Vp Operations Jobs in Santa Rosa, CA (NOW HIRING)

Solairus Aviation is a leading US-based private aviation services company with annual revenue exceeding $1 billion. Its core business is assisting aircraft owners with the safe, reliable, and efficient management and operation of their aircraft. Solairus is committed to excellence and innovation, leveraging cutting-edge technology and strategic insight to drive sustainable growth and deliver value to its customers. At Solairus, we are on a mission to lead the industry with the highest standards, personalized service, and technological innovation.

Solairus Aviation’s Vice President, Employee Relations, requires a results-driven individual to lead employee relations for all employees. Reporting directly to the EVPHR, the VP Employee Relations is a business partner to our senior leaders in support of clients, crew and corporate staff. The VP Employee Relations is responsible for supporting the recruiting process, performance management, HR investigations, supervisory training and compliance for all crew and corporate staff members.

The VP Employee Relations will work with the executive leadership team to ensure that Solairus maintains its unique culture and high morale within the context of financial and operational demands, and that Solairus continues to attract and retain the very best employees in the industry to provide best-in-class service to our clients.

Employee Relations (ER)

• Enforce a rigorous, fair, and legally defensible employee relations framework
• Partner with General Counsel and outside legal counsel, where appropriate, on discrimination/harassment/retaliation and other employment litigation, EEOC and other agency charges, wage and hour claims, regulatory investigations, and other legal employment activities, as they arise
• Ensure that HR policies are current, enforceable, and consistently applied across all states and all employee segments
• Receive, triage, and manage all ER cases: harassment, discrimination, retaliation, misconduct, policy violations, and interpersonal conflict
• Conduct or oversee all formal workplace investigations — fact-finding interviews, document review, timeline construction, and written findings
• Maintain investigation independence from the business; report findings directly to the EVPHR and partner with legal counsel as appropriate
• Manage the ER case tracking system: ensure every case is logged, assigned, progressing, and closed with documented outcomes
• Identify patterns across investigations — recurring issues, problem leaders, structural vulnerabilities — and surface them to the EVPHR
• Train managers and HR generalists on their role in ER matters: documentation, escalation triggers, and what never to handle informally

Multi-State Employment Law and Compliance

• Own the multi-state employment law compliance calendar: CFRA, PAGA, Cal-WARN, CCPA, mandatory training deadlines, posting obligations, and regulatory filings
• Monitor federal and state legislative changes; translate new requirements into policy updates, manager communications, and process changes before deadlines
• Manage PAGA exposure proactively — conduct periodic self-audits of wage/hour practices, meal/rest breaks, and classification decisions
• Own EEOC charge response, unemployment appeals, and agency complaint management in partnership with employment counsel
• Maintain and enforce WARN Act readiness; ensure any restructuring or RIF includes ER review prior to execution
• Work with legal counsel and outside vendors; monitor spend on ER matters

Culture and Engagement

• Steward the organizational culture: what the company stands for, how it behaves, and how it holds itself accountable
• Build a recognition ecosystem that reinforces values and makes high performance visible at all levels of the organization
• Create feedback loops between what employees experience and what leaders decide by utilizing various tools, such as Officevibe, stay interviews, exit data, and direct listening sessions

Performance Management and Progressive Discipline

• Advise managers on progressive discipline: verbal coaching, written warnings, PIPs, final warnings, and terminations — ensuring consistency across all three states
• Review and approve all terminations prior to execution, with particular scrutiny on California cases given PAGA exposure
• Design and maintain performance improvement plan (PIP) frameworks: structure, timeline, success criteria, and documentation standards
• Coach managers through difficult performance conversations — providing language, approach, and documentation support
• Ensure documentation standards are met across all employee segments: what's in the file, what's not, and what's required in each state
• Track and analyze termination reasons, PIP completion rates, and manager-level disciplinary patterns to identify training needs

Manager Training & ER Prevention

• Design and deliver ER-focused manager training: documentation habits, early intervention, recognizing harassment, accommodation triggers, and when to call HR
• Build a manager early-warning system — identify at‑risk leaders through ER data, engagement scores, turnover patterns, and HRBP feedback before formal complaints arise
• Partner with the OD & Training Manager to embed ER fundamentals into new manager onboarding, supervisor development programs, and leadership training
• Own California mandatory harassment prevention training: ensure all supervisors and employees complete it within required timeframes and maintain records
• Develop a library of manager toolkits: difficult conversation guides, documentation templates, PIP frameworks, and accommodation checklists

ER Reporting, Metrics & Risk Visibility

• Define and maintain the ER metrics dashboard: open cases by type/state/segment, case age, investigation cycle time, substantiation rates, termination types, and repeat ER actors
• Produce monthly ER summary for the EVPHR: active cases, material risks, trends, and recommended leadership actions
• Conduct quarterly ER risk reviews with the EVPHR and legal counsel: identify systemic patterns, structural risks, and proactive interventions
• Track EEOC charges, unemployment decisions, arbitration outcomes, and settlement history — maintain a litigation risk register
• Analyze ER data by manager, department, location, and workforce segment — surface insights that inform talent decisions, training priorities, and org design
• Ensure ER records are maintained with attorney-client privilege where applicable, properly retained per state requirements, and fully audit-ready

Required

• 10+ years of progressive HR or employment relations experience, with a minimum of 5 years in a dedicated Employee Relations role carrying independent investigation and compliance responsibility.
• Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Employment Law, Organizational Psychology, or a related field
• Demonstrated success leading organizations through growth, restructuring, or significant capability-building, rather than solely maintaining an established function
• Proven track record managing the full ER lifecycle: intake through investigation, findings, disciplinary action, and post-matter follow-through.
• Proven ability to operate as a true business partner, contributing to business strategy rather than solely executing ER programs
• Strong data literacy with the ability to work with HRIS systems, define meaningful people KPIs, and use workforce data to inform decisions
• Multi-state HR experience, with significant expertise in California employment law as well as familiarity with multiple other complex employment law jurisdictions
• Experience advising and influencing senior leaders, including delivering findings or recommendations that were unwelcome or politically difficult.

Strongly Preferred

• SHRM-SCP, SPHR, or an equivalent senior HR certification
• Experience in industries with mixed hourly/salaried workforce populations
• Familiarity with Paycom or equivalent enterprise HRIS platforms
• Experience or familiarity with aviation operators or the private aviation industry
• Background working in organizations with mixed workforce populations (exempt/non-exempt, salaried/hourly, or admin/operational, contingent and temporary) at scale
• Prior experience building or substantially redesigning ER infrastructure — policies, handbooks, investigation frameworks, and compliance calendars — from scratch or near-scratch.

Skills and Competencies

• Deep, current command of federal and multi-state employment law across CA, NV, and FL — with California (PAGA, CFRA, FEHA) known cold, not just consulted.
• Designs and executes legally defensible investigations end-to-end, from witness sequencing to written findings, with the independence to hold conclusions under pressure from the business.
• Establishes and enforces documentation standards across the organization that protect the company in litigation — knowing precisely what to write, what not to write, and what belongs where.
• Builds and governs a multi-state policy infrastructure that is legally current, practically enforceable, and consistently applied — including writing CA supplements and owning the compliance calendar proactively.
• Delivers objective findings and unwelcome conclusions to any level of leadership without softening the result, and resists pressure to protect high performers from accountability.
• Builds manager capability through coaching rather than taking over, earning credibility with operations leaders as a problem-solver who reduces their risk.
• Thinks and operates at the intersection of business and people strategy, fluent in P&L, operational metrics, and workforce economics, translating business goals into Human Resources priorities
• Learns the key elements of the private aviation business and Solairus’ unique operating model, as well as the Solairus culture, to understand the priorities and the behaviors that are reinforced throughout the organization.
• Applies organizational design and development methodology to diagnose organizational health, design effective structures, and lead change with strong systems thinking and minimal disruption
• Commands credibility at the executive level, communicates legal complexity in plain business language, and partners effectively with Operations, Payroll, and Legal
• Brings deep working knowledge of employment law and employee relations across multiple states, managing risk proactively and building cultures that prevent issues before they elevate
• Uses people analytics and data literacy to diagnose problems, measure program impact, and inform strategic decisions, translating insights clearly for non‑HR audiences

Salary: $200k-$220K

Location: Based in Petaluma, CA