Factory HR Manager

Foundational Industries

11d•Onsite

About The Position

The Factory HR Manager is the day-to-day HR presence on the plant floor — the person hourly employees come to first. You own attendance, scheduling conflicts, disciplinary action, workers' comp coordination, and the daily friction of running an hourly workforce, in direct partnership with plant leadership. When this role is empty, small people problems become production problems. Foundational is building a network of AI-native, autonomous factories for modern contract manufacturing — reshoring critical supply chains so companies can produce high-quality products domestically, quickly, and at competitive cost. Recent breakthroughs in robotics and physical AI have shifted autonomous manufacturing from theoretical to deployable, and we're focused on operationalizing these capabilities at scale during a decisive decade for American industrial leadership. At Foundational, we're building with people who want to own something — to do work that matters, in an environment where what you ship is what counts. The people who thrive here: Take ownership before they're asked. They see the gap and close it. Operate with a high degree of judgment. We move fast, and good judgment travels farther than a playbook. Communicate directly — concise, clear, and candid, especially when stakes are high. Hold a high bar for themselves first, then for everyone around them. Are genuinely energized by hard problems in physical, real-world environments. Energized — not just interested. Stay effective when things are ambiguous, changing, or under pressure. That's the job. This is a place for people who want to build something that has never existed before and leave a clear mark on it.

Requirements

Experience running HR for an hourly, blue-collar workforce within a plant, warehouse, or distribution environment.
Managed attendance policies, progressive discipline, and termination processes for shift-based employees.
Knowledge of workers' compensation claims administration, OSHA recordkeeping, and return-to-work processes.
Partnered directly with plant or operations leadership on headcount, shift scheduling, and floor-level performance issues.
Comfortable being on the floor daily; this is not a desk job with occasional plant visits.
Understanding of wage and hour compliance for hourly, non-exempt employees, including overtime, meal and rest breaks, and state-specific rules.

Nice To Haves

Experience navigating a union-avoidance effort or operating in a right-to-work versus organized-labor environment.
Bilingual Spanish, depending on workforce composition.

Responsibilities

Be the day-to-day HR presence on the plant floor, serving as the first point of contact for hourly employees.
Own attendance and scheduling conflicts for the hourly workforce.
Manage disciplinary actions.
Coordinate workers' compensation.
Address the daily friction of running an hourly workforce in partnership with plant leadership.
Establish a regular floor presence, including a cadence of walking the floor and holding standing office hours for hourly employees.
Develop a clear escalation path for shift-level HR issues.
Own attendance and timekeeping administration for the hourly workforce, including point systems and corrective action documentation.
Ensure clean handoff of attendance and timekeeping data to payroll.
Partner with EHS/safety on incident response, including workers' compensation claims and return-to-work coordination.
Manage OSHA recordkeeping and ensure no missed reporting deadlines.
Build and run new-hire onboarding and orientation for hourly production staff, designed for a 30-day ramp to full productivity.
Reduce voluntary hourly attrition by identifying root causes through stay and exit interviews.
Partner with plant leadership on implementing fixes to reduce attrition.
Establish consistent and defensible disciplinary and termination processes across all shifts.
Reduce legal exposure and ensure even enforcement of policies.