Manager, Human Resources

URBAN ALCHEMY•Denver, CO

14d•$115,000 - $115,000•Onsite

About The Position

Position: Manager, Human Resources Term: Full-time, salaried Pay: $115,000/annual + health insurance, paid time off, and other benefits Location: Denver, CO Reports To: Deputy Director, Human Resources Direct Reports: None at launch; may expand as Colorado operations scale Updated: April 2, 2026 Organization Description: Urban Alchemy hires individuals who were once incarcerated and trains them to transform people and places through love and respect. We provide services that heal communities challenged by the intersection of extreme poverty, mental illness, addiction, and homelessness. When individuals are suffering in our public spaces, Urban Alchemy offers solutions. When a neighborhood, street, or intersection earns a reputation as a place to avoid, we turn it around. Urban Alchemy staff, known as Practitioners, create a peaceful and supportive presence, helping our communities rebuild a sense of pride one person at a time. Urban Alchemy is a nonprofit organization founded in 2018. We quickly grew from a small program in San Francisco to a thriving social enterprise with over 1,000 staff. We currently operate in California, Alabama, Colorado, Georgia, New Mexico, and Oregon. Over 95% of Urban Alchemy employees, including leadership, experienced incarceration and/or homelessness. For more information visit our website. Position Summary: The HR Manager is Urban Alchemy's sole HR presence in the state of Colorado. This is not a remote management role. This person works out of The Aspen, Urban Alchemy's non-congregate interim housing facility in Denver, alongside the Practitioners and operational staff they support. They know the work because they are in it. This is a working manager role. At Urban Alchemy, that phrase has a specific meaning: you lead and you do. You hold the strategic view and carry your own caseload. You develop others without offloading your responsibilities onto them, and you contribute your own hands to the work. That is the cultural contract every HR leader at Urban Alchemy accepts when they take a supervisory role. It is not a preference. It is a requirement. The HR Manager carries a full generalist portfolio: investigations, performance management, termination compliance, accommodations, and partnership with Operations leadership. They are the primary HR point of contact for Colorado Practitioners, supervisors, and directors. They escalate what needs to be escalated and handle what is theirs to handle, which is most of it. This role requires someone who is self-sufficient, fluent in Colorado employment law, and capable of operating in a high-complexity environment without hand-holding. The Aspen is a shelter environment serving adults experiencing homelessness. The Practitioners who serve guests there are doing demanding, high-stakes work every day. The Manager, Human Resources supports that workforce with the same rigor, dignity, and urgency that work demands. Position Duties and Responsibilities: A Note on the Nature of This Work The Manager, Human Resources is the only HR practitioner embedded in Colorado operations. There is no colleague in the next office to consult, no one on-site to split the caseload with, and no one to notice if something is slipping. The Manager, Human Resources manages their portfolio independently, escalates appropriately up their chain of command, and operates with the same standard of rigor, documentation, and judgment expected of every UA HR team member, without the safety net of proximity to the broader team. That independence requires maturity. It requires the ability to sit in ambiguity and still act, to hold complexity without losing clarity, and to make decisions in real time that carry legal and human weight simultaneously. It also requires the willingness to work. This is not a role that manages from a distance or through others. The HR Manager is present in the shelter, present in the work, and accountable for outcomes, not just for processes followed. The infrastructure is already here: the frameworks, the playbooks, the toolkits, the escalation protocols. The HR Manager's value is not in reinventing it. It is in applying it with precision, adapting it where Colorado law requires, and delivering it with the urgency and care this workforce deserves. When Colorado operations expand and direct reports are added, the working manager standard does not change. Your title adds leadership responsibilities; it does not reduce your individual contributor obligations.

Requirements

7+ years of HR experience, including HR business partnering and investigations experience; experience in a high-growth, multi-site, or startup environment strongly preferred; experience supporting a large nonexempt workforce is a plus
Colorado employment law literacy required, including the COMPS Order, Healthy Families and Workplaces Act (HFWA), Equal Pay for Equal Work Act (EPEWA), and Colorado FAMLI
Broad generalist knowledge across employee relations, performance management, investigations, accommodations, offboarding, and wage and hour compliance
Working knowledge of benefits plan design and payroll processes
Ability to run and analyze reports from an HRIS system
Proficiency in Google Workspace and Microsoft Office; Paycom experience a plus
Strong written and verbal communication skills; ability to communicate clearly and precisely with employees, supervisors, Operations leadership, and HR leadership across routine and high-stakes situations, including delivering difficult news, documenting investigation findings, and translating complex HR guidance into actionable direction
You are a working manager. At Urban Alchemy, that is not aspirational language. It is a job requirement. You lead and you do. You carry a meaningful individual contributor load. You do not equate your title with reduced personal output, and you do not treat direct reports as executors of work that belongs to you. This standard is observable and it is evaluated.
You move with urgency. Delayed action is not neutral in this environment. Cases that sit, requests that go unanswered, and decisions that stall all carry legal, human, and operational consequences. You respond quickly, triage accurately, and do not let things age on your desk.
You operate independently. You are the only HR practitioner embedded in Colorado. That means you do not wait for someone to tell you what comes next. You manage your own caseload, know the status of every open item, and bring issues to your chain of command early, not after the fact.
You hold deadlines as commitments. If you need more time, you say so before the deadline, not after. Silence is never the answer.
You exercise sound, independent judgment in situations that are confidential, sensitive, or emotionally charged, without losing neutrality or professionalism. You know when to escalate and when to hold the line yourself.
You bring integrity to every case. HR is not an advocacy function, and it is not a hammer. It is the function that protects employees, the organization, guests, and the mission through fair, evidence-based decisions. That standard lives in you.
You are emotionally resilient. This work is hard. The environment is demanding. You will hear things that are heavy. You will sit in conflict. You will deliver news people do not want to hear. You have the constitution for it, and you know how to take care of yourself.
You are accountable for impact, not just effort. You do not measure your value by how busy you were. You measure it by what changed.
You are a disciplined executor. The infrastructure is already here: the playbooks, the frameworks, the toolkits, the processes. Your value is not in reinventing them. It is in following them rigorously, completely, and without cutting corners when the case gets complicated or the pressure gets high.
You ask before you miss. If you are stuck or overwhelmed, you surface it early. You document because you understand that if it is not written down, it did not happen, and that documentation protects everyone.
You spot patterns, ask why, and bring recommendations rather than just observations.
You prioritize ruthlessly. Not everything on your plate is equally urgent, and you know the difference.
You are comfortable with ambiguity, especially as a new-market operation. You build what needs to be built, figure out what you need to figure out, and do not wait for a roadmap.
Must be able to work compassionately and respectfully with people from all backgrounds
Must be prepared to engage with individuals navigating poverty, mental health challenges, addiction, and/or homelessness
Must be able to pass and maintain background clearance in accordance with Urban Alchemy policy

Nice To Haves

Lived experience with incarceration and/or homelessness preferred
Driver's license and good driving record preferred; travel between Denver worksites may be require

Responsibilities

Serve as the primary HR point of contact for all Colorado operations, including The Aspen and any additional sites as the state footprint grows
Conduct regular on-site check-ins with Operations leadership and front-line supervisors; this means going to where the work is, not waiting for people to come to you
Provide legally grounded HR guidance to supervisors and directors on employee relations, performance, and compliance matters
Build authentic, trust-based working relationships with Operations leadership while maintaining HR's independence and objectivity
Pull and analyze HRIS reports to identify workforce trends and surface recommendations to Operations and HR leadership
Serve as an ambassador of Urban Alchemy's mission, values, and model in all internal and external HR communications
Own your desk: manage every open case, task, and request from initiation to documented close
Function as the project manager of your own caseload; know the status of every open item, control your calendar, and never be surprised by your own deadlines
Communicate proactively up your chain of command: flag issues before they escalate, surface risks before deadlines pass, and give leadership the context needed to act
Close the loop without being asked: when something is done, say so; when a case resolves, document it; when a question gets answered, confirm it
Maintain complete, organized case files across all open matters
Provide day-to-day performance management guidance to supervisors and Operations directors, including coaching, counseling, and performance discussion forms (PDFs)
Support supervisors in holding difficult conversations with clarity, consistency, and fairness; this means preparing them before the conversation, not just supporting them after
Own documentation integrity across all performance-related matters: accurate, thorough, timely, and written to withstand scrutiny
Train supervisors on documentation standards so that what HR receives is usable, not something that has to be reconstructed after the fact
Understand that documentation is not a formality; it is the record of what happened, what was said, and what was agreed to, and it is what protects the employee, the supervisor, and the organization if a situation escalates
Know the difference between a document that captures the facts and one that tells a story; the HR Manager produces the former and can spot the latter
Own offboarding workflows for all Colorado separations, ensuring compliance at every step, including Colorado-specific requirements for final pay timing, notice obligations, and wage and hour law under the COMPS Order
Lead the compliance and risk assessment work that leads to and surrounds termination decisions, with particular accountability for involuntary separations
Understand that a termination is not a single event; the HR Manager manages the full process leading up to it, assessing risk, ensuring documentation is airtight, and confirming each step was taken correctly before a recommendation is made
Monitor wage and hour compliance and surface risks proactively
Conduct regular process reviews to identify gaps before they become problems
Handle all workplace conduct and behavioral matters in Colorado, from intake through findings and documentation
Conduct investigations with neutrality, rigor, and discipline: manage timelines, witness interviews, and evidence gathering independently
Document accurately, thoroughly, and in real time; if it is not written down, it did not happen
Exercise sound judgment in assessing facts and escalating appropriately; escalate up your chain of command when cases carry significant legal exposure, senior leadership involvement, or cross-regional implications
Understand that investigations at Urban Alchemy are not routine; the complexity of our workforce and the environments we operate in means cases can involve serious behavioral concerns, safety implications, and operational risk simultaneously
Partner with the Benefits unit on accommodations overall; where a case carries a safety or high-risk workplace dimension, assume full lifecycle ownership from interactive process through documentation, coordination across HR, Operations, and legal counsel, and final implementation
Exercise careful, independent judgment in cases where an employee's continued presence poses a potential safety risk to guests, staff, or the broader operation
Maintain thorough case files and know when to escalate; these cases carry significant legal and operational exposure
Produce work, not just direction: draft documents, manage cases, and deliver outputs as a practitioner of HR alongside any supervisory responsibilities you hold
Develop others through teaching, modeling, and co-creation, not by offloading your caseload onto direct reports and calling it delegation
Stay close enough to the work that you know what is happening on your team because you are present in it, not because you asked for a summary
Set the standard by example: the quality, care, and rigor you expect from others must be visible in your own work first
Own outcomes: when something goes wrong on your watch, you look inward, not down
Operate in lock-step with your HR team. Whether or not you have direct reports at your location, you are part of a regional HR function with shared standards, shared tools, and shared accountability to Operations. That means actively coordinating with HR colleagues (the Deputy Director, Human Resources, HR Coordinators, Benefits, Employee Relations, Payroll) so that the service Operations receives is consistent regardless of who they reached. A Supervisor in Denver should get the same quality, the same standard, and the same follow-through that a Supervisor in Portland or San Francisco gets. That consistency is not accidental. It is built through deliberate coordination, communication, and alignment within the HR team.
Measure your performance on outcomes: what changed, what improved, what risk was reduced
Surface patterns, not just individual cases; when a recurring issue appears, escalate with a recommendation
Continuously identify opportunities to reduce friction, improve processes, and deliver better service to Colorado Operations
Follow all safety procedures and ensure compliance with OSHA, state, local, and Urban Alchemy policies
Attend orientation and complete all required training mandated by the company or funders
Wear designated Urban Alchemy uniform and ID badge at all times; HR staff are held to the same uniform standard as Practitioners
Perform additional duties as assigned by supervisor