Vice President of Human Resources

The Vice President (VP) for Fenway Health is responsible for providing oversight and leadership for all activities related to the Human Resources function while fostering a transparent environment of accountability, excellence, collaboration, and cultural humility and responsiveness among the HR staff and across the entire organization. The VP will ensure that they create and sustain the conditions for a flourishing work community at Fenway Health, engaging employees at all levels of the organization as stewards of a culture that prioritizes delivering the highest-quality care and services to patients, clients, and communities. In partnership with executive staff and internal stakeholders throughout the organization the VP works to ensure a collective sense of belonging, meaningful employee engagement, learning, and accountability, actively putting Fenway’s values into action and aligning Fenway’s culture with its mission and vision.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Leadership

• Serves as a member of the executive team, which is charged with ensuring Fenway achieves the goals of the strategic plan. Within that group, ensures that Fenway’s people and organizational culture are continually a part of the leadership conversation and strategy. 
• Maintains current knowledge and understanding of state and federal employment law, stays on top of healthcare regulatory requirements, and tracks industry trends and practices. 
• Ensures the organization complies with state and federal employment laws, regulations, and policies.
• Leads the development and implementation of internal systems that support the vision and strategic priorities, including organizational trainings, mentoring opportunities, management and leadership skills and competencies curriculum development- and uses metrics to assess impact
• Brings experience and expertise in organizational culture change and change management processes
• Brings experience and expertise in creating and supporting a culturally inclusive and informed workforce culture 
• Responsible for building a cohesive, experienced and supportive HR team
• Continuously uses data for decision making 
• Partners with the Director of Racial Equity, Social Justice, and Community Engagement to develop and implement annual initiatives that align with Fenway’s commitment to equity and anti-racism that are embedded in the strategic plan.

Strategy and Workforce Planning

•  In partnership with the executive team, identify and develop organizational key performance indicators in order to assess organizational strengths and challenges. Using that data, works with the Leadership Team to explore and leverage insights that amplify productivity and efficiency and support organizational learning and development that advances the organization’s strategy. 
• Optimizes people-centered practices — recruiting, hiring, training, supervision, professional development, performance management, employee relations — to ensure these efforts work in sync to support Fenway’s mission and strategy. 
• Thoughtfully evaluates career paths and development plans to build succession plans for key organizational positions that promote diversity and equity, especially racial and gender equity. 

Staff and Organizational Development

• Creates a culture and work environment that reflects organizational values. 
• Holds a systems view of the organization and is able to manage organizational challenges as opportunities for systemic learning, change, and justice. 
• Cultivates practices that enhance employee engagement and productivity — collaboration, meaningful and intentional conversation, cultural awareness, ability to engage in generative deliberations, thoughtful planning, effective decision-making, and skillful performance management. 
• Coaches senior and mid-level managers to provide compassionate and generative supervision of employees, support exceptional employee learning and growth, and enable career development. 
• Uses agency-wide gatherings as opportunities to reinforce Fenway’s mission and values, encourage cross-departmental communications, and foster individual and collective learning and growth. 
• Cultivates a culture in which challenges are met with equanimity, clarity, and transparency as opportunities for learning and organizational development. 
• Nurtures skills and competencies among leaders and managers in order to build and sustain a culture of accountability across the organization

Talent Acquisition and Retention

• Develops and manages a candidate-centered, full-cycle recruiting experience — attracting, hiring, and retaining a diverse and highly skilled staff. 
• Works with managers to design impactful job profiles. 
• Designs systems and practices to mitigate bias in recruitment and support a respectful and equitable hiring process. 
• Establishes the highest-quality and impactful orientation, on-boarding, and off-boarding practices that create an experience of belonging and thoughtfully set up new employees to succeed in their roles. 
• Ongoing review and assessment of key data points that informs this process
• Administers staff experience surveys and, in collaboration with the leadership team, utilizes data to focus improvement efforts to address retention across the organization.

Human Resources Management

• Fosters positive, constructive relationship with labor unions, including negotiating collective bargaining agreements, addressing grievances, and ensuring compliance with labor laws. Balances organizational needs with fair labor practices, promoting open communication and collaboration between management and union representatives. Exhibits strong understanding of union dynamics, remains proactive in conflict resolution, and works to maintain a fair, respectful work environment that supports both employee rights and organizational goals.
• Builds internal alignments between HR department and departmental priorities in order to ensure cohesiveness and responsiveness to departmental change management needs.
• Builds a well-trained, informed, responsive, supportive HR team.
• Oversees annual HR projects and events such as performance management, health insurance provision, compensation program, etc. 
• With the HR team, ensures that all HR policies, programs, services, and practices reflect Fenway’s values. 
• Advises management on human resources and employee relations matters, consulting expert or legal counsel as required. 
• Expertly guides the organization to address and resolve employee relations incidents, personnel matters, and other organizational challenges and issues that arise, and does so with confidence and gravitas balanced with curiosity and equanimity. 

Competencies

• 10+ years of experience in Human Resources 
• Five or more years of experience as a skilled HR leader in medium to large organizations (preferably from health care, or public health.) with responsibility in executive and Board engagement; 
• Organizational culture oversight and development; 
• Demonstrated competency in labor relations and union negotiations
• Team/department leadership and management; 
• Diversity, equity, and inclusion programs; 
• Leadership/management development; 
• Employee relations; 
• On-boarding (recruiting, orientation, and on-boarding); 
• Off-boarding (terminations, workforce reductions, lay-offs); 
• Coaching and mentoring (executive, manager/leader, individual employee); 
• Professional development and learning experience design and facilitation; 
• Talent acquisition, with a focus on diversity as a competitive business advantage; 
• Management of contracts, vendors, legal counsel, and other external partners; and 
• Planning and budget management. 

Skills

• Visionary, strategic, and systems-minded but also experienced in the real day-to-day realities of human resources; able to step into practical matters  
• Ability to inculcate shared values throughout an organization. 
• Significant experience with change management and organization transformation practices. 
• Strong ability to build, develop, and influence internal relationships and communities to support organization development initiatives. 
• Creative mindset with the capacity to work with a diverse and talented employee community to optimize the employee experience and performance. 
• Demonstrated track record of advancing equity-centered practices and achieving equity-focused outcomes. 
• A “restorative justice” mindset; constructive conflict management and resolution skills; discernment, discretion, judgment, clarity. Ability to respond to and manage challenging systemic matters, like complex employee relations incidents, with the capacity to meet these moments as opportunities to influence organizational culture. 
• Engagement with professional networks and resources that can enhance the work and culture of the organization. 
• Ability and experience using data for decision making and change management

OTHER PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS

• Enthusiasm and passion for Fenway Health’s mission
• Impeccable integrity with a strong commitment to professionalism and promoting well-being of staff
• Strong interpersonal skills; self-awareness, an effective relationship builder and team member
• LGBTQIA+ identified persons, people of color, and others from historically underrepresented communities are strongly encouraged to apply