Director, People & Culture Business Partner

Braven • Chicago, IL

6h • $92,000 - $114,900 • Hybrid

About The Position

In order to achieve its ambition of serving 80,000 to 100,000 Fellows over the next decade, Braven is hiring a Human Resources Business Partner who will serve as a trusted thought partner to the Head of People, bringing deep employee relations expertise and the strategic instincts of a senior people practitioner to one of the most consequential roles on the People team. This role is the connective tissue between individual employee experience and organizational health. The HR Business Partner owns Braven's employee relations function end to end, serves as an embedded advisor to managers and staff across the organization, and partners closely with the Head of People on retention strategy, change management, and the people data insights that inform how the team operates and evolves. This person also ensures the Head of People can lead at the right altitude by owning knowledge management, synthesizing people data across functions, and serving as a strategic coordination resource across the People team. This role requires someone who can hold complexity with care, moving fluidly between a sensitive employee relations matter and a high stakes briefing for an executive audience. This role reports directly to the Head of People and sits on the People leads team. There is no direct supervisory responsibility at this time.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree
• At least 5 years of experience in a role that required navigating complex interpersonal and organizational dynamics, advising others through difficult situations, and driving fair, consistent outcomes
• Demonstrated experience managing sensitive or high-stakes cases that required sound judgment, thorough documentation, and the ability to hold multiple stakeholders' interests simultaneously
• Experience working with or alongside HR, legal, compliance, or operations functions in a way that required understanding organizational policy, risk, and process
• Proven project management skills with the ability to manage multiple workstreams, competing deadlines, and cross-functional stakeholders
• Authorized to work in the U.S.

Nice To Haves

• PHR/SPHR or SHRM-CP/SCP certification
• 1 to 3 years of experience in the nonprofit sector
• Genuine passion for People work and a belief that strong employee relations and strategic partnership are foundational to organizational health
• Ability to hold complexity: this person must be both a trusted confidant for employees navigating difficult situations and a strategic operator advancing organizational priorities
• Strong written communication skills, including the ability to craft clear, compelling materials for executive audiences
• Excellent capacity to independently discern what work is most important and take responsibility for actions, tasks, and deadlines
• Ability and comfort with building and iterating; capable of crafting innovative solutions while continuously refining and improving existing processes
• Dedication to maintaining confidentiality and professional integrity
• Experience working cross-functionally to build relationships, influence peers, and collaborate
• Strong proficiency in G-Suite (especially Slides and Docs), Slack, Asana, and people systems
• Demonstrated commitment to building welcoming, open, and collaborative environments
• You exemplify Braven’s core values
• Your experiences have informed your belief in Braven’s mission and have prepared you to work with, or for, Braven’s student Fellow population

Responsibilities

• Serve as a trusted, visible business partner to managers, directors, and staff across the organization, providing counsel on people-related matters with a consistent, equitable, and legally sound lens.
• Own all employee relations investigations, performance improvement plans, and incident management for all cases below the Alignment Team level, ensuring fair process, thorough documentation, and timely resolution; partner with the Head of People and, where appropriate, General Counsel on complex or high-stakes matters.
• Coach and influence people managers on navigating employee situations, delivering feedback, and stewarding a culture of accountability and belonging; build a body of manager capability work over time that connects directly to employee experience and retention.
• Partner with the Director, Learning and Culture, and the Director, Learning and Development, to think comprehensively about the intersection of relations, culture, and development; this role has a genuine opportunity to shape how Braven grows its people, contributing to ERG strategy, belonging initiatives, and staff recognition in ways that make the employee relations function additive to culture rather than purely reactive.
• Coordinate with the Director, People Operations, on leave of absence and workplace accommodation cases, serving as an escalation resource for complex or sensitive situations, and identify and escalate broader employee relations risks to the Head of People at the right altitude and time.
• In partnership with the Head of People, own Braven's retention strategy: analyze patterns across exit data, engagement signals, and people trends to develop and implement targeted retention initiatives across the organization
• Own the exit interview process end to end: conduct exit interviews with departing staff, maintain a structured process for data collection and synthesis, and surface insights that inform retention strategy and organizational health
• Serve as the primary owner of change management efforts from an organizational and employee relations perspective, ensuring major decisions and initiatives are implemented with attention to staff impact, equitable process, and cultural continuity
• Partner with the Director, Learning and Culture, on the staff experience dimension of change and with the Director, Learning and Development, on the learning design dimension, maintaining clear ownership of the ER and organizational impact lens
• Analyze employee relations trends, ethics data points, and repeat risk indicators to proactively surface patterns and reduce ER volume and compliance exposure over time
• Serve as a senior thought partner to the Head of People across all People team functions, supporting effective decision-making, prioritization, and cross-functional alignment
• Own knowledge management for the People team: build and maintain a system of record for team resources, policies, and documentation, and champion best practices in knowledge sharing across the team
• Liaise with the Systems team data analyst and the Head of People to synthesize people data across functions, surfacing insights on ER trends, engagement signals, workforce patterns, and organizational health to inform People team strategy
• Partner with the Director, Talent Acquisition, on the org design and role structure dimension of workforce planning, bringing an equity and organizational effectiveness lens to headcount decisions
• Create briefing documents, slides, and other materials that accurately represent the Head of People's perspective to executive audiences and key partners
• Communicate People team updates, policy changes, and program launches to staff with clarity and care
• Support the People team in gathering and synthesizing organizational needs through surveys, listening sessions, and service level agreement reviews
• Communicate with contractors and draft scopes of work for the Head of People's review and approval
• Other duties as assigned

Benefits

• Unlimited vacation time in addition to org-wide holidays and week-long shutdowns in July and the end of the calendar year (this is a minimum of 19 days per year)
• Braven supports your path to parenthood and beyond with $25,000 in lifetime Carrot benefits for fertility, family-building, and hormonal health
• Match of your 401K contribution up to 5% of your base annual salary, starting your first full month
• Coverage of 85% of health insurance premium for employee and dependents
• 12 weeks of paid parental leave
• A one-month paid sabbatical after 4 years on staff

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director