What Does an HR Director Do?
HR directors are senior leaders who oversee the human resources department by developing employee policies and supporting human resources staff members. HR directors are primarily responsible for overseeing the HR staff, hiring, negotiating employment contracts, managing employee benefits, and designing training programs. HR directors should have a strong background in human resource management and an extensive knowledge of labor laws and regulations.
This role involves a wide range of responsibilities and duties. HR directors must be able to deal with employee grievances effectively and continue to work to improve job satisfaction companywide. HR directors can eventually take on different roles and be offered higher HR positions, such as vice president of human resources or even chief human resources officer.
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National Average Salary
HR director salaries vary by experience, industry, organization size, and geography. To explore salary ranges by local market, please visit our sister site zengig.com.
The average U.S. salary for an HR Director is:
$120,800
HR Director Job Descriptions
Example 1
Provide coaching and guidance to site leaders and associates regarding employment issues in such areas as policy and procedure interpretation and application, dispute resolution, corrective action, leaves of absence, harassment, and terminations.
Primary responsibilities
- Analyze findings and review trends with senior management and recommend actions to ensure positive organizational changes
- Review, interpret, administer, and ensure compliance with federal, state, and local employment laws, and company policies and procedures
- Develop and maintain the site’s Affirmative Action Program (where applicable), complete required Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) reporting, and ensure Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) compliance
- Perform investigations and prepare written responses to EEOC claims, unemployment claims, etc.
- Work with site leaders to create and maintain workforce staffing plans. Coordinate recruiting efforts with Sysco Business Services (where applicable) to ensure that competent, diverse, and skilled workers are hired, and workload levels are appropriate and maintained to minimize turnover
- Direct resources and activities to support a culture of prevention awareness and accountability across the organization
- Support the development of Health, Safety and Environmental (HSE) plans to meet operational goals to reduce accidents, injuries, and incidents
- Provide day-to-day direction and support to site HR staff including proactive guidance, troubleshooting support, and issue escalation
Education required
- Bachelor’s degree with major or emphasis in Human Resources, Business Administration or a closely related field
Experience required
- At least 7 years (10 preferred) of demonstrated HR leadership and management experience in distribution/manufacturing environments
License and certifications preferred
- Human Resource Certification Institute (HRCI) Professional Human Resources (PHR), Senior Professional Human Resources (SPHR), SHRM-CP, or SHRM-SCP certification preferred
Additional requirements
Reasonable accommodations will be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of this job
Example 2
The HR Director facilitates organization and leadership development efforts, working with employees and managers to address root causes of human resources issues. The HR Director may play a significant role in administering talent management and succession planning activity within client organization. Duties also include resolving employee relations issues through a systematic approach. The HR Director assists senior management in the development of solutions through cultural and process perspective organizational development.
Responsibilities
- Strategic business partner and change agent responsible for implementing people initiatives and cultural change at the department level
- Partner with the assigned client groups to manage employee relations issues, consult on organizational design, coach employees, and managers and support HR functional processes
- Drive the performance management process
- Lead the engagement survey roll out and all the supporting initiatives associated with increasing employee engagement at a company-wide level
- Actively participate in establishing long and short term goals and strategies for the function
- Special projects will be assigned to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the function
Basic requirements
- Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience
- 12+ years of experience in related, progressive roles
Surescripts embraces flexibility through its hybrid work model where most positions are eligible to work a mix of days in the office and from home. For eligible positions, our hybrid model provides employees with scheduling options. In general, employees may work either 2 days a week in the office and 3 days from home or 8 days a month in the office and the remaining workdays from home.
Example 3
Key responsibilities
- Establish HR Strategies to meet objectives of the business
- Drive and improve HR processes across all client groups
- Own, monitor and improve HR Metrics and KPI’s
- Drive a culture of performance, results, and positive employee relations
- Coach leaders on talent management, and performance differentiation
- Execute staffing processes at all levels within the business and develop staffing strategies to ensure a robust pipeline of quality candidates
- Deliver talent management processes, organizational assessments, earning strategies, and leadership development
- Implement competitive compensation, benefits, and reward and recognition programs
- Direct the planning and maintenance of communications
- Ensure legal compliance throughout human resource management
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree
- 5+ years of progressive Human Resource Generalist experience
- 3+ Human Resources experience in a matrixed OR commercial organization (ex. pricing, sales excellence, marketing, offering management, etc.)
Preferred qualifications
- Master’s degree or MBA in Human Resources
- Strong data analytical skills (ex. process data, make data cohesive, tell a story with the data)
- Proficiency in MS Office software including solid experience working with Microsoft Excel (generating and interpreting pivot tables, graphs, and V-lookups)
- Strong organizational design (OD) experience
- Demonstration of ability to positively influence others, particularly leadership development and coaching
- Ability to partner across businesses/LOBs
- Strong business sense and acumen
- Ability to deal tactfully and confidently with internal and external customers
- Strong bias for action, a keen sense of urgency, and the ability to drive impactful results in a highly matrixed organization
- Strong written/verbal communication skills and understanding of executive conciseness
- Solid knowledge of employment laws and regulations
Sample Interview Questions
- What experience do you have with HR software?
- What KPIs do you use to measure the effectiveness of the HR department?
- How do you consolidate HR strategies with overall business objectives?
- What can HR do to influence company culture?
- What steps would you take to ensure diversity in the organization?
- How do you deal with challenges, labor disputes, and violations?
- How do you stay current with employment laws?
- What are the qualities that make a good leader for an HR team?
- What is your knowledge of the current federal and state overtime laws?
- If one of the managers under your supervision made a serious mistake, what would you do?
- What policies have you developed? Were they successful?
- Has a manager come to you with a problem they couldn’t solve? What did you do to help?
- How would you investigate possible causes and implement solutions to high turnover rates?