Job Summary

The HR Manager will serve as a leader, managing all human resources functions for our non-union manufacturing facility of over one hundred on-site employees, plus a growing remote corporate workforce spread across multiple U.S. states and Canada. This role requires a highly organized individual who can balance high-level strategic planning with daily hands-on execution of tasks. The primary focus is managing full-cycle recruitment, building positive employee relations, handling payroll administrative duties, and ensuring strict labor law compliance.

Core Responsibilities

Benefits, Payroll & Compensation

• Benefits administration: Oversee health insurance, retirement plans, paid time off, and leave of absence programs (FMLA/ADA). This includes annual benefit renewals, as well as retirement plan and workers compensation annual audits.
• Payroll oversight: Bi-weekly processing of payroll for employees in the U.S. and Canada.
• Wage auditing: Conduct local market wage surveys to ensure manufacturing roles remain competitive against area competitors.

System Ownership & Standalone Administration

• HRIS management: Serve as the primary administrator for the HRIS platform (currently Paylocity), optimizing modules for recruiting, onboarding, performance, time tracking, payroll, and others.
• Solo execution: Personally execute all administrative HR paperwork, employee files, onboarding, and offboarding without administrative support.

Multi-State Compliance & Remote Support

• Nexus compliance: Monitor, interpret, and enforce compliance with varying state-specific labor laws, paid sick leave mandates, and termination rules across the U.S. and Canada.
• Remote engagement: Establish communication channels and engagement strategies to integrate remote staff into the company culture.

Talent Acquisition, Staffing & Onboarding

• Diverse recruitment: Manage full-cycle recruitment of manufacturing workers, skilled trades, administrative personnel, and remote salaried professionals.
• Staffing agency oversight: Manage contracts and communication with placement staffing agencies when needed to fill key vacancies.
• Onboarding & Orientation: Ensure onboarding tasks are completed by the employee in a timely manner and conduct new-hire orientations including the coordination of any required plant safety training.

Employee Relations & Culture

• Conflict resolution: Investigate and resolve workplace grievances, floor-level disputes, and guide supervisors on fair, consistent progressive discipline.
• Feedback loops: Design and implement feedback systems to identify and fix employee issues early.
• Policy alignment: Work closely with supervisors and managers to align HR policies with production needs.
• Open-door availability: Serve as the sole, visible point of contact for all employee HR questions and issues.
• Retention strategies: Analyze absenteeism and turnover data to build initiatives that improve plant morale and worker retention.
• Organizational culture: Maintain positive employee relations through direct communication and fair policy enforcement.

Compliance, Workplace Safety and Policy Enforcement

• Labor law adherence: Ensure continuous compliance with all federal, state, and local manufacturing labor laws.
• Safety collaboration: Partner with the EHS coordinator to track OSHA logs, manage worker's compensation claims, and enforce PPE compliance.
• Policy enforcement: Maintain and update the employee handbook to reflect current shift policies and safety protocols and ensure it features necessary state-specific addendums.

Required Qualifications

• Education: Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, or a related field.
• Experience: 5+ years of HR experience, with at least 2 years in a manufacturing or industrial environment.
• Scale: Proven experience managing HR functions as a department of one for an organization with over 100 hourly and salaried employees.
• Multi-state scope: Demonstrated experience managing compliance and payroll for employees across multiple U.S. states required, including Canada preferred.
• Software: Strong, hands-on experience utilizing the Paylocity HRIS platform is highly preferred. 
• Certifications: PHR, SPHR, or SHRM-CP/SHRM-SCP certifications are highly preferred.
• Bilingual capability: Fluency in Spanish is a major asset.

Essential Skills

• Multi-state legal literacy: Strong working knowledge of FLSA, FMLA, ADA, and state-specific employment laws.
• Extreme prioritization: Ability to manage tactical daily plant administration while supporting a distributed remote workforce.
• Communication: Exceptional verbal, written and interpersonal skills to communicate effectively with all employees from shop floor operators to the company President.
• Autonomy: Comfort making firm, legally compliant HR decisions without a broader HR team for support.