Human Resources Manager, People Programs

VANGUARD CHARITABLE ENDOWMENT PROGRAM • Malvern, PA

7d

About The Position

The HR Manager, People Programs serves as a strategic partner, translating organizational vision into a cohesive, enterprise-wide people strategy and integrated multi-year roadmap. This role is responsible for building scalable, sustainable people programs across employee engagement, onboarding, performance, learning and development, leadership development, talent infrastructure, and organizational effectiveness. The role blends strategic leadership with hands-on execution—shaping priorities, driving implementation, measuring outcomes, and ensuring adoption across the organization. The ideal candidate is a proactive thought partner who can manage up effectively, bring insights and recommendations, strengthen HR team capability, and materially increase the function’s capacity to deliver business-aligned people solutions that support growth, performance, culture, and organizational effectiveness.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree required.
• Proven ability to operate as a strategic second-in-command and translate executive vision into scalable, high-impact people strategies and actionable roadmaps.
• Strong expertise in employee engagement, learning and development, leadership development, performance management, organizational effectiveness, and employee lifecycle design.
• Demonstrated ability to build repeatable, sustainable people programs with clear governance, success measures, adoption strategies, and business-aligned outcomes.
• Strong balance of strategic thinking and hands-on execution; able to operate at altitude while driving work through implementation, adoption, and measurable impact.
• Excellent leadership, coaching, and team-development capability, with a track record of raising functional capability, quality, accountability, and strategic maturity.
• Analytical and insight-driven approach to decision-making, with the ability to use employee feedback, lifecycle metrics, engagement data, and business context to inform recommendations.
• High level of influence and stakeholder-management skill, including the ability to partner with senior leaders, navigate complex stakeholder environments, and constructively challenge or refine thinking.
• Proactive, business-oriented mindset; brings insights and options, manages up effectively, connects people programs to organizational capability and growth.
• Minimum of 8–10 years of progressive HR experience, including demonstrated experience designing, scaling, and leading employee experience, engagement, onboarding, performance, learning and development, leadership development, talent management, or organizational effectiveness strategies.
• Proficiency with LMS platforms such as Bridge, Cornerstone, Workday Learning, SuccessFactors, Moodle, or similar systems.

Nice To Haves

• Master’s degree in Human Resources, Organizational Development, Industrial/Organizational Psychology, Business, or related discipline preferred.
• HR or talent-related certification preferred (e.g., SHRM-CP, SHRM-SCP, PHR, SPHR, change management, coaching, learning and development, or organizational development certification).

Responsibilities

• Partner with CHRO to shape and operationalize the organization’s people strategy, translating vision across learning, leadership development, engagement, onboarding, performance, and talent infrastructure into a prioritized, multi-year roadmap with defined priorities, sequencing, milestones, dependencies, and measurable outcomes.
• Lead the design, development, and continuous evolution of scalable people programs, ensuring initiatives are structured, repeatable, sustainable, and directly connected to business outcomes such as engagement, retention, leadership capability, employee experience, and organizational effectiveness.
• Drive integration across people programs, ensuring onboarding, engagement, performance, learning, leadership development, and talent initiatives operate as a cohesive employee lifecycle experience rather than disconnected or one-time activities.
• Lead execution and adoption of key people initiatives by creating practical workplans, communication strategies, leader enablement tools, feedback loops, and implementation disciplines that move programs from concept through delivery, adoption, measurement, and continuous improvement.
• Lead, coach, and develop HR team members responsible for employee experience and related people programs, setting priorities, strengthening strategic thinking, raising execution quality, and building the HR team’s ability to operate with greater autonomy, accountability, and impact.
• Serve as a strategic advisor and proactive thought partner to leaders and HR partners, providing guidance on learning and development, engagement, performance, organizational effectiveness, change management, and people-program decisions that support business priorities.
• Leverage data, insights, employee feedback, lifecycle metrics, and external perspective to inform recommendations, define success measures, evaluate program effectiveness, and continuously improve people strategies and practices.

What This Job Offers

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