Employee Experience, Associate Director

University of Rochester • City of Rochester, NY

1d

About The Position

As a community, the University of Rochester is defined by a deep commitment to Meliora - Ever Better. Embedded in that ideal are the values we share: equity, leadership, integrity, openness, respect, and accountability. Together, we will set the highest standards for how we treat each other to ensure our community is welcoming to all and is a place where all can thrive. The Employee Experience Associate Director leads the University’s enterprise employee experience and action planning strategy, turning feedback into measurable improvement. This role partners with HR Business Partners (HRBPs), operational leaders, and teams across academic and clinical environments to deliver a cohesive engaging approach (enterprise surveys, pulse surveys, and complementary qualitative methods), to produce actionable insights, and build leader capability for effective, sustained action planning. In a complex higher education and healthcare environment, the Associate Director ensures the institution’s employee experience approach to giving feedback and creating actionable plans for improvement, is credible, data-informed, action-oriented, and measurable, with a strong emphasis on building leader support and ownership and closing the loop with employees to strengthen trust in the process.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in HR, Organizational Development, Industrial/Organizational Psychology, Business, Public Health/Administration, Analytics, or related field.
• 6–8+ years of experience in employee experience, employee engagement, organizational development, people analytics, or related work—preferably in complex, matrixed environments.
• Demonstrated experience leading experience surveys and/or listening programs and translating feedback into action plans that drive measurable improvement.

Responsibilities

• Enterprise Employee Listening Strategy (40%): Design and lead a comprehensive feedback system that includes enterprise experience surveys, pulse surveys, and integrated “always-on” channels as appropriate for the university’s 28,000 employees (academic, research, administrative, clinical, shift-based, and deskless roles). Establish and manage employee experience feedback measurers, plans and communicates strategies in partnership with organization leaders. Partner with institutional stakeholders to ensure survey design reflects the varied work performed in higher ed, healthcare operations and research for a twenty-four seven operation.
• Insights, Analytics, and Outcome Delivery (25%): Lead institution-level analysis and interpretation of findings (themes, drivers, strengths, and systemic barriers) and translate results into clear narratives for executives, leaders, HRBPs, and employees. In partnership with the HR Analytics team, develop and maintain dashboards and insight that are practical for operational leaders (e.g., a concise “what matters most / what to do next” view), while enabling deeper drill-down tools for HRBPs and leaders. Elevate insight quality through a balanced toolkit: quantitative results + commentary themes + targeted qualitative follow-up (focus groups/listening sessions) when needed.
• Leader Enablement and Action Planning Infrastructure (25%): Build and run the University’s standard action planning approach: templates, guides, timelines, and leader toolkits that produce measurable, realistic plans. Provide consultation and coaching to HRBPs and leaders on: how to conduct effective results discussions, selecting focus areas that matter most, building plans that fit operational constraints, tracking progress and reporting outcomes. Strengthen leader confidence by embedding support systems and learning opportunities for leaders at various levels.
• Close-the-Loop Communications and Change Adoption (10%): Partner with HR Communications to deliver transparent “you said / we did / what’s next” updates that reinforce credibility and sustain participation over time. Support change adoption by helping leaders anticipate barriers (time, competing priorities), and by designing progress timelines and milestones (quarterly check-ins, unit-level scorecards, and action plan refresh cycles).

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director
• Number of Employees: 5,001-10,000 employees