Vice President Employee Recognition Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Summary:
The Vice President, Employee Experience serves as a senior people leader of U.S. Travel Association, responsible for architecting and delivering a cohesive, mission-aligned employee experience for the association's staff. Critically, this leader will play a central role in positioning U.S. Travel for sustainable organizational growth-ensuring that a resilient, scalable personnel foundation is in place upon which the association's broader strategic ambitions can be built.
This is a dual-natured role: the VP must bring enterprise-level strategic vision to every dimension of human capital-from culture and talent to total rewards and organizational design-while also functioning as a hands-on leader and individual contributor who provides daily operational HR support. The VP will serve as both a supervisor and a practitioner, comfortable moving between long-range strategy and day-to-day employee relations without losing effectiveness in either.
U.S. Travel seeks a leader who is as comfortable presenting a multi-year workforce strategy to the executive team as they are resolving a complex employee relations matter, managing an open enrollment cycle or coaching a first-time manager. This leader will be a credible voice to the executive team and a trusted resource for every member of staff.
Responsibilities:
Strategic Leadership & Organizational Design
• Serve as the organization's primary architect of people infrastructure for growth-anticipating the talent, structural and cultural requirements of a growing organization and building the systems, processes and capabilities needed to scale effectively.
• Develop and execute a multi-year employee experience strategy aligned with U.S. Travel's strategy, mission and values.
• Advise senior leadership on organizational design, workforce planning and the structural conditions required to achieve business goals.
• Anticipate workforce trends, identify emerging capability gaps and bring a forward-looking perspective to executive conversations.
• Balance near-term execution with medium-term capability building and long-range organizational vision.
• Serve as a steady, credible advocate for the employee voice in organizational decision-making.
Culture & Engagement
• Architect and steward an intentional organizational culture that reflects U.S. Travel's values- strategic, curious, ambitious, high-performing and collaborative-across the full employee lifecycle.
• Embed employee listening into the rhythm of the organization's management practices including, but not limited to, conducting pulse checks, stay conversations and exit interviews as a natural part of ongoing team engagement and using the data gathered to make informed decisions and drive meaningful action.
• Champion a culture where employees feel confident self-advocating and advocating for one another, taking risks and contributing fully.
• Set clear, behavioral expectations for what a welcoming workplace looks like in practice, partnering with leaders to build environments where every employee feels valued and connected.
• Connect culture to measurable business outcomes, including retention, productivity and organizational performance.
Talent Acquisition & Retention
• Oversee and as needed, directly execute full-cycle talent acquisition for a mission-driven, 60-person and growing organization.
• Build broad talent pools and pipelines through intentional sourcing strategies and partnerships with organizations that connect the association to candidates it might not otherwise reach.
• Design structured, consistent hiring processes that comply with federal and D.C. employment law.
• Design and oversee a structured onboarding program that accelerates new hire integration, connects employees to the organization's mission and culture from day one and equips managers to set their teams up for early success.
• Implement differentiated retention strategies by employee segment; build internal mobility as a retention lever.
Learning & Professional Development
• Design and champion a learning ecosystem-encompassing formal programs, coaching, mentoring, peer learning and stretch assignments-that builds organizational capability and supports individual growth.
• Translate business strategy into capability requirements; connect learning investments to workforce planning and talent retention goals.
• Develop manager capability as the organization's highest-leverage learning multiplier.
• Build a culture of continuous learning where growth is recognized, rewarded and embedded in daily work.
Rewards & Benefits Administration
• Oversee the design, governance and continuous evolution of U.S. Travel's total rewards strategy, including compensation, benefits, recognition and well-being programs.
• Ensure rewards programs are competitive, equitable and experienced as meaningful by a diverse workforce; examine whether benefits programs serve the full staff across life stages, family structure and health need.
• Conduct pay analyses grounded in market data, job qualifications, performance, internal equity and budget realities, ensuring compensation decisions reflect the organization's values and commitment to fairness.
• Manage benefits administration, open enrollment and vendor relationships with strategic rigor and operational discipline delivering the best overall value for the association.
• Ensure employees understand and value the full scope of their total compensation through clear communication and manager enablement.
HR Operations & Compliance
• Build and govern the operational infrastructure that makes the employee experience reliable, consistent and trustworthy-including HR systems, workflows, data management and policy administration.
• Maintain a comprehensive, current understanding of relevant employment law; in partnership with counsel, proactively manage compliance across all HR practices.
• Lead workplace investigations with confidentiality, fairness, thoroughness and impartiality.
• Partner closely with Legal to ensure employment law and regulatory requirements are continuously embedded in existing and new HR processes, policies and programs.
• Ensure HR technology, data governance and people analytics capabilities support effective, evidence-based decision-making.
Performance Management
• Design and govern a performance management philosophy and system that drives individual and organizational excellence while ensuring equity and developmental richness.
• Build manager capability to deliver honest, timely, behaviorally grounded feedback and to differentiate performance fairly; develop inclusive leadership skills across the management team.
• Oversee the design, governance and continuous evolution of U.S. Travel's promotion process, including eligibility, success metrics, position leveling and skills analysis
• Connect performance outcomes to total rewards and advancement decisions with transparency and consistency.
Employee Relations & Conflict Resolution
• Maintain an employee relations philosophy grounded in fairness, dignity, transparency and accountability.
• Build conflict resolution capability across a continuum, deploying the right approach for each situation.
• Diagnose systemic patterns in employee relations data and advocate for structural interventions that address root causes, not just individual incidents.
• Develop manager capability to address conflict constructively at the earliest stage.
Supervisory Responsibility:
• Supervise and develop a small team of HR professionals, providing direction, coaching, performance management and professional growth opportunities.
• As of the posting date of this role, direct reports may include an HR Generalist or HR Coordinator; the structure may evolve with organizational needs.
• Foster a collaborative, high-performing team culture that models the values U.S. Travel aspires to embody organizationally.
Key Attributes:
• A natural relationship builder who earns trust across every level of an organization-equally credible with the executive team and an individual contributor navigating daily HR functions-and brings the interpersonal range to shift fluidly between those dynamics in a single day.
• Brings warmth, directness and emotional intelligence to every interaction; skilled at delivering feedback, mediating conflict and holding difficult conversations in ways that preserve dignity and keep relationships intact.
• Excellent interpersonal, communication and presentation skills; ability to engage credibly with staff at all levels, including at the executive level.
• Demonstrated ability to navigate ambiguity, make sound decisions with incomplete information and maintain composure under organizational pressure.
Education, Experience and Skills:
• 15 or more years of progressive HR or employee experience leadership, with at least 4-5 years in a senior leadership role (Director level or above).
• Experience working within or for organizations with 50 or more employees, where the HR function requires significant individual contributor work alongside strategic leadership.
• Demonstrated experience functioning as both a strategic HR leader and a hands-on HR practitioner, including direct execution of operational HR responsibilities.
• Deep expertise across multiple HR functional areas: talent acquisition, total rewards, performance management, employee relations and HR operations.
• Strong command of employment law; proven track record of proactive compliance management.
• Experience supervising and developing HR professionals.
Other:
• Position based in Washington, DC. U.S. Travel staff work in the office Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays with the option to work remotely on Mondays and Fridays.
• Limited travel (up to 4 times per year) is required.
• Salary: 215-230K with bonus potential.
• Other Duties: Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities and activities may change at any time with or without notice.
Benefits:
• Comprehensive healthcare package with fertility coverage.
• Generous paid leave including family leave.
• Routine staff functions and opportunities for social connection.
• Transportation and cell phone benefits.
• Robust wellness initiatives and Employee Assistance Plan (EAP)