, which administers leave and the interactive process.

Bring People Analytics to Decisions

• Workforce Insight: Translate workforce data — turnover, engagement, movement, cost — into clear, actionable recommendations that senior leaders can act on.
• Evidence for Strategy: Bring data to org-design, comp-application, and workforce-planning conversations so people decisions rest on evidence, not just instinct. Partner with HR Operations, which owns the underlying systems and data.

Strengthen Culture & Engagement

• Engagement & Culture: Champion a healthy, values-aligned workplace culture. Use engagement data and listening tools to identify issues early and advise leadership on where to act.
• Employee Voice: Provide a trusted, confidential channel for employees and a fair process for raising concerns. Close the loop so employees see that issues are taken seriously.

Build and Optimize a Team That Scales

• Team Leadership: Hire, develop, and lead a team of HR and ER professionals who embody TEC's values and culture. Coach for judgment, not just task completion.
• Development Systems: Implement development programs including ramp plans, personal development plans, quarterly feedback, and varied learning methods (on-the-job, shadowing, example-based, direct instruction).
• Budget Ownership: Own the business-partnership and employee-relations budget. Plan, track, and steward departmental resources; make resource-allocation decisions grounded in return and risk.

Serve as a Collaborative HR Leadership Partner

• Shared HR Leadership: Partner closely with the Director of HR Operations to lead the HR function as an integrated department — business partnership and employee relations on one side, operations and systems on the other — ensuring the whole function is aligned in support of the enterprise.

Coordinated Team Support:  Collaborate on priorities, communication, workload planning, and issue resolution so that leaders and employees receive consistent, practical, and timely HR support across the organization.

Qualifications

• Education and/or experience equivalent to a Bachelor's Degree in Human Resources, Business, Management, or a related field. SHRM-SCP / SPHR, or coursework in employment law, is preferred.
• 7+ years of progressive HR experience spanning employee relations and strategic HR business partnership, including prior people-management responsibility.
• Demonstrated experience as an HR business partner to senior leaders — organization design, compensation application, and workforce planning.
• Demonstrated experience leading workplace investigations and resolving complex ER matters.
• Strong command of employment law and its application to real situations (Title VII, ADA, FMLA, FLSA, and state equivalents).
• Experience using workforce data and analytics to inform people decisions.
• Experience operating across multiple locations and business units of varying sophistication.
• Strategic HR judgment — connects people decisions to business outcomes.
• Expert judgment in sensitive, ambiguous, and high-stakes people situations.
• Working knowledge of organization design and compensation structures, and how to apply them with managers.
• Deep knowledge of employment law and the ability to translate it into practical, defensible guidance.
• Skilled investigator — impartial, thorough, and able to reach and document sound conclusions.
• Comfortable with workforce data — reads it, questions it, and turns it into recommendations.
• Excellent conflict-management, coaching, and difficult-conversation skills.
• Discretion and confidentiality; earns trust across all levels of the organization.
• Exceptional written and oral communication and interpersonal skills.
• Builds effective relationships with internal and external partners; organizationally savvy.

Benefits

TEC provides our employees and their families with a full menu of health, wellness, and retirement benefits.

New hires are eligible to participate in TEC Equipment’s comprehensive benefits plan the first of the month following your date of hire.

• Choice of two comprehensive medical plan options that include prescription drug coverage
• Choice of two dental plans that cover preventative and diagnostic care, basic and major services, and orthodontia for children
• Vision care, discounted hearing exams, and hearing aids
• 401(k) retirement savings plan with company contribution
• Life, accident, and disability insurance
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
• Education assistance
• Seven paid holidays, vacation accrual of at least 48 hours per year, and paid sick

Statements

All offers of employment are contingent upon successful completion of all applicable screenings.

We are an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance and the Los Angeles Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.