Director – HR - West Region, Retail Division

Position Summary:

The Human Resources Director leads HR strategy, operations, and service delivery for the West region (~1,000 employees in California, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, and other assigned markets) and the Retail division (~1,000 employees across the country). This hands-on leader serves as a trusted advisor to West and Retail division operations leadership and connects field needs with Talent Acquisition and corporate HR Resources.

The role is accountable for consistent, compliant, and scalable people practices across a distributed high-volume contract security environment. Success requires strong operational judgment, disciplined follow-through, comfort with ambiguity, and the ability to improve processes while maintaining responsive day-to-day HR support.

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Key Responsibilities:

Division and Regional HR Leadership

• Serve as the primary HR leader for the West region and Retail division, ensuring consistent execution of enterprise HR strategies, policies, and service standards.
• Consult with West and Retail division operations leadership on workforce priorities, organizational changes, client startups and transitions, staffing risks, retention, engagement, performance, and employee relations.
• Participate in recurring division and regional leadership forums to understand business conditions, anticipate people needs, and provide practical recommendations before issues escalate.
• Translate operational needs into actional people plans and coordinate the right support across HR, Talent Acquisition, Payroll, Benefits, Legal, Compliance, and other corporate partners.
• Serve as an escalation point for HR service delivery and cross-functional workforce issues, establishing clear owners, next steps, and follow-through.

Talent Acquisition and Workforce Planning Partnership

• Work alongside Talent Acquisition and Operations to anticipate openings, turnover, client transitions, seasonal demand, startups, and other high-volume or time-sensitive hiring needs.
• Reinforce clear decision rights and handoffs: Operations defines the hiring need, job requirements, and schedules; Talent Acquisition manages recruiting and candidate communication through offer acceptance; HR owns post-acceptance onboarding, pre-employment readiness, and orientation coordination.
• Partner with Talent Acquisition to resolve role or candidate questions, remove operational barriers, support priority hiring plans, and ensure West and Retail leaders receive consistent information and direction.
• Monitor onboarding readiness, candidate fallout, and time-to-start trends; identify root causes and coordinate corrective action with Talent Acquisition and Operations.

HR Operations and Employee Lifecycle

• Oversee field-level HR administration from offer acceptance through onboarding and orientation, as well as leaves of absence, benefits support, employee changes, terminations, and offboarding.
• Ensure pre-employment and onboarding requirements are completed accurately and on time, with clear visibility to Operations and Talent Acquisition regarding candidate readiness and exceptions.
• Establish consistent service expectations, ownership, and escalation paths for HR coordinators, onboarders, and other assigned team members supporting West and Retail.
• Partner with Payroll and field leaders to support accurate, timely employee data and payroll processing and to resolve recurring data or process issues.
• Drive disciplined use of HRIS, ATS/onboarding tools, documentation standards, employee files, and audit controls to strengthen data integrity and the employee experience.

Process Improvement, Systems, and Reporting

• Evaluate current HR, recruiting-to-onboarding, and employee lifecycle processes to identify gaps, duplication, unclear ownership, manual work, and compliance risk.
• Design and implement practical improvements, including standard operating procedures, checklists, service-level expectations, decision rights, and escalation protocols.
• Support the enterprise HR and Talent Acquisition operating model by standardizing handoffs while accounting for legitimate state, local, client, and division-specific requirements.
• Use workforce and service-delivery data to identify trends, prioritize issues, measure effectiveness, and provide concise updates and recommendations to leadership.
• Partner on HR technology optimization, workflow automation, testing, training, and change management to improve adoption, transparency, and data quality.
• Build sustainable operating discipline by training stakeholders, documenting changes, and confirming that improved processes are consistently followed.

Compliance, Employee Relations, and Risk Mitigation

• Ensure compliance with federal, state, and local employment requirements, with particular depth in California wage and hour, meal and rest break, paid sick leave, leave, and Cal/OSHA requirements.
• Lead complex and sensitive employee relations matters, including investigations involving harassment, discrimination, retaliation, workplace violence, policy violations, attendance, and performance.
• Oversee internal audits, corrective action practices, required documentation, and remediation plans; identify systemic risk and recommend preventive action.
• Partner with Legal, Compliance, Safety, and Operations on high-risk matters, regulatory inquiries, and client-specific requirements.

Team Leadership and Capability Building

• Lead and develop the HR team supporting West and Retail, setting clear priorities, service expectations, accountability, coverage, and cross-training plans.
• Coach frontline supervisors and operations leaders to strengthen performance management, employee relations, communication, documentation, and day-to-day people leadership.
• Build strong partnerships across functions and divisions, address conflicting direction constructively, and model a collaborative, solutions-oriented approach.

What Success Looks Like

• West and Retail operations leaders have a trusted HR partner who understands the business and responds with clear, practical guidance.
• HR, Talent Acquisition, and Operations work through defined ownership, handoffs, and escalation paths with fewer gaps, delays, and conflicting instructions.
• Onboarding and core HR processes are timely, consistent, compliant, measurable, and scalable across markets.
• Recurring problems are addressed through root-cause analysis and sustainable process improvements—not one-time workarounds.
• The regional and divisional HR team operates with clear priorities, strong accountability, accurate data, and dependable service.

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Qualifications:

• 8+ years of progressive HR experience, including at least 3 years supporting a multi-site, multi-state, hourly workforce.
• Strong command of California labor and employment law is required
• Demonstrated success consulting with senior operations leaders and translating business needs into practical people solutions.
• Proven experience in employee relations, investigations, compliance, HR operations, and leading distributed HR or onboarding teams.
• Experience improving cross-functional processes, clarifying ownership, implementing standard work, and using data to drive decisions.
• Comfort working with HRIS, applicant tracking/onboarding platforms, reporting tools, and workflow automation.
• Excellent judgment, communication, organizational, and influence skills; able to balance urgency, risk, employee experience, and operational needs.
• Ability to travel regularly across the West region and Retail division locations, up to approximately 20%.
• Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Business, or a related field.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience supporting additional Western states is strongly preferred.
• Experience in contract security, retail, staffing, janitorial, hospitality, logistics, or another high-volume service environment is strongly preferred.
• PHR, SPHR, SHRM-CP, or SHRM-SCP certification.

The targeted compensation for the role is $145,000-$155,000 base (DOE) plus bonus.