MANAGING DIRECTOR OF HUMAN RESOURCES

The managing director of human resources ensures the human resources team meets the highest standards of customer service and leverages his or her knowledge of best practices to assure alignment of the human resources department with the network's people strategy. As a champion of Ascend's mission, culture and values, this individual partners with the organization's leaders to help them lead their teams, navigate and resolve employee relations issues, and support programs that develop best-in-class people.

Why extraordinary professionals choose Ascend

Ascend is a network of K-12 public charter schools serving 5,700 students across 15 schools in Central Brooklyn. Our mission is to lead our students on a great intellectual journey, providing them with an exceptional education and placing them firmly on the path to success in college and beyond.

We guide our students to think critically and independently and to enjoy education as an end in itself. We teach a rich and rigorous liberal arts curriculum that nurtures students' natural curiosity about the world. We foster a positive, non-punitive school culture where students feel connected, empowered, and safe to take academic risks. Even our school buildings are designed to reflect our high aspirations for teaching and learning and the notable accomplishments that occur within our walls.

To create this kind of vibrant learning community, we invest heavily in our team members by providing ongoing, best-of-class professional training and support. We encourage them to collaborate closely and push one another to achieve great outcomes.

Learn more about the Ascend approach by visiting our website.

• Provide management and oversight to team members to ensure strong results through goal-setting, accountability, and professional development
• Ensure systems are in place to provide excellent customer service to all Ascend staff
• Collaborate with the chief people officer to set strategic vision and build out human resources function, including but not limited to human resources policies, employee relations, employee engagement, performance management, compensation, benefits, onboarding, and offboarding

Employee engagement: satisfaction, retention, and recognition

• Collaborate closely with Ascend leadership to drive staff satisfaction and retention through the integration and alignment of onboarding, performance management, response to staff satisfaction surveys, and exit interviews
• Strengthen the connection that network team members have to the organization and mission; promote a network culture that ensures high retention
• Build an exceptional network office culture by overseeing staff meetings, celebrations, response to network satisfaction data and feedback, and the performance management cycle
• Nurture a culture of diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism
• Work integrally with the executive team on creating and reinforcing a culture that supports our mission, values, and guiding principles
• Increase our employee retention, particularly at the school level, through analyzing data, surveys, exit interviews, and other tools to devise strategies to increase retention

Performance management

• Ensure that a strong performance management model is in place across the network, including planning organizational and individual goals, assessing performance, developing professional skills, and recognizing contributions that advance Ascend's mission
• Collaborate across schools and departments to ensure the successful implementation of performance management systems as well as a consistent replication of Ascend's culture and core values across sites and teams
• Professional growth and leadership development
• Partner with Ascend leadership to provide management training and professional development opportunities for principals and schools' assistant princpals of operations
• At the network office, systematically enhance leadership and managerial capability through differentiated trainings, coaching, and support that reinforce Ascend's approach to talent development

Employee relations and HR compliance

• Act as a trusted advisor, coach, and consultant to senior leaders to improve their leadership capability, team effectiveness, and performance.
• Working with legal counsel, develop and manage workplace protocols, complaint procedures, and policies governing employee grievances and separations; resolve employee relations matters
• Coach supervisors in carrying out their responsibilities for employee relations matters
• Establish, communicate, and interpret HR policies and procedures, and ensure compliance
• Make recommendations for improvement of the network's policies, procedures, and practices
• Advise on performance management issues and lead investigations and remediation
• Maintain knowledge of industry trends and employment legislation, and ensure compliance with federal, state, and local law and regulation

Compensation, benefits, and human resources information system (HRIS)

• Lead the development and administration of network-wide compensation strategies aligned with our philosophy and talent strategy
• Partner with the finance team in the selection, management, and administration of health and welfare benefit programs and retirement funds and manage relationships with vendors
• Oversee build out of HRIS system (DayForce) to streamline people processes and enable sophisticated analyses of Ascend's workforce
• Work closely with payroll to ensure timely and accurate processing of people management transactions via the HRIS

Human resources transition

• Help plan and manage the integration of the human resources team and the talent team to form the “people” team
• Evaluate human resource job functions and job descriptions to align to the new “people” function
• Help determine new end-to-end processes with integrated talent and human resources teams
• Map human resource processes and determine how to more efficiently effectively integrate with current HRIS and payroll systems

Reporting structure

The managing director of human resources reports directly to the chief people officer and directly manages four to six human resources professionals.

• Bachelor's degree required, master's degree preferred
• Minimum 7 years of relevant HR experience
• Strong technical understanding of HR functions, including but not limited to compensation, performance management, employment law, and leadership development
• Passionate about people
• Entrepreneurial mindset; committed to preserving a bold, can-do culture that sustains the organization's values of integrity, curiosity, community, empowerment, growth, daring, and excellence
• Unimpeachable personal credibility
• A steward of ethical behavior who actively supports a diverse, inclusive, and welcoming workplace culture
• Incisive thinker with strong analytic capacity
• Ability to passionately align with Ascend's educational and workplace philosophies
• Ability to develop others through coaching, feedback, and professional development
• Ability to build trusting relationships and influence at all levels of the organization without direct authority
• Ability to analyze complex, sometimes ambiguous information and acquire data from multiple sources when solving problems
• Impeccable written, verbal, and presentation skills, with a sharp attention to detail
• Ability to work in a fast-paced environment under tight deadlines, navigating systems and an emerging organization of scale and complexity
• Superb organizational, project management, and process-building skills
• HR professional certification(s) preferred

Diversity at Ascend

Ascend is committed to building a diverse and inclusive community, both through our hiring practices and our focus on creating a culture and environment where diverse perspectives, ideas, and identities are valued and integrated into our way of working and educating students. Ascend staff represent a wide diversity of racial, socio-economic, gender, religious, and national identities—opening a window to the entire Ascend community on the richness of humanity. We welcome all applicants who share our mission and vision to join us in our deeply consequential work.

Compensation

Ascend offers a competitive salary and comprehensive benefits package.