(FULLY REMOTE) Senior Director, People & Talent (Level 5)

Good Roots is a remote team of accountants, consultants, and marketers working exclusively in food and agriculture. We're people who grew up in agriculture, who have run businesses, who speak the language and understand the stakes. Today, that's 35+ consultants across the country bringing over 300 years of combined experience to more than 700 farmers and food entrepreneurs.

We come from different places, farms and ranches, finance and tech, marketing agencies, university extension offices, farmers' markets — but we operate with a single focus: building a better food system for the people, animals, and the earth it depends on.

The work is practical and hands-on. We sit inside our clients' numbers, their marketing funnels, and their operational decisions. We tell the truth even when it's hard. We roll up our sleeves, and we don't disappear when things get complicated. Our team makes an impact to our clients every day, they live our mission through delivering meaningful work.   

• Application Screening: Now – November 13th
• First Round Interviews: November 16 – November 27
• Final Interviews: November 30– December 11
• Target Start Date: January 4

• →People strategy and executive partnership — Own and execute an integrated people strategy aligned with business priorities, workforce capacity, organizational design, culture, and sustainable growth; serve as a trusted advisor to the CEO and leadership team on sensitive people decisions and organizational risk.
• →Full-cycle HR operations — Independently administer all day-to-day HR activities, including employee inquiries, policy interpretation, onboarding, offboarding, personnel records, HR documentation, employment changes, and coordination with external service providers; ensure reliable service without a dedicated HR team.
• →Multistate employment compliance and risk — Maintain practical compliance programs across employee work locations, including wage-and-hour classification, leave and paid-sick-time requirements, required notices, I-9 administration, recordkeeping, accommodations, investigations, and separation practices; coordinate with legal counsel and specialists when needed.
• →Talent acquisition and workforce planning — Partner with managers on headcount and capability needs; direct sourcing and hiring workflows, selection processes, offer approvals, background checks, new-hire integration, and contractor/employee classification considerations.
• →Performance, accountability and employee relations — Own performance management practices, coaching resources, corrective action, documentation, investigations, conflict resolution, and fair, timely handling of employee concerns; guide leaders through difficult conversations and defensible decisions.
• →Compensation, benefits and total rewards — Maintain job architecture and leveling, salary practices, pay equity reviews, incentive and recognition programs, benefits administration, open enrollment, leave coordination, and vendor relationships; partner with Finance/payroll on accurate processing and regulatory obligations.
• →Learning, leadership and succession — Identify organizational capability gaps, deliver practical manager enablement and leadership development, facilitate talent reviews and succession planning appropriate to the organization’s scale, and strengthen career development and internal mobility.
• →Culture, engagement and remote employee experience — Advance values-based decisions, psychological safety, inclusion, belonging, feedback, and connection across a dispersed workforce; translate engagement findings into action and lead change communications and adoption.
• →People systems, analytics and operational improvement — Own HRIS and related tools, workflow design, data quality, reporting and privacy controls; track meaningful metrics such as retention, hiring, engagement, performance-cycle completion and compliance; simplify and automate processes where practical.
• →Governance, budgeting and delivery — Set annual people priorities, manage HR vendors and the function’s budget, maintain employee handbook and employment templates, oversee audit/readiness activities, and deliver agreed initiatives on time with clear stakeholder communication and measurable outcomes.

• Substantial progressive HR experience with demonstrated ownership of broad generalist and strategic responsibilities, including senior-level advice to executives and direct delivery of HR operations.
• Demonstrated experience independently managing employee relations, compensation, benefits, recruiting, performance, compliance, HR systems, and policy administration.
• Working knowledge of U.S. federal and multistate employment requirements, with the judgment to identify issues requiring qualified employment counsel or specialized expertise.
• Ability to develop people strategy while executing detail-intensive daily work, prioritize competing needs, manage confidential matters, and exercise sound independent judgment.
• Strong written and verbal communication, coaching, influence, stakeholder management, data analysis, and change-management skills.
• Proficiency with HRIS, payroll/benefits platforms, spreadsheets and collaborative digital tools; ability to maintain reliable employee data and processes. Good Roots utilizes the Rippling HRIS platform.
• Ability to work effectively in a fully remote, distributed team environment.
• Authorization to work in the United States.

• Compensation is fixed and tied directly to a pay tier and level (see compensation framework for full transparency)
• Flexible scheduling, all work is remote
• Health, Vision, and Dental
• Paid Parental Leave (eligible after 1 year of full-time employment)
• 401K with company match
• Paid Time Off (PTO) of 208 hours inclusive of floating/flexible holidays 
• Paid Winter Break equivalent of 32 hours
• Time and expenses covered for professional development
• Short Term Disability
• Monthly stipend for office expenses
• Employee ownership after 4,000 hours worked.
  
  
  

Good Roots has an internal pay structure based on role, skills and experience to provide for equity amongst all employees. We do not negotiate salaries outside what is listed.  There is opportunity for increases to pay based on merit and/or career advancement through promotion.

• Experience as the sole HR leader or in a lean, scaling professional-services or consulting organization.
• Experience operating and leading within an EOS environment. 
• Experience supporting employees across numerous U.S. states, including distributed-workforce policy, leave, and wage-and-hour complexity.
• SPHR, SHRM-SCP, or other relevant advanced HR credential; change management or leadership-coaching credentials.
• Experience designing job levels, competency frameworks, succession programs, and modern people analytics.

• Communication & Collaboration — Communicates with credibility and influence at the leadership table; translates complex people matters into clear recommendations and aligns stakeholders across functions and locations.
• Relationship Management — Builds trusted strategic relationships with the CEO, leaders, employees, and outside partners; handles challenging matters with responsiveness, diplomacy, and clear expectations.
• Leadership & Influence — Leads the People function with significant autonomy; shapes people strategy, influences enterprise decisions, coaches managers, and sponsors organization-wide change without relying on direct reports.
• Culture & Integrity — Helps set the organization’s cultural tone; embeds values, ethics, fairness, inclusion, and confidentiality in employment policies, decisions, and daily leadership behaviors.
• Business Acumen — Owns the People function’s resources and spending; understands business performance and workforce tradeoffs, partners with the CEO on planning, and anticipates organizational risks and opportunities.
• Functional Expertise — Serves as the senior HR subject-matter expert across the employee lifecycle; builds fit-for-purpose programs, scalable infrastructure, and manager capability.
• Delivery & Execution — Is accountable for function-wide quality, operational reliability, compliance follow-through, and timely completion of strategic initiatives while personally executing core HR work.
• Critical Evaluation — Leads complex people-related problem-solving using relevant evidence, data, legal risk assessment, and sound judgment; introduces improvements and ensures their adoption.