Director - Human Resources, KBA Sales

Kohler Co.; Kohler (WI); Remote; USD 153,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Kohler Co. is seeking an HR-Director, KBA (Sales) to serve as the senior people and organization advisor to the KBA Sales Leadership Team. The role shapes an HR agenda aligned with commercial strategy, focusing on growth, margin, and culture across a newly organized team.

The position is remote with a US-wide posting; it demands deep HR partnership, strategy translation, and transformational leadership to improve performance and accountability.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in HR, Business, Organizational Development or related field.
• 10+ years of broad HR experience as a business partner to senior leaders.
• Experience shaping workforce strategy, org design and transformation.

Responsibilities

• Act as senior HR business partner to the KBA Sales Leadership Team.
• Translate commercial strategy into an integrated workforce plan with clear priorities.
• Lead organization design, workforce planning and leadership development.
• Drive culture evolution and performance through accountability and change.

Skills

Senior HR business partner

Organization design

Talent strategy

People analytics

Change management

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent

Master's degree or HR certification (preferred)

Job description

Opportunity

The HR-Director, KBA (Sales), serves as the senior people and organization advisor to the KBA Sales Leadership Team. The role shapes and directs an HR agenda closely aligned with commercial strategy, with particular focus on unit growth, margin expansion, sales force effectiveness, culture evolution, and stronger performance outcomes across a newly organized team.

Work Mode: Remote

Location: Remote – Kohler, WI

Opportunity

The HR-Director, KBA (Sales), serves as the senior people and organization advisor to the KBA Sales Leadership Team. The role shapes and directs an HR agenda closely aligned with commercial strategy, with particular focus on unit growth, margin expansion, sales force effectiveness, culture evolution, and stronger performance outcomes across a newly organized team.

Primary Business Outcomes

• Strengthen organization capability and leadership effectiveness in support of unit and margin growth.
• Create clear accountabilities, decision rights, role clarity and operating rhythms across the newly organized Sales team.
• Raise the performance bar through differentiated talent actions, stronger goals, candid feedback and consistent accountability.
• Accelerate culture evolution by embedding the leadership behaviors and ways of working required for growth.
• Improve workforce productivity and talent return on investment through disciplined organization design, workforce planning and people analytics.

Specific Responsibilities

Strategic Business Partnership and Commercial Impact

• Act as the senior HR business partner to the KBA Sales Leadership Team, providing authoritative counsel on business, organization, talent, culture and change priorities.
• Build a sophisticated understanding of sales channels, customers, market dynamics, growth drivers, cost structure and margin levers; use that insight to shape the people agenda.
• Translate commercial strategy into an integrated workforce and organization plan with clear priorities, measures, ownership and sequencing.
• Challenge assumptions, surface organizational risks and present options and trade-offs that improve decision quality and business performance.
• Mobilize HR centers of expertise and other partners to deliver integrated solutions rather than stand-alone HR programs.

Organization Design and Strategic Workforce Planning

• Lead organization design for the Sales organization, including structure, spans and layers, role clarity, decision rights, interfaces, capabilities and resource allocation.
• Develop strategic workforce plans using internal and external insights and complex resourcing scenarios to address current needs and future commercial capabilities.
• Diagnose organization effectiveness barriers and redesign structures, roles, governance and work processes to improve speed, accountability and customer focus.
• Ensure organization and workforce choices balance growth, capability, cost and sustainable execution.

Performance, Rewards and Sales Force Effectiveness

• Partner with Sales leaders to establish clear performance expectations, measurable outcomes and differentiated accountability across leaders and teams.
• Use performance, productivity, talent and business data to identify root causes, patterns and opportunities to improve sales execution and organizational performance.
• Partner with Compensation, Finance and Sales Operations on sales incentive design and program effectiveness, ensuring rewards reinforce profitable and sustainable growth.
• Coach leaders through difficult performance decisions and ensure timely, fair and consistent action where expectations are not met.

Talent Strategy, Succession and Leadership Capability

• Own the Sales talent strategy, including talent reviews, succession planning, leadership pipeline development, critical role planning and retention risk mitigation.
• Assess leadership and organizational capability against future business needs; recommend build, buy, move or exit actions.
• Accelerate high-potential and critical talent through differentiated development, experiences, sponsorship and succession actions.
• Provide executive coaching and candid feedback that strengthens leadership impact, team effectiveness and accountability.

Culture and Transformational Change

• Lead the people and culture dimensions of Sales transformation, ensuring alignment across related initiatives and sustained adoption of new behaviors and ways of working.
• Define the culture shifts required to deliver the Sales strategy and translate them into specific leader expectations, talent practices and team routines.
• Build leadership alignment and stakeholder commitment; anticipate resistance and use structured change approaches to maintain engagement and performance through ambiguity.
• Facilitate constructive conflict and difficult conversations that enable faster decisions and stronger cross-functional execution.

People Analytics

• Form and test complex hypotheses using workforce, talent, engagement, turnover, productivity and business data to diagnose underlying performance issues.
• Establish a focused people scorecard and operating rhythm that tracks leading and lagging indicators tied to commercial priorities.

Required

Skills/Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Business, Organizational Development or a related field, or equivalent experience.
• 10+ years of broad and progressively responsible HR experience, including deep experience as a business partner to senior leaders in a large, complex organization.
• Demonstrated experience shaping business-aligned workforce strategy and leading organization design, talent strategy, succession planning, performance improvement and transformational change.
• Experience using workforce and business data to diagnose complex issues, develop strategic insights and influence decisions.
• Proven ability to build credibility quickly, challenge senior leaders constructively and lead through ambiguity and competing stakeholder priorities.

Preferred

• Master's degree or equivalent advanced study and/or relevant HR certification.
• Experience supporting commercial, sales or customer-facing organizations with accountability for growth, profitability or sales force effectiveness.
• Experience working through significant business transformation, organization redesign and culture evolution.
• Experience advising on sales incentives, performance differentiation and leadership team effectiveness.

Applicants must be authorized to work in the US without requiring sponsorship now or in the future.

We believe in supporting you from the moment you join us, which is why Kohler offers day 1 benefits. This means you’ll have access to your applicable benefit programs from your first day on the job, with no waiting period. The salary range for this position is $152,600 - $239,800. The specific salary offered to a candidate may be influenced by a variety of factors including the candidate’s experience, their education, and the work location. In addition, this position is eligible for a performance bonus/variable incentive compensation.

Why Choose Kohler?

We empower each associate to #BecomeMoreAtKohler with a competitive total rewards package to support your health and wellbeing, access to career growth and development opportunities, a diverse and inclusive workplace, and a strong culture of innovation. With more than 30,000 bold leaders across the globe, we’re driving meaningful change in our mission to help people live gracious, healthy, and sustainable lives.

About Us

It is Kohler’s policy to recruit, hire, and promote qualified applicants without regard to race, creed, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, national origin, disability or status as a protected veteran. If, as an individual with a disability, you need reasonable accommodation during the recruitment process, please contact [e-mail] . Kohler Co. is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer.