Associate, Employee Relations Specialist

SMBC Group; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 80,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading financial group is seeking an Associate, Employee Relations Specialist in New York. This role involves conducting sensitive investigations, ensuring fair employment practices, and collaborating with various departments. Candidates should have HR experience, excellent negotiation skills, and a proactive approach to conflict resolution. The position supports a hybrid work model, balancing remote work and in-office presence.

Benefits

Competitive benefits portfolio

Hybrid work model

Qualifications

• 3-5 years of HR Business Partner and/or HR investigation experience.
• Strong writing, analytical, and relationship management skills.

Responsibilities

• Conducts complex investigations and documents findings.
• Ensures fair employment practices and provides training.
• Analyzes data to identify trends and recommends actions.

Skills

Negotiation

Conflict Resolution

Analytical Skills

Relationship Management

Emotional Intelligence

Job description

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Associate, Employee Relations Specialist

Job Level: Associate

Location:

New York, NY, US, 10172

Employment Type: Full Time

Requisition ID: 5332

SMBC Group is a top-tier global financial group. Headquartered in Tokyo and with a 400-year history, SMBC Group offers a diverse range of financial services, including banking, leasing, securities, credit cards, and consumer finance. The Group has more than 130 offices and 80,000 employees worldwide in nearly 40 countries. Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, Inc. (SMFG) is the holding company of SMBC Group, which is one of the three largest banking groups in Japan. SMFG’s shares trade on the Tokyo, Nagoya, and New York (NYSE: SMFG) stock exchanges.

In the Americas, SMBC Group has a presence in the US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Peru. Backed by the capital strength of SMBC Group and the value of its relationships in Asia, the Group offers a range of commercial and investment banking services to its corporate, institutional, and municipal clients. It connects a diverse client base to local markets and the organization’s extensive global network. The Group’s operating companies in the Americas include Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. (SMBC), SMBC Nikko Securities America, Inc., SMBC Capital Markets, Inc., SMBC MANUBANK, JRI America, Inc., SMBC Leasing and Finance, Inc., Banco Sumitomo Mitsui Brasileiro S.A., and Sumitomo Mitsui Finance and Leasing Co., Ltd.

The anticipated salary range for this role is between $80,000.00and $120,000.00. The specific salary offered to an applicant will be based on their individual qualifications, experiences, and an analysis of the current compensation paid in their geography and the market for similar roles at the time of hire. The role may also be eligible for an annual discretionary incentive award. In addition to cash compensation, SMBC offers a competitive portfolio of benefits to its employees.

As SMBC Americas has grown in size and impact as an organization, so have the needs of our expanding Employee Relations team to support the organization and our employees with fairness, consistency, and discretion. Within HR, Employee Relations serves as a partner to our HR Business Partner function as well as to Legal Department with regards to all matters of employee relations. The individual in this role would act as a subject matter expert and leverage a combined expert knowledge of HR practices, policies and procedures, and knowledge of the Bank’s various business lines and subsidiary companies, day-to-day operations, systems, and technology to provide timely, efficient, innovative, and value-added resolutions on serious and high-risk employment related issues and concerns. This role would lead strategic and tactical efforts across all aspects of Employee Relations at the combined U.S. Operations level.

Responsibilities:

• Conducts and facilitates complex, sensitive, and time-critical investigations, in consultation with Legal and HR Business partners, as needed. Sources and reviews related documents. Documents investigative path, recommendations, and resolution. Writes thorough investigative summaries in a clear, concise, and legally defensible manner.
• Serves as objective third party, engages relevant stakeholders, provides trusted advice, and recommends remedial measures, as appropriate.
• Works closely with cross-functional HR partners as well as partners in the business, i.e. IT Security, Risk, Compliance, Audit and Legal, as needed.
• Ensures fair and consistent employment practices are in place and being followed; may provide large scale or 1:1 training as appropriate.
• Reviews and revises employee handbooks with an eye towards clarifying policies, updating legal changes, and alignment.
• Creates training materials and delivers training on HR and ER related topics, both large scale and 1:1 training, as appropriate.
• Designs, delivers, and executes large-scale projects or initiatives that involve new policy/programs, HR tools and training to promote positive management practices across the enterprise.
• Conducts research and benchmarking related to projects, initiatives, and process improvements to drive positive employee relations and management practice.
• Analyzes data to identify trends; recommends remedial actions.

Qualifications

• 3-5 years of HR Business Partner and/or HR investigation experience.
• Excellent strategic and tactical investigation skills.
• High influencing, negotiation, and conflict resolution skills.
• Works well in a complex, matrixed environment. Experience working with multiple partner groups including but not limited to Legal and Compliance professionals.
• Strong writing, analytical, and relationship management skills.
• Solutions driven and customer service oriented.
• Experience with the financial services business model a plus.
• Demonstrates the highest of standards of ethics, integrity, honesty, and discretion.
• Emotional intelligence and the ability to adapt to different cultures.
  

Who Will Succeed in This Role:

You might be an ideal candidate if you:

• Thrive in a high-growth organization and are excited by the opportunity to build and enhance employee relations practices that scale with the business. Your ability to navigate the complexities of an evolving organization will be an asset.
• You are skilled at balancing complexity and compliance with a human touch. With experience in highly regulated environments, you can interpret and apply legal, risk, and compliance priorities, balanced with employee experience.
• You are energized by a global perspective. As part of a sizeable global organization with growing global mobility of employees, you have the ability to understand and adapt to different cultures and are energized by the opportunity to learn from other countries/regions.
• You have a proactive approach to conflict resolution and a passion for continuous improvement. You do not just identify challenges, you look for trends in data, propose process improvements, and act as a trusted coach and advisor.
• You enjoy a variety of work while maintaining focus on the details. You enjoy the direct employee interaction of investigations, but also enjoy interacting with various internal stakeholder groups for diverse work across preventative trainings, employee handbooks, and special projects, all with a disciplined focus on attention to detail.

Who This Role is Not For

This job may not be a good fit for you if:

• You prefer a steady state environment. If you thrive on predictable work and highly established processes that are not evolving, this growing team in a expanding organization may not align with your strengths.
• You are more comfortable advising than doing. This is a hands-on role, where you need to manage the full scope of complex employee relations cases and collaborate with stakeholders, not just consult on activities.
• You are not excited about adopting digital tools and data-driven decision-making. We are seeking a proactive approach, rather than waiting for issues to surface, so your willingness to see the increasing opportunity to leverage systems and data insights in the work is a must

Additional Requirements

SMBC’s employees participate in a Hybrid workforce model that provides employees with an opportunity to work from home, as well as, from an SMBC office. SMBC requires that employees live within a reasonable commuting distance of their office location. Prospective candidates will learn more about their specific hybrid work schedule during their interview process. Hybrid work may not be permitted for certain roles, including, for example, certain FINRA-registered roles for which in-office attendance for the entire workweek is required.

SMBC provides reasonable accommodations during candidacy for applicants with disabilities consistent with applicable federal, state, and local law. If you need a reasonable accommodation during the application process, please let us know at [e-mail].