Associate Director, People & Culture (HR)

Position Objective

The Associate Director, People & Culture (HR) is a hands-on People leader responsible for delivering an exceptional, consistent, and compliant employee experience across the day-to-day employee lifecycle. Reporting directly to the Chief People & Culture Officer, this role operates in a hub-and-spoke model: serving as a trusted, client-aligned People partner to designated business leaders and teams while also owning and advancing selected enterprise People & Culture capabilities. The role translates business needs into practical people solutions, strengthens manager effectiveness, and builds the operating discipline, accountability, and transparency required for a scaling organization.

This is an onsite role based in the Maitland / Orlando area and is expected to be visibly present with employees and leaders, using proximity to strengthen culture, communication, problem solving, and execution.

Operating Model & Role Scope

Client-aligned responsibility: act as the primary People & Culture partner for assigned leaders, functions, and/or client-facing teams; understand their operating model, talent needs, performance risks, workforce plans, and employee experience priorities.

Functional responsibility: own and continuously improve designated People & Culture programs and processes across the enterprise, creating scalable standards, tools, governance, and manager guidance.

Hub-and-spoke partnership: connect business needs to shared People capabilities, specialist resources, vendors, systems, and the Chief People & Culture Officer; drive consistency without losing responsiveness to local or client-specific needs.

Management System discipline: reinforce clear roles and decision rights, measurable outcomes, routine performance tracking, and structured problem solving. Support alignment to True North priorities through practical use of roles-and-responsibilities, tracking metrics, and concise issue/action plans when performance is off track.

Essential Responsibilities

Employee Lifecycle & People Operations

Lead the day-to-day employee lifecycle for assigned populations, including workforce planning, requisition and hiring support, onboarding, internal movement, leave coordination, performance management, development, engagement, retention, and offboarding.

Ensure onboarding and orientation are consistent, timely, and connected to role expectations, culture, values, compliance requirements, and manager accountability.

Partner with leaders and employees on HR policies, programs, employee data, benefits and payroll questions, escalating specialist matters appropriately while maintaining ownership of the employee experience.

Maintain accurate, timely, and confidential employee documentation and HRIS records; support audits, reporting, and documentation standards.

Continuously improve People processes, templates, job descriptions, manager resources, and employee communications to reduce friction and improve clarity.

Leader & Employee Partnership

Coach leaders on people decisions, organizational effectiveness, performance expectations, feedback, development, attendance, conduct, conflict, and change management.

Provide responsive, balanced employee relations guidance; conduct or support fact finding and workplace investigations; recommend consistent, well-documented actions aligned with policy, values, and applicable law.

Build trusted relationships across all levels of the organization while maintaining appropriate boundaries, discretion, objectivity, and sound judgment.

Identify patterns in employee concerns, manager capability, engagement, or turnover and translate those themes into practical recommendations for the Chief People & Culture Officer and business leaders.

Talent, Performance & Organization Effectiveness

Partner with leaders on workforce and talent planning, role clarity, organization design, spans and layers, succession, critical-role coverage, and capability needs.

Facilitate performance-management rhythms that connect individual goals and behaviors to team outcomes and enterprise priorities; support calibration, development planning, and performance improvement processes.

Strengthen manager effectiveness through coaching, tools, training, and practical application of People policies and leadership expectations.

Use qualitative and quantitative insights to identify talent and organizational risks, prioritize interventions, and track whether actions are producing the intended outcome.

Client-Aligned & Business Partnership

Develop a working understanding of assigned client programs and operational teams, including staffing models, service-level expectations, quality requirements, peak workload periods, and skills needed for delivery.

Partner with business leaders on staffing, engagement, retention, performance, and change initiatives that support client commitments and sustainable operations.

Translate enterprise People practices into solutions that work for client-aligned teams while preserving consistent standards, compliance, and employee experience.

Participate in business and operating reviews as appropriate, bringing forward workforce trends, people risks, actions, and decision needs.

People Programs & Culture 

Promote a culture of clarity, accountability, inclusion, collaboration, and continuous improvement through visible onsite leadership and proactive employee engagement.

Support employee listening strategies, pulse surveys, engagement actions, recognition programs, learning initiatives, and communications; ensure leaders close the loop with employees on themes and commitments.

Partner on culture integration and change initiatives as the organization scales, ensuring changes are understood, adopted, and reinforced through leader behavior and operating routines.

Management System, Metrics & Continuous Improvement

Translate enterprise True North objectives into relevant People priorities, outcomes, and measures for assigned populations and People functions.

Maintain clear roles, responsibilities, dependencies, and decision rights for key People processes; identify gaps or duplications and resolve them with the appropriate functional owner.

Develop and maintain practical tracking metrics for key People outcomes such as staffing, turnover, engagement, performance, manager effectiveness, employee relations trends, and process health.

Use a structured monthly operating cadence to review performance, identify red indicators, surface root causes, and drive focused corrective actions.

Use concise A3-style problem solving for material or recurring People issues: define the problem, understand root cause, document countermeasures, assign ownership, and track results.

Compliance, Risk & Global HR Support

Apply sound working knowledge of federal, state, and local employment requirements and partner with counsel or specialist resources when needed.

Support multi-state and global people matters with appropriate cultural awareness, jurisdictional sensitivity, and partnership with in-country or employer-of-record resources as applicable.

Maintain strict confidentiality of employee, applicant, client, vendor, and business information and model the highest standards of professionalism and ethical judgment.

Participate in internal reviews, audits, policy updates, and compliance activities; identify risk early and recommend practical mitigation steps.

Leadership Expectations

Operate as a player-coach: willing and able to execute the work directly while also improving the system in which the work happens.

Create clarity before activity - define the outcome, owner, decision rights, dependencies, measures, and follow-up cadence for important initiatives.

Escalate thoughtfully: bring forward emerging risks early, with facts, options, a recommendation, and a proposed path to resolution.

Balance employee advocacy with business stewardship, maintaining credibility with employees and leaders through consistency, transparency, and follow-through.

Model calm urgency, sound judgment, curiosity, learning agility, and a bias for action in a fast-moving healthcare services environment.

Qualifications

Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Business, Organizational Psychology, Communications, or a related field preferred; equivalent relevant experience considered.

5-7 years of progressive Human Resources / People & Culture experience, including meaningful HR generalist or HR business partner responsibility.

Experience supporting the full employee lifecycle and advising managers on employee relations, performance management, talent, engagement, and organizational change.

Demonstrated ability to operate in a matrixed or hub-and-spoke HR model with both business/client-aligned and functional responsibilities.

Global or multi-jurisdiction HR knowledge and/or experience required; experience partnering across cultures, geographies, or global employment models strongly valued.

SHRM-CP, SHRM-SCP, PHR, SPHR, or comparable SHRM/HRCI credential preferred.

Strong working knowledge of HRIS platforms, Microsoft 365, reporting/analytics, applicant tracking and recruiting tools, and digital collaboration platforms.

Healthcare, pharmaceutical services, patient services, hub services, life sciences, or other regulated-services experience preferred.

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities

Strong business acumen and ability to connect people decisions to client delivery, operational performance, risk, and growth.

Excellent written, verbal, facilitation, coaching, and interpersonal communication skills; able to communicate with frontline employees, people managers, and executives.

Strong judgment, discretion, and emotional intelligence in sensitive or ambiguous situations.

Ability to diagnose issues using data and patterns, distinguish symptoms from root causes, and convert insights into clear actions.

High level of organization and follow-through; able to manage multiple priorities, deadlines, and employee matters without sacrificing quality or confidentiality.

Comfort operating with accountability and measurable outcomes while remaining adaptable as business needs evolve.

Demonstrated SHRM BASK-aligned capability in ethical practice, relationship management, communication, business acumen, consultation, analytical aptitude, inclusive mindset, leadership, and global perspective.

Commitment to fair, consistent, respectful, and inclusive People practices.

Success Measures

Reliable, high-quality execution across the employee lifecycle with fewer avoidable delays, handoff gaps, and employee experience breakdowns.

Improved manager capability and confidence in handling performance, feedback, employee relations, and routine People processes.

Clear ownership, decision rights, and operating rhythms across assigned People processes and client-aligned populations.

Actionable workforce insights with timely follow-through on staffing, retention, engagement, performance, and employee relations risks.

Consistent demonstration and reinforcement of values across leader and employee touchpoints.

Strong trust and credibility with the Chief People & Culture Officer, leaders, employees, and cross-functional partners.

Work Environment & Travel

This is a full-time, onsite position supporting Elusa Health's Maitland / Orlando operations. Regular in-office presence is an essential component of the role. Standard work hours are generally Monday through Friday, with flexibility based on business, employee, and client needs. Travel of up to 25% may be required for business meetings, client or site support, leadership sessions, and other organizational needs.

The role requires prolonged computer use, frequent communication by phone and video, routine walking and movement within an office environment, and the ability to perform the essential functions of the position with or without reasonable accommodation.

Statement

This job description describes the general nature and level of work performed and is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all duties, responsibilities, qualifications, or working conditions. Elusa Health may modify or reassign responsibilities based on business needs, subject to applicable law. This job description does not constitute a contract of employment.