People and Culture Senior Manager

JOB OPPORTUNITY

Position: People and Culture Senior Manager
Organization: Youth Speaks, Inc.
Supervisor: Deputy Director
Hours per week: 40 hours/week (full-time, exempt, hybrid)
Compensation: $80,000-$90,000 DOE
Benefits include:

Medical, dental, vision, FSA, life and long-term disability insurance plans
Generous time off including 20 vacation days, 10 sick days, 12 holidays, monthly personal wellness days
Annual stipend for professional development

About the Organization:
Youth Speaks is a multi-faceted BIPOC-led and staffed organization that understands that the power, insight, creativity, and passion of young people change the world. Founded in 1996 in San Francisco, Youth Speaks is the leading nonprofit presenter of Spoken Word performance, education, and youth development programs in the world.

Presenters of local and international youth poetry slams, festivals, reading series, and more, Youth Speaks also offers a comprehensive slate of literary arts education programs during the school day, in the out-of-school time, on weekends, and evenings. All told, Youth Speaks provides free arts education to thousands of teens per year in the San Francisco Bay Area alone, has helped create partner programs in over 60 cities across the United States, and has worked with young people globally.

About the Role:

The People and Culture Senior Manager is a newly created role and will provide oversight and execution of all human resource (HR) activities throughout the organization, including contracted artists. They will be the chief architect of employee engagement for the entirety of the employee lifecycle, including the recruitment of outstanding talent and co-creation of a best-in-class culture that reflects core values around racial equity, diversity, belonging and fostering meaningful relationships in and outside of the organization. Additionally, they will act as a thought key partner to the leadership team, Strategy Team, in how to best sustain and grow our workforce.

A strong candidate is an experienced and enthusiastic HR professional, with a strong interest in human resources, operational logistics, managing human resources platforms, and has a keen interest in developing and operationalizing systems that promote an exciting and positive work culture for our stellar team. They will have extensive experience updating policies and procedures for independent contractors in compliance with state and federal policies and laws. The People and Culture Senior Manager will play a critical role to create meaningful connections among staff across the organization.

A strong candidate for this position must be able to successfully manage multiple priorities, take initiative but ask for support when needed, meet deadlines with little supervision, and have a keen eye for detail.

The People and Culture Senior Manager will report directly to the Deputy Director. This role will require occasional evening and weekend work to support organization-wide events with advance notice.

This is an opportunity for a progressive, passionate, advocate to strengthen the development and growth of our organization’s team, and ultimately advance our cause of creating spaces for young people to develop and amplify their voices as creators of societal change.

POSITION OVERVIEW

Under the supervision of the Deputy Director, this position is responsible for managing all aspects of our Human Resources department.

The ideal candidate should be comfortable collaborating across the organization and working with everyone from the executive leadership team and the Board of Directors to youth in our programs.

The People and Culture Senior Manager’s top priorities and responsibilities include but are not limited to:

Human Resources (40%)

Manage HR operations through our Employee Relationship Management (ERM) platforms (Gusto, Culture Amp)
Implement human resources operations, including payroll, benefits administration, and compliance management
Develop and maintain filing systems and ensure data integrity for all HR-related processes
Develop and implement timelines, questions, forms for mid-year and end-of-year performance reviews
Provide support to all staff in understanding organizational policies and accessing benefits
Oversee, track, and provide guidance for Independent Contractor Management
Develop and iterate standards of skills and capacities at different position levels and commensurate salary bands; provide clarity of advancement opportunities and performance expectations.
Provide data and support to Executive Director, Deputy Director, and Finance team during annual budgeting
Provide data and support to Advancement Team and Finance Team on monthly reporting needs in relation to personnel costs

Staff Appreciations, Trainings, Professional Development (30%)

Organize staff lunches and quarterly staff appreciation activities in collaboration with the administrative team
Develop and implement strategies and practices to create meaningful connections among staff across the organization
Manage and maintain organizational all-staff Calendar and Google Drive folder with key information for All-Staff Meetings and critical resources that should be available for all staff
Strengthen relationships through opportunities to connect, learn, and act, resulting in increased trust and organizational impact
In collaboration with the Strategy Team (executive leadership team), organize and lead the communication for organizational retreats
Support our Marketing and Communications departments with Monthly “Vibe Check,” an internal staff newsletter
Provide guidance around best practice and current trends in supporting productivity, recognition, engagement, and team-building initiatives and practices.

Policies and Procedures (15%)

Support the Deputy Director in auditing, enhancing, and developing HR practices both with internal employees and for the management of independent contractors.
Manage all HR policies and procedures to ensure compliance with local, state, and federal labor laws.
Ensure compliance with all local, state and federal regulations and develop and implement policies, processes, training, and initiatives to support human resource compliance.
Advise Executive Director and Deputy Direct on any material changes needed for internal employee resources such as the Employee Handbook.
Develop policies and tools to support performance improvement processes and oversee corrective action programs, terminations, and investigations.
In collaboration with the Finance Team, co-develop methods to assess staff time allocation across programs and develop cadence to assess time allocation across the organization
Ensure Independent Contractor Agreements are in compliance with local, state, and federal labor laws and work with our legal advisors to ensure compliance

Recruitment, Onboarding, and Offboarding (15%)

Develop and implement accessible onboarding and orientation processes and practices for employees and members.
Manage recruitment and hiring processes, including position definition, market research, outreach and posting, interviewing, and reference checking of qualified job applicants, collaborating with departmental managers to understand the skills and capacities required for hiring needs.
Act as main liaison to new staff and provide orientations to new staff
Ensure completion of HR Onboarding steps such as LiveScan, Benefits enrollment, etc.
Create checklists and provide guidance for onboarding and offboarding staff, and develop methods to automate checklists through tools like Asana.

Required Qualifications

5- 8 years of experience in a Human Resources role.
Demonstrated success in trust building and implementing values-aligned DEIJ skills and practices across a virtual, distributed team
Experience scaling nonprofit teams and supporting teams in transition
Expertise in anti-racist HR practices, compliance across states, and project management
Proficiency with AB5 compliance is a plus

Preferred Qualifications

Experience working with ERM platforms such as Gusto, Culture Amp, etc.
Experience working with arts-based organizations
Connection to the Arts as a performing poet, creative writer, published writer, or previous work experience in the youth development field is preferred.
Prior experience working in a performing arts or arts organization highly desirable knowledge and interest in poetry, literature, and/or hip hop is a plus.
A mission-driven individual with a passion for uplifting and collaborating with communities and cultivating youth through language, arts, and expression.
Comfort and experience working across diverse communities, with the empathy and knowledge to communicate across all constituencies, including students, staff, donors, and the broader community.

An organizational culture that supports staff well-being and holistic self-care/community care

TO APPLY

Please email your cover letter, resume, and at least 3 references to employment@youthspeaks.org with the subject line “People and Culture Senior Manager” by February 17, 2023.

EEO/AA

Youth Speaks is an equal-opportunity employer. We strongly encourage and seek applications from women, people of color, including bilingual and bicultural individuals, as well as members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities. Applicants shall not be discriminated against because of race, religion, sex, national origin, ethnicity, age, disability, political affiliation, sexual orientation, gender identity, color, marital status, or medical conditions. Reasonable accommodation will be made so that qualified disabled applicants may participate in the application process. Please advise in writing of special needs at the time of application.

Youth Speaks will consider qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with the requirements of San Francisco’s Fair Chance Ordinance.

*No phone calls please. Due to the anticipated volume of applications only candidates for interviews will be contacted, we appreciate your understanding of the resource constraints during Covid-19, working remotely, and caregiving obligations amongst others.

ABOUT YOUTH SPEAKS

Mission and Vision

Youth Speaks creates spaces that challenge young people to develop and amplify their voices as creators of societal change.

Youth Speaks envisions a world in which young people are heard, honored, and connected through creative ecosystems of interdependence and care.

Program and Results

One of the world’s leading presenters of Spoken Word performance, education, and youth development programs, Youth Speaks produces local, national, and international programs supporting young people and their voices including poetry slams, festivals, anthologies, and reading series, alongside a comprehensive slate of arts-in-education programs during the school day, in the after-school hours and on weekends. In addition, Youth Speaks creates internationally-recognized theater and digital programming and has helped launch an international network of over 70 programs that believe in the power of young people.

Organization Profile

For 25 years, Youth Speaks has been at the forefront of defining what it means to empower the voices of young people and is currently focused on the following key areas as we continue to grow and build as an organization:

Increasing intergenerational engagement by creating more intentional pathways for youth and alum leadership within our programs, expanding partnerships and reach, and developing novel ways of engaging community, audience, and alumni.
Delivering responsive programming by developing timely campaigns in response to current community events and delivering integrated digital and/or live programming to engage local and global audiences.
Making data-driven decisions by developing metrics to inform decision-making across the organization will allow us to better understand the impact of programs and integrate intentionality and responsiveness.
Sustaining and growing the field by strategically growing partnerships with international networks of spoken word individuals, organizations and collectives, and other creative youth development programs.

Securing long-term sustainability by implementing a development strategy that continues to support the programmatic vision of the organization, invests in our staff, and secures our future in our new office space.