People Experience Leader - Manufacturing Operations

Essity•Philadelphia, PA

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

Essity is seeking a highly motivated and collaborative People Experience Manager to provide leadership across our 11 manufacturing sites in the United States and Canada. This role is accountable for delivering a reliable, consistent, and effective people experience throughout our manufacturing operations, ensuring employees, people leaders, and unions experience fair, clear, and consistent People practices every day, supported by strong operational execution. The role focuses on day-to-day People operations, employee and labor relations support, policy application, and people leader enablement. Several sites are unionized and represented, requiring a pragmatic, trust-based, and solutions-oriented labor relations approach. The role balances hands-on operational leadership with continuous improvement—strengthening consistency, simplifying processes, enabling digital tools, and building team capability to support a safe, engaged, and productive manufacturing workforce. The ideal candidate will work a flexible hybrid schedule that will require frequently coming into our Regional HQ located in Philadelphia PA.

Requirements

10+ years of progressive People/HR experience, with a strong focus on operational people support in manufacturing or industrial environments.
Demonstrated experience supporting unionized workforces in the U.S.; Labor experience strongly preferred.
Proven ability to lead large, geographically dispersed People teams.
Strong working knowledge of both Canadian and U.S. employment law and labor relations.
Credibility operating in fast-paced, frontline environments with a pragmatic, people-first mindset.
Ability and willingness to travel 50–60% of the time.

Nice To Haves

Experience improving or simplifying People practices across multiple sites.
Exposure to digital People tools or HRIS-enabled operational improvements.
Strong coaching and influencing skills with frontline and senior leaders alike.

Responsibilities

Lead the delivery of day-to-day People Experience support across all U.S. manufacturing sites, ensuring a consistent and positive experience for employees and leaders.
Oversee core People processes including employee relations, performance management, attendance, discipline, investigations, onboarding, offboarding, and workforce changes.
Act as the senior escalation point for complex People matters, ensuring fair, respectful, and timely resolution.
Ensure site People teams are equipped with clear guidance, tools, and decision frameworks to support frontline leaders confidently and consistently.
Provide operational leadership and oversight for labor relations at unionized sites represented by USW.
Support day-to-day contract administration, grievance handling, investigations, corrective actions, and arbitration preparation.
Ensure labor agreements are applied consistently across sites while maintaining constructive, professional relationships with union partners.
Enable site leaders to engage effectively with unions through coaching and practical guidance.
Ensure People policies and practices are applied consistently, practically, and transparently across manufacturing sites.
Drive harmonization of People practices where possible to reduce complexity and improve clarity for employees and leaders.
Translate policy and legal requirements into clear, usable guidance that supports good decision-making at the site level.
Identify operational risks, friction points, and employee experience gaps; implement improvements grounded in real site needs.
Support the effective adoption of digital People tools and systems that simplify processes and improve access to information for employees and leaders.
Partner with HR Operations, COEs, and Digital/IT teams to ensure manufacturing realities are reflected in system design and workflows.
Encourage use of People data, dashboards, and insights to support consistent and informed People decisions.
Lead, coach, and develop a distributed People Experience team of ~20 members, including 11 direct reports.
Build strong operational capability and confidence across the team, with a focus on consistency, judgment, and service mindset.
Establish clear operating rhythms, expectations, and escalation pathways.
Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, continuous improvement, and learning within the People Experience function.
Act as a close People Experience partner to Plant Managers and Operations, embedded in the realities of manufacturing environments.
Support leaders with practical, experience-focused People solutions that balance business needs, employee experience, and compliance.
Ensure alignment between enterprise People Experience principles and site-level execution.