Head of Employee Relations

Citizens • Johnston, RI

9h • Hybrid

About The Position

This transformational leadership role combines deep expertise in Employee Relations (ER) with workplace advisory services in a position that protects the bank, strengthens trust with colleagues, and enables leaders to navigate a rapidly evolving workforce landscape. You will lead the function as a strategic risk and culture capability addressing a wide range of complex people management issues—integrating employee voice, fair and consistent outcomes, proactive risk identification, and leader enablement-- across a highly regulated financial‑services environment. This role directs the Employee Relations team, the HR Service Center, and the Leave Program Office as a cohesive enterprise capability—balancing empathy and compliance while keeping a strong employee experience central to all operations.

Requirements

• 10+ years of progressive HR/ER experience with at least 5 years in a senior leadership role.
• Demonstrated experience managing ER in a multi-jurisdictional environment
• Deep working knowledge of US Employment Law, ideally as applied to financial services or another regulated industry.
• Proven success building or transforming ER and workplace advisory capabilities at an enterprise scale, with established metrics on program effectiveness and high levels of customer satisfaction.
• Proven track record using analytics to drive ER and HR service interventions; ability to translate data into clear, executive‑level narratives and use of data to inform risk identification, colleague experience enhancement, process improvement and demand reduction.
• Experience establishing clear service boundaries and escalation models between HR Service Center, Employee Relations, HRBPs, COEs, and external vendors; operational discipline in defining SLAs, resolution standards, documentation expectations, and handoff criteria.
• Experience leveraging case management platforms and digital employee experience tools to enable intake, triage, documentation, and resolution at scale using tiered service delivery
• Proficient in managing leave programs that intersect with performance management, employee relations, accommodations, and workforce planning.
• Strong judgment navigating ambiguity, regulatory scrutiny, and reputational risk.

Nice To Haves

• JD/employment law
• Experience with employment litigation support
• Proficiency in HR technology including Service Now, Oracle HCM or equivalent
• Experience managing teams across time zones
• Prior work with banking regulators on HR related examinations
• Experience executing corporate integrations
• global experience
• AI enablement

Responsibilities

• Define and execute the function’s strategy aligned to organizational values, risk and regulatory expectations, and employee experience goals; focus on providing consultative support and scenario-based advisory guidance in addition to managing investigations.
• Establish clear enterprise standards, decision frameworks, and escalation models for employee relations matters as well as HR Service Center and related operations teams.
• Partner with HR Risk to ensure ER is embedded into risk assessments, controls, and governance routines.
• Develop and maintain a consistent global ER framework based in US employment law but responsive to a global footprint.
• Cultivate strong relationships with business lines, HR business partners and other COEs, Corporate Security, Ethics Office, Incentive Management and HR Legal. Ensure the equitable application of organization policies and procedures.
• Provide strategy and governance model for leave administration, including statutory, medical and other company-sponsored leave programs
• Design new workforce policies and procedures to support consistent application of workforce programs
• Ensure audit readiness and accountabilities for vendor performance.
• Evolve function from reactive resolution to early intervention and prevention, reducing litigation, regulatory exposure, and employee distrust.
• Build and maintain a workplace health analytics capability that tracks leading indicators of workplace risk; use case data, listening insights, and workforce analytics to identify systemic risks (e.g., repeat issues, leader capability gaps, hotspots).
• Monitor trends related to collective action, workplace activism, DEI‑related concerns, and hybrid work.
• Oversee ER matters, some of which will be high profile, ensuring consistency, sound judgment, and defensible outcomes. Analyze evidence, apply relevant laws, policies and past practice to reach conclusions.
• Partner with Legal, Compliance and Risk to manage matters with regulatory implications and banking-specific conduct standards.
• Lead crisis‑oriented employee relations responses (e.g., misconduct, retaliation, high‑profile exits) in close partnership with Legal and Compliance.
• Ensure learnings from cases translate into policy, training, or process improvements.
• Design and lead the workplace advisory function as a confidential, accessible channel for employees to raise questions and seek guidance.
• Equip people leaders with practical ER guidance, coaching, and tools to prevent escalation.
• Strengthen leader capability in evolving workforce topics such as managing hybrid teams, navigating conflict and performance conversations, and applying policies consistently and empathetically
• Serve as a trusted advisor to senior leaders on sensitive workforce decisions.
• Champion employment practices that reinforce fairness, transparency, and dignity, even in difficult situations.
• Ensure employee voice and other workplace programs are credible, responsive, and action‑oriented.
• Align team outcomes with Citizens’ employee value proposition, culture, and commitment to belonging and psychological safety.
• Modernize digital solutions, support model and playbooks for case management to facilitate insights, increase self-service and drive operational efficiencies.
• Drive continuous improvement through AI enablement, automation, knowledge base development and tiered escalation design.
• Establish and monitor SLAs for key metrics

Benefits

• competitive pay
• comprehensive medical, dental and vision coverage
• retirement benefits
• maternity/paternity leave
• flexible work arrangements
• education reimbursement
• wellness programs
• paid time off policy exceeds the mandatory, paid sick or paid time-away policy of every local and state jurisdiction in the United States.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed
• Number of Employees: 5,001-10,000 employees