Human Resources Manager

MK NORTH AMERICA INC•Bloomfield, CT

8d•Hybrid

About The Position

The HR Manager will serve as a leader, managing all human resources functions for our non-union manufacturing facility of over one hundred on-site employees, plus a growing remote corporate workforce spread across multiple U.S. states and Canada. This role requires a highly organized individual who can balance high-level strategic planning with daily hands-on execution of tasks. The primary focus is managing full-cycle recruitment, building positive employee relations, handling payroll administrative duties, and ensuring strict labor law compliance.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, or a related field.
5+ years of HR experience, with at least 2 years in a manufacturing or industrial environment.
Proven experience managing HR functions as a department of one for an organization with over 100 hourly and salaried employees.
Demonstrated experience managing compliance and payroll for employees across multiple U.S. states required, including Canada preferred.
Strong working knowledge of FLSA, FMLA, ADA, and state-specific employment laws.
Ability to manage tactical daily plant administration while supporting a distributed remote workforce.
Exceptional verbal, written and interpersonal skills to communicate effectively with all employees from shop floor operators to the company President.
Comfort making firm, legally compliant HR decisions without a broader HR team for support.

Nice To Haves

Strong, hands-on experience utilizing the Paylocity HRIS platform is highly preferred.
PHR, SPHR, or SHRM-CP/SHRM-SCP certifications are highly preferred.
Bilingual capability: Fluency in Spanish is a major asset.

Responsibilities

Oversee health insurance, retirement plans, paid time off, and leave of absence programs (FMLA/ADA). This includes annual benefit renewals, as well as retirement plan and workers compensation annual audits.
Bi-weekly processing of payroll for employees in the U.S. and Canada.
Conduct local market wage surveys to ensure manufacturing roles remain competitive against area competitors.
Serve as the primary administrator for the HRIS platform (currently Paylocity), optimizing modules for recruiting, onboarding, performance, time tracking, payroll, and others.
Personally execute all administrative HR paperwork, employee files, onboarding, and offboarding without administrative support.
Monitor, interpret, and enforce compliance with varying state-specific labor laws, paid sick leave mandates, and termination rules across the U.S. and Canada.
Establish communication channels and engagement strategies to integrate remote staff into the company culture.
Manage full-cycle recruitment of manufacturing workers, skilled trades, administrative personnel, and remote salaried professionals.
Manage contracts and communication with placement staffing agencies when needed to fill key vacancies.
Ensure onboarding tasks are completed by the employee in a timely manner and conduct new-hire orientations including the coordination of any required plant safety training.
Investigate and resolve workplace grievances, floor-level disputes, and guide supervisors on fair, consistent progressive discipline.
Design and implement feedback systems to identify and fix employee issues early.
Work closely with supervisors and managers to align HR policies with production needs.
Serve as the sole, visible point of contact for all employee HR questions and issues.
Analyze absenteeism and turnover data to build initiatives that improve plant morale and worker retention.
Maintain positive employee relations through direct communication and fair policy enforcement.
Ensure continuous compliance with all federal, state, and local manufacturing labor laws.
Partner with the EHS coordinator to track OSHA logs, manage worker's compensation claims, and enforce PPE compliance.
Maintain and update the employee handbook to reflect current shift policies and safety protocols and ensure it features necessary state-specific addendums.