Confidential Director of HR Operations (Minneapolis, MN On Site)

📋 Description

• • Own and architect the entire HR operations engine for a fast-growing, clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company that is translating breakthrough vascular science into life-changing therapies. You will be the single point of accountability for every process that touches the employee lifecycle—from offer letter to retirement—supporting a 35–50-person employee population and 10–20 specialized consultants across nine states.
• • Design, implement, and continuously refine a scalable HRIS and payroll ecosystem that guarantees 100 % data integrity, multi-state tax compliance, and seamless integrations with finance, accounting, and equity platforms. Your work will eliminate manual touchpoints, reduce cycle time, and give leaders real-time visibility into workforce costs.
• • Serve as the strategic benefits architect, owning vendor relationships, annual renewals, and open enrollment for medical, dental, vision, life, disability, retirement, and equity plans. You will benchmark against biotech peers, model cost scenarios, and craft total-rewards communications that help the company compete for top scientific talent.
• • Act as the in-house compliance authority on FLSA, FMLA, ADA, EEO, OSHA, COBRA, ACA, and emerging state regulations. You will draft and refresh policies, conduct internal audits, manage external counsel, and deliver training that keeps the organization audit-ready and reputationally strong.
• • Build and automate executive-level dashboards covering headcount, turnover, compa-ratio, span-of-control, and benefits utilization. Translate data into narrative insights that inform workforce planning, succession, and annual budget cycles.
• • Launch and iterate a performance-management program that aligns individual goals with clinical milestones and corporate OKRs. Create lightweight manager toolkits, calibration guides, and recognition frameworks that scale as the company doubles in size.
• • Establish HR service-level agreements and standard operating procedures that define response times, escalation paths, and quality gates. Your documentation will become the playbook for future HR hires and ensure consistent employee experience across sites.
• • Partner directly with the CEO, CFO, and functional heads to model hiring scenarios, evaluate contractor vs. employee decisions, and design retention strategies tied to equity refresh cycles and milestone-based bonuses.
• • Champion a culture of continuous improvement by running quarterly process retrospectives, gathering employee feedback, and piloting new technologies (e.g., AI chatbots for Tier-1 HR questions) that free the team for higher-value work.
• • Mentor and up-skill an HR coordinator or junior generalist, creating a succession pipeline and ensuring knowledge redundancy in critical operations.
• • Represent HR on cross-functional project teams (facilities, IT security, clinical operations) to ensure people implications are considered in every major initiative, from lab expansion to new geographic footprints.
• • Maintain rigorous SOX and clinical-trial site audit readiness by ensuring personnel files, I-9s, and training records are complete, accurate, and accessible within 24 hours of request.