Manager, HR Business Partner - Productions

The Walt Disney Company•Burbank, CA

About The Position

At Disney, we are storytellers. We make the impossible possible. We believe our greatest stories are made possible by investing in our people. The Production HR team plays a critical role in shaping exceptional cast and crew experience, partnering with production leadership and show leadership on forward-thinking people strategies, and driving results through our vision for THRIVE – Thoughtful, Healthy, Respectful, inclusive, and Valued production workplaces. This role partners closely with Production/Show Leadership, and Production Executives to embed strong people practices, elevate leadership capability, and ensure production employees feel supported, valued, and empowered. In addition to directly supporting assigned productions, this role will provide support to Senior Managers on the Production HR team to partner on complex productions, initiatives, and team priorities as needed. This role will be responsible for influencing the day‑to-day production employee experience on set and in the field by providing coaching and resources to production leaders, guiding teams through nuanced challenges, and fostering environments grounded in trust, respect, transparency, and well‑being. As part of the Production HR team, this position will help unify people‑management strategies with production goals—partnering with groups such as Legal, Labor and Employee Relations to pull insights and deliver thoughtful, equitable, and timely solutions.

Requirements

Minimum 5 years of progressively responsible experience as an HR Business Partner or equivalent role
Bachelor’s degree in human resources or related field of study or equivalent years of experience.
Strong understanding of Production environment.
Excellent communication skills both written and verbal.
Demonstrated ability to effectively deliver training to large production populations, including 150 to 500+ crew members and principal talent, both in person and via Zoom.
Must have the ability to successfully navigate topics that fall under the Opportunity & Inclusion umbrella, compliance, foundational HR topics and be able to educate and provide support to productions.
Ability to travel up to 25% of time by ground or plane.
Courage to express a different point of view.
Demonstrated ability to work in and manage ambiguity – dealing with issues that do not always have a process or a system in place.
Ability to leverage and analyze data to inform and develop people strategies.
Demonstrated ability to build, maintain, and leverage relationships across a variety of stakeholders, acting as a bridge and connector within the organization.
Proven track record of identifying opportunities to share information and best practices to drive collective success.
Ability to position self as credible (garners respect, acts with integrity, keeps commitments); proactive (has a point of view, challenges assumptions, takes initiative); and a trusted thought partner (builds relationships, delivers results).
Demonstrated experience and ability to balance business partnering skills with employee advocacy.
Ability to manage high level of complexity with degree of independence, balancing the need for collaboration with minimal supervision

Nice To Haves

Professional HR experience, ideally in the capacity of an HR Business Partner.
Previous experience supporting TV production environments a plus.

Responsibilities

Cultivate a comprehensive understanding of assigned productions to strengthen collaboration and drive effective working relationships with production leadership, crew and stakeholders.
Facilitate in-person training/on-boarding sessions for writers’ rooms, cast/crew (200ppl) and leadership training to Head of Departments throughout the production lifecycle.
Proactively assess the production environment to recommend and drive action through a consultative, “influence without authority” approach.
Enhance the on-set experience by engaging with production leaders/executives at key steps in the lifecycle of the production, inclusive of development, training and performance management.
Provide coaching to production crew and department heads on consistent and frequent basis.
Develop a deep understanding of each production’s theme and content, identify when specialized support is needed, such as intimacy coordinators, accessibility coordinators, etc. Review scripts to anticipate potential issues and guide teams through sensitive scenes.
Coach production leadership on HR policies, practices, and procedures specific to productions.
Partner with Employee Relations to identify trends, insights and areas of opportunity for improving the production work environment and conduct non-investigatory production environmental scans.
Collaborate with Production Operations on key operational needs—including data collection, start paperwork, background checks, process flows, and other administrative requirements—and work closely with Cultural Initiatives to support well‑being and culture‑focused efforts across productions.
Lead the deployment and analysis of production surveys to understand trends at an individual and aggregate level.
Support Senior Managers on the Production HR team by partnering on complex productions, cross‑show initiatives, and high‑impact people matters; provide coverage, project support, and consultation as needed to ensure continuity and consistency across productions.
In partnership with the Sr. Mgr., Cultural Initiatives, provide partnership to productions, proactively address sensitive topics.
Provide ongoing partnership and education by providing resources such as: RespectAbility, NAMI, GLAAD, Crew Helpline, EAP.