The Director of Human Resources serves as Pampered Chef’s senior people leader and day-to-day HR authority, partnering closely with the Chief Financial Officer and executive team to align people strategy, workforce planning, culture, compliance, and HR operations with the organization’s business goals.

This role requires a seasoned HR leader with deep functional expertise, sound judgment, strong employee trust, and practical execution, complementing a finance-led executive structure. The Director will translate business strategy into people practices, ensure legal and regulatory rigor across core employment matters, and serve as a trusted advisor on employee relations, investigations, compliance training, performance management, and employment risk mitigation.

The Director will own core HR execution and provide clear options, risks, and recommendations, not just data, so leaders can make thoughtful people decisions while maintaining compliance, consistency, and trust.

Success in this role means leaders feel supported and confident handling people issues, employees trust HR as fair and discreet, the organization is compliant and well-documented, HR programs are practical and effective, and the CFO can focus on strategy knowing HR execution is strong. Success also means people decisions are applied consistently across the organization, supported by strong documentation, sound judgment, and clear rationale, reducing organizational, employee relations, compliance, and legal risk.

Pampered Chef follows a hybrid schedule in Addison, IL. The expectation is that employees be in the office on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday each week. This position requires less than 10% travel.

What You'll Do

• Lead the HR function across talent management, employee relations, performance management, compliance, compensation, benefits, HR operations, and team capability, ensuring practical execution and clear accountability.
• Serve as the primary advisor on day-to-day people matters, bringing sound judgment, discretion, sensitivity, and clear recommendations to employee issues, investigations, conflict resolution, policy interpretation, and officer escalations when needed.
• Build simple, scalable HR processes, governance routines, documentation standards, controls, and decision records that support fair, consistent, compliant, and defensible people practices.
• Own employment law compliance across applicable federal, state, and local requirements, including core labor and unemployment practices, partnering with legal counsel when needed and proactively mitigating people-related risk.
• Coach leaders on performance, feedback, employee development, accountability, change management, and fair, well-documented evaluations that set clear expectations and reduce avoidable claims.
• Ensure effective ethics, compliance, investigation, and manager training so leaders can communicate appropriately, gather information safely, evaluate fairly, and document consistently.
• Lead talent strategies across recruitment, onboarding, retention, succession planning, employee development, and HR team capability to ensure the organization has the right people, skills, tools, and operating discipline to support business priorities.
• Partner with Finance on workforce planning, incentive programs, compensation and benefits strategy, HR analytics, market analysis, and practical people strategies tied to business goals.
• Prepare and present clear HR reports, dashboards, and insights for the CFO and executive team, translating workforce trends, engagement indicators, compliance matters, talent risks, and financial implications into practical recommendations.
• Manage the HR budget with discipline and transparency, allocating resources efficiently to support strategic initiatives, core HR operations, compliance needs, team capability, and employee programs.
• Shape a culture of accountability, inclusion, performance, adaptability, and trust by balancing empathy with clear expectations, measurable outcomes, and practical diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

• 7-10+ years of progressive HR leadership experience, including significant ownership of employee relations, compliance, performance management, and HR operations.
• Demonstrated success operating as the senior HR authority, not only as a program manager or functional specialist.
• Strong knowledge of employment law, labor and unemployment practices, documentation standards, compliance training, workplace investigations, and risk management.
• Experience supporting leaders through change, growth, complexity, sensitive people matters, and organizational decision-making.
• Strong business acumen, including comfort with tradeoffs, cost implications, workforce planning, and operational impact.
• High discretion, maturity, sensitivity, and credibility when handling confidential, sensitive, or high-stakes employee and leadership matters.
• Demonstrated ability to influence senior executives, navigate differing viewpoints, and build alignment around people decisions while balancing business objectives, employee experience, compliance, and organizational risk.

Preferred

• Prior experience reporting into or partnering closely with Finance or a Chief Financial Officer.
• Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources, Business, Organizational Development, or a related field; advanced degree or HR certification preferred.
• Experience leading compensation, benefits, performance management, engagement, succession planning, and leadership development practices.
• Experience building practical HR processes, policies, and controls in a growing, changing, or complex organization.
• Ability to translate business priorities into people strategies with clear outcomes, risks, tradeoffs, and implementation plans.
• Calm, practical leadership style with the ability to balance empathy, accountability, confidentiality, and business needs.

What We're Offering

Compensation, benefits, and logistics

The anticipated salary range for this position starts at $175,000-185,000 annually, depending on experience and qualifications. This role is eligible for a performance-based bonus based on individual and company performance.

This position includes a comprehensive benefits package, which includes:

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance 
• Company-paid life insurance with additional voluntary coverage options 
• Disability insurance 
• Additional voluntary benefits 
• 401k match 
• Flex PTO 
• Paid Parental Leave 
• 30%+ discount on Pampered Chef Products and product giveaways