Director Employee Relations Jobs in Detroit, MI (NOW HIRING)

The Director, Employee and Labor Relations will be responsible for the development and implementation of employment practices and strategy to ensure a positive, thriving and interest-free work environment across the Learning Care brands. This leadership role will be a key partner to the field HR, corporate office, legal, experience, and risk management teams across our 1,100+ locations, supporting over 25,000 leaders and employees. 

This role is pivotal in shaping both immediate and long-term initiatives to enhance our employee and leader experience while mitigating company risk through data-rich insights that can inform policy, employee-facing processes and tools, as well as leader-delivered performance feedback. The leader will act as a trusted internal consultant, championing solutions for our internal HR and business teams to roll out new initiatives that deliver people-forward solutions to grow our business. 

Essential Functions:

Employee Relations Leadership

• Build and enhance our employee relations center of excellence with best-in-class service level expectations through effective people, process, and tools. 
• Serve as the primary strategic advisor on complex employee relations matters, including performance management, investigations, misconduct, discrimination/harassment allegations, and ADA/LOA issues.
• Develop, implement, and continuously improve ER policies, processes, and guidelines that ensure consistency across all Learning Care locations.
• Lead high-risk or sensitive investigations; advise HRBPs, case specialists and field leaders on best practices.

Labor Relations Strategy & Administration

• Proactively build a labor relations strategy allowing the organization to be ready and nimble to execute if needed

• Partner with counsel and training teams to build training, positive employee culture practices and leadership education to be Stay ahead of industry trends and emerging technologies to continuously enhance labor and people strategies and practices. 

Compliance & Risk Management

• Ensure compliance with all federal, state, and local employment laws (e.g., FLSA, FMLA, ADA, EEO, NLRA, OSHA, state wage & hour rules).
• Shape our policies, employee handbook, and employee-facing processes by analyzing employee cases, labor trends, talent metrics and labor heat-maps and leveraging industry best practices.  
• Partner closely with Legal on litigation, agency charges (EEOC, DOL, NLRB), and company responses.

Leadership & Team Development

• Lead and develop a high-performing Employee Relations team through coaching, mentorship, and strategic guidance. 
• Build strong relationships with field leaders, HR partners, centers of excellence, internal and outside counsel, risk management, compliance teams, and corporate partners.
• Champion organizational change initiatives, with particular focus on the employee experience and current engagement gaps based on case trends, ensuring alignment with enterprise objectives with employee readiness. 
• Create and deliver training programs for managers related to ER/LR, policy interpretation, and legal compliance.

Job Qualifications:

• Knowledge
  • Bachelor's degree in business, human resources, marketing, or related field
  • Master's in talent-related or business area (Preferred)
  • Certification or degree in labor relations management (Preferred)
  • Deep knowledge of U.S. employment law and labor relations.
• Experience
  • 10+ years of progressive HR/Employee Relations experience, including 3-5 years in a leadership role.
  • 5+ years' experience leading cross-functional teams
  • 5+ years' experience in business partner-facing or strategic consulting-related field
  • Experience supporting large, multiunit retail, distribution, hospitality, or similar hourlyworkforce environments.
  • Direct labor relations and union negotiation experience strongly preferred.
• Ability:
  • Professional in human resources certification
  • Agile methodology (Preferred)
  • Strong investigation skills, including interviewing, documentation, and rootcause analysis.
  • Exceptional judgment and ability to navigate gray areas with confidentiality and integrity.
  • Ability to influence and coach leaders across a distributed retail workforce.
  • Strong data literacy-ability to identify trends, quantify risk, and recommend action.
  • Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal.
  • Ability to manage high-volume, fast-paced environments and competing priorities.
  • Demonstrated understanding of productivity, analytical, and data visualization tools (for example, Tableau, Power BI, Monday.com)

Compensation and Benefits:

• Compensation based on position, education and experience. Bi-weekly paid. 
• Base salary range: $160-$190K/yr
• This position is eligible for our Support Central bonus program which is based on annual achievement of company performance.

Health and Wellness Benefits: 

• Employees are eligible for a variety of health and welfare benefits based on their Full-time or Part-time status on their date of hire, which include medical, dental, vision, healthcare & dependent care flexible spending accounts (FSAs), life insurance, disability, accident, critical illness, hospital indemnity, pre-paid legal, pet insurance and identity theft protection.
• Employees are eligible to participate in our 401(k) retirement plan after 30 days of employment. Participating employees are also eligible to receive a company provided match on their elective deferrals once they reach 1 year of employment with the company.

Employee perks/discounts: 

• Education assistance including tuition reimbursement 
• Childcare discount available to all employees
• Corporate partner Discounts
• This position is eligible for paid time off.  All Corporate employees are enrolled in our Flexible Paid Time Off (PTO) plan.  This plan allows for flexibility and discretion between employees and managers in taking time off - with no set accrual for vacation or sick time. Employees can use Flexible PTO for any reason and is compliant with the Colorado Healthy Families Work Act.
• Applications accepted through 1/30/2026.