Senior Director of Human Resources

Senior Director, Human Resources 
Reports to: Chief People Officer 

About ACES  

ACES is on a mission to enhance lives and help more people reach their potential by improving access to high-quality autism therapy for families across the country. As we continue to grow, we are seeking a strategic HR leader to help build and scale the people, programs, and processes that support our employees and business. This role will play a critical part in shaping organizational culture, strengthening leadership capabilities, driving employee engagement, and ensuring ACES has the talent and infrastructure needed to support sustainable growth.

Role Overview 

The Senior Director of Human Resources is responsible for leading and transforming the core HR function to support a growing, multi-site organization. Reporting to the Chief People Officer, this leader will own the day-to-day HR operating engine, including employee relations, HR compliance, total rewards, benefits and retirement, performance management, progressive discipline, and the systems and processes that enable these programs to scale. 

This role requires a leader who can operate at multiple altitudes. The Senior Director of HR must be able to see around corners and design the HR infrastructure the organization will need tomorrow, while remaining close enough to the work to ensure excellent execution today. They will bring a systems mindset to HR, simplifying and standardizing processes, identifying opportunities for automation and AI, and enabling the function to support organizational growth without requiring proportional growth in HR headcount. 

Just as importantly, this leader will ensure that increased efficiency does not come at the expense of the employee experience. They will build an HR function that is responsive, consistent, fair, compliant, and trusted by employees and leaders. 

ACES 

A | Accountabilities 

Lead the core HR function 

• Own the day-to-day operations and effectiveness of the core HR function. 

• Lead employee relations, workplace investigations, HR compliance, performance management, progressive discipline, total rewards, benefits, and retirement programs. 

• Establish clear standards, decision frameworks, escalation paths, and operating rhythms across HR. 

• Ensure HR programs and practices are consistently executed across locations and employee populations. 

Build scalable HR infrastructure 

• Assess current HR processes, systems, policies, and workflows and develop a roadmap for scaling the function. 

• Design repeatable, efficient processes that reduce unnecessary administrative work and allow HR capacity to scale without proportional increases in headcount. 

• Establish service levels, process ownership, documentation, controls, and measures of effectiveness for core HR processes. 

• Identify where work should be standardized, centralized, automated, eliminated, or redesigned. 

• Build the operational discipline and infrastructure required to support continued organizational growth. 

Transform HR through technology and AI 

• Identify practical opportunities to use AI, automation, HR technology, and data to improve HR effectiveness and employee experience. 

• Redesign workflows rather than simply automating inefficient existing processes. 

• Develop appropriate governance and judgment around the use of AI in sensitive HR processes. 

• Increase the team’s ability to use technology and data as tools for better decision-making and greater organizational leverage. 

Lead employee relations and risk management 

• Serve as the senior leader for complex and sensitive employee relations matters and workplace investigations. 

• Ensure investigations are rigorous, timely, consistent, well documented, and appropriately resolved. 

• Develop frameworks that enable HR team members and managers to handle employee relations issues effectively at the appropriate level. 

• Maintain strong knowledge of employment practices affecting a multi-state, multi-site hourly workforce, with particular depth in California. 

• Partner effectively with legal counsel and other stakeholders on high-risk or complex matters. 

• Balance employee experience, business needs, consistency, compliance, and risk when making difficult decisions. 

Strengthen performance management and manager capability 

• Ensure managers have clear, practical processes for setting expectations, providing feedback, addressing performance issues, and managing progressive discipline. 

• Improve the consistency and quality of performance management across the organization. 

• Build tools, resources, training, and decision frameworks that increase manager self-sufficiency while ensuring appropriate HR support and oversight. 

• Use trends in performance and employee relations data to identify systemic organizational issues and opportunities. 

Lead total rewards, benefits, and retirement 

• Provide strategic and operational leadership for compensation, benefits, and retirement programs. 

• Ensure programs remain competitive, sustainable, compliant, and aligned with organizational needs. 

• Improve employees’ understanding and experience of the organization’s total rewards offering. 

• Use data, employee feedback, market information, and business requirements to recommend program improvements. 

Elevate the employee experience 

• Design HR processes through the lens of the employee and manager experience. 

• Improve the responsiveness, clarity, consistency, and usability of HR services. 

• Build trust in HR by ensuring employees experience fair, thoughtful, and timely support. 

• Use employee feedback, eNPS, HR service data, and other signals to identify and address friction in the employee experience. 

Lead and evolve the HR team 

• Develop an HR team capable of supporting a growing organization with increasing sophistication and scale. 

• Clarify roles, accountabilities, decision rights, and expectations across the team. 

• Coach the team to move from transactional execution toward stronger judgment, problem-solving, consultation, and ownership. 

• Build capabilities in process improvement, data, technology, AI, employee relations, and operational excellence. 

• Continually evaluate how work is organized so the team can absorb organizational growth without significant incremental headcount. 

Influence across the organization 

• Serve as a trusted cross-functional partner to executives, operational leaders, managers, and employees. 

• Translate complex HR issues into clear business implications and recommendations. 

• Navigate conflict directly and constructively, including situations involving competing priorities or strongly held viewpoints. 

• Influence outcomes through credibility, sound judgment, data, relationships, and a deep understanding of the business. 

• Communicate effectively with audiences ranging from entry-level employees to senior executives. 

C | Capabilities 

The successful Senior Director of HR will demonstrate: 

Systems thinking. Sees connections between policies, processes, technology, organizational behavior, and employee experience. Designs solutions for the system rather than repeatedly solving individual symptoms. 

Operational excellence. Brings rigor to execution. Creates clear processes, measures performance, identifies bottlenecks, follows through on details, and continually improves how work gets done. 

Strategic range. Can move comfortably between enterprise-level questions and detailed execution. Understands when to stay at 30,000 feet and when the situation requires getting into the details. 

Cross-functional influence. Builds credibility across functions and levels and can influence decisions without relying solely on positional authority. 

Judgment. Makes thoughtful decisions in complex, sensitive, and ambiguous situations, particularly when employee experience, compliance, risk, and business needs must all be considered. 

Conflict navigation. Is comfortable entering difficult conversations, challenging assumptions, delivering difficult messages, and helping others work through disagreement productively. 

Employee orientation. Understands that operational efficiency and employee experience are mutually reinforcing when processes are designed well. 

Data orientation. Uses metrics, trends, and evidence to diagnose problems, prioritize work, evaluate outcomes, and influence decisions. 

Technology and AI fluency. Understands how emerging technology can fundamentally change HR work and can distinguish meaningful transformation opportunities from technology for technology’s sake. 

Leadership versatility. Communicates credibly and authentically with employees at every level of the organization, from frontline hourly employees to senior executives. 

Detail orientation. Maintains high standards for accuracy, documentation, follow-through, and execution, particularly in areas involving employee relations, compliance, and risk.