Senior Director, People + Culture

About Prospect Park Alliance

Founded in 1987, Prospect Park Alliance is the nonprofit organization whose mission is to sustain, restore, and advance Prospect Park, in partnership with the City of New York, to benefit the diverse communities that call Brooklyn home. Designed by the visionary landscape architecture team of Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, Prospect Park has experienced both tremendous periods of growth and unfortunate decades of neglect throughout its 150-year history. Today, Prospect Park is an international model for the care of urban parks, and one of the premier green spaces in the United States, welcoming more than 10 million visits each year and offering a diverse range of volunteer, education and recreation programs.

The Opportunity

This is an exceptional opportunity for a highly skilled, proven and impactful HR leader to join our leadership team and implement a “best-in-class” people, culture and HR operational strategy to support our organization’s goals, manage our efforts to develop a diverse and inclusive work culture and build positive employment experiences for our staff. Reporting directly to the Chief Operating Officer and working closely with the President and senior staff, the Senior Director of People & Culture will be instrumental in leading the planned HR transformation efforts across a diverse range of HR initiatives including HR technology (HCMS), talent recruiting, performance management, learning, compensation and total rewards, and employee engagement. The Senior Director will contribute at both a hands-on and strategic level and serve as an HR subject matter expert and resource for the leadership team, people managers and individual contributors as the organization plans its next phase of growth.

Key Responsibilities

People Operations

  • Own and provide exemplary leadership and management of people strategy and operations, HR initiatives, and employee engagement and retention programs and activities including facilitation of the Employee Advisory Group and other forums focused on the employee experience.   
  • Serve as the focal point for all employee-relations issues and develop strategies and interventions to address them including guiding and coaching managers and employees, conducting investigations where necessary and collaborating with outside employment counsel.
  • Partner and build trust with internal stakeholders including the senior leadership team, people managers and employees across all layers of the organization; be an active listener and effective problem solver of employee issues while supporting organizational priorities and goals.
  • Oversee and implement the organization’s performance management program, policies and processes, including individual development plans, result tracking, career pathways and succession planning.
  • Establish solutions and strategies to empower leaders to better manage and prepare high-potential employees for management roles.
  • Supervise and coach the Senior HR Coordinator to enable him/her to be an active, visible and supportive HR resource to people managers and individual contributors.  
  • Support staff by enhancing the onboarding and introductory processes to the organization.
  • Facilitate the exit interview process and coordinate the administration of surveys with employees to integrate feedback from these processes and resources to shape future people and retention strategies.
  • Help design and administer the Alliance’s compensation, benefits and total rewards program including related policies, procedures and reporting requirements. Ensure that these programs are aligned with the Alliance’s goals, budget considerations, market competition and employee priorities.
  • Manage all outside vendor relationships and partners that support various HR operations and resources

Organization/Work Culture

  • Develop and ensure that employment policies and practices promote diversity, equity and inclusion; are consistent with best practices in the field; and are fully compliant with applicable federal, state and local laws and other regulatory requirements governing the workplace.
  • Help champion and build the Alliance’s organizational culture, assisting employees across the organization align with our values through effective programs and internal communications that inspire commitment to the Alliance’s mission, core work and diversity, equity and inclusion goals.
  • Collaborate with the senior leadership team and managers on developing a culture of learning, continuous feedback and career progression by creating experiences that engage employees and teams at all levels.
  • Coordinate all employee events and culture activities as well as people rewards and recognition programs.

Talent

  • Develop and execute a talent strategy for the organization to attract and retain the best talent in the market promoting the Alliance as an “employer of choice” and ensure that the diversity of talent across the organization reflects the communities represented by the Alliance.
  • Provide out-of-the-box thinking on how to attract and recruit talent in a competitive market, while building a plan to cultivate talent pools and drive both quality and speed to hire in the talent acquisition process.
  • Partner with the leadership team and people managers to understand and anticipate hiring needs.
  • Build programs to help cultivate an organizational culture that inspires exceptional talent, performance and the highest achievement in the Alliance’s people resources.

HR Technologies, Systems + People Analytics

  • Lead efforts to implement and oversee all HR technologies (including the new HCMS) and streamline workflow processes to maximize operational efficiency and capacity to support the planned growth and expansion of the organization
  • Oversee HR compliance and ensure the Senior HR Coordinator maintains and updates the HR portal to effectively track all employee transactions, onboarding and workflow processes including new hire documentation, leave time, performance evaluations, payroll interface, job status changes, compensation, benefits and total rewards
  • Build the foundation of a strong, data-driven, people-operations organization that provides key performance metrics, analytics and dashboard reports to help support executive decisionmaking
  • Integrate people analytics and data to guide recommendations around employee performance, retention and engagement

May be assigned other related duties and responsibilities by the Chief Operating Officer and/or President.

Candidate Profile, Competencies, Personal Qualities

The ideal candidate should possess the following experience, competencies and personal qualities:

Experience/Education

  • Bachelor’s Degree plus eight (8) years professional HR/People Operations experience, five (5) years of which were at the Manager level. A Master’s Degree in Human Resources or related field and SHRM/HRCI are preferred.
  • A proven, successful track record of HR experience and knowledge of community-focused nonprofit and social-impact organizations.
  • Demonstrated experience in talent recruiting; building high-performance teams; cultivating positive employee-engagement initiatives; and administering compensation, benefits and total rewards programs.
  • Strong understanding of employment law, compliance and regulatory standards governing the workplace.
  • Working knowledge of cloud-based HR technology supporting people operations.

Competencies/Personal Qualities

  • Passionate about leading best-practice, people operations and continuous improvement and advancement of these resources to support an organization.
  • A natural leader, mentor, coach and facilitator with the ability to inspire others and positively influence a diversity of work styles and personalities.
  • Committed to working as a collaborative team member.
  • Excellent project management skills and ability to manage multiple priorities and deadlines.
  • Superior communicator orally and with the written word, and able to effectively provide constructive and strategic feedback.
  • Strong commitment and passion for the Alliance’s mission and core values.

Commitment to Diversity, Equity + Inclusion

Prospect Park Alliance is an equal opportunity employer committed to making diversity as much a part of its everyday operations as it is a part of its mission and values. The Alliance is committed to providing an environment of mutual respect where equal employment opportunities are available to all applicants and employees without regard to race, color, religion, sex, pregnancy (including childbirth, lactation and related medical conditions), national origin, age, physical and mental disability, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, genetic information (including characteristics and testing), military and veteran status, and any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.

In partnership with the City of New York, the Alliance serves park users of all socio-economic and cultural backgrounds, and strives to reflect this diversity in its leadership, staff and supporters. By creating an equitable and inclusive workplace, the Alliance is committed to ensuring that its employees feel safe to express themselves, voice their opinions and work collaboratively in positive and meaningful ways.