Director of Human Resources and Administration

Merit HR (Merit Resource Group); San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Merit HR (Merit Resource Group) is assisting a San Francisco nonprofit in finding a Director of Human Resources & Administration. The role partners with the Executive Director, leads an HR team, and shapes the people strategy to support strategic priorities and growth.

The successful candidate will blend strategic perspective with hands-on execution, building capability, driving workforce planning, and ensuring compliant, high-performing human resources practices across the organization.

Qualifications

• Seasoned HR leader with nonprofit or mission-driven background.
• Experience advising a CEO or senior leadership team.
• Proven ability to build HR capability and lead organizational change.

Responsibilities

• Partner with the Executive Director to translate strategy into people, structure and practices.
• Lead and develop the HR team to provide high-quality support to employees and managers.
• Drive organizational effectiveness, workforce planning and leadership development.

Skills

Strategic HR partner

Change leadership

HR team leadership

Organizational design

Leadership development

Communication

Talent strategy

Compliance & risk

HR operations

HR systems

People analytics

Culture & employee experience

Job description

A well-established, mission-driven nonprofit serving youth, families and communities throughout San Francisco is entering an important new chapter. Following years of growth and expanded community impact, the organization is undertaking a significant strategic planning effort focused on its future direction, organizational capacity and ability to respond to changing community needs and funding realities.

We are seeking a Director of Human Resources & Administration who can help lead that evolution alongside an entrepreneurial and highly engaged Executive Director. This is not simply a role responsible for managing HR. The Director will serve as a thought partner to the Executive Director and leadership team—helping translate strategy into the people, structure, leadership capabilities and organizational practices required to execute it.

The Opportunity

Reporting directly to the Executive Director and serving as a member of the senior leadership team, the Director will lead and develop the HR team while playing a substantive role in the organization's next phase.

The successful candidate will be equally comfortable discussing organizational strategy with the Executive Director, leading and developing an effective HR function, and rolling up their sleeves when the work requires it.

Key areas of focus include

• Strategic thought partnership: Partner closely with the Executive Director and leadership team to translate strategic priorities into practical decisions around organizational structure, talent, leadership capability and workforce planning.
• Change leadership: Help the organization navigate meaningful change while building understanding, trust and alignment across the workforce. Anticipate the people implications of change and develop thoughtful strategies to support successful implementation.
• HR team leadership: Lead, develop and empower the HR team, establishing clear priorities, strengthening capabilities and ensuring the function provides responsive, consistent and high-quality support to employees and managers.
• Organizational effectiveness: Assess structures, roles, workflows and capabilities and identify where the organization needs to evolve to support its future direction.
• Leadership and manager development: Strengthen managers through coaching, practical tools, clear expectations and development, building greater people-management capability throughout the organization.
• Communication: Partner with leadership to communicate organizational priorities and changes with clarity and transparency across a diverse and distributed workforce. Serve as a trusted communicator who can listen to differing perspectives, distill complex issues and help leaders deliver difficult messages effectively.
• Talent strategy: Ensure the organization can attract, develop and retain the talent required for its evolving priorities, while bringing a forward-looking perspective to succession, workforce planning and critical capabilities.
• Compliance and risk management: Maintain a strong, proactive approach to employment compliance and organizational risk. Ensure policies and practices remain current and consistently applied, identify emerging issues, and provide sound guidance to leadership in a complex California employment environment.
• HR operations and employee relations: Ensure strong execution across employee relations, performance management, compensation and benefits, policies, investigations and the broader employee lifecycle, stepping directly into complex or sensitive matters when appropriate.
• Technology and HR evolution: Continue to modernize the HR function by evaluating and leveraging technology, systems and automation to improve efficiency, employee and manager experience, data integrity and the quality of information available to leadership. Identify where existing processes can be simplified or redesigned rather than simply automated.
• People data and decision support: Develop meaningful workforce information and insights that help leadership understand trends, anticipate needs and make better organizational decisions.
• Culture and employee experience: Help preserve the qualities that have contributed to the organization's success while ensuring its culture, practices and ways of working continue to evolve.

Who Will Thrive Here

We are looking for a seasoned HR leader who combines strategic perspective with a strong bias toward execution.

You may come from a nonprofit or another complex, mission-driven environment. More important is experience helping an established organization evolve while remaining connected to the people and work at its core.

You are likely someone who:

• Has served as a trusted advisor to a CEO, Executive Director or senior leadership team.
• Has successfully led and developed an HR team and knows how to build capability within the function rather than becoming the answer to every issue.
• Has helped an established organization navigate meaningful organizational or strategic change.
• Understands that successful change requires thoughtful communication, strong managers and attention to how decisions affect employees.
• Can move fluidly between strategy and execution and remains willing to personally engage in the work.
• Brings strong knowledge of employment practices and compliance, along with sound judgment in complex employee and organizational matters.
• Sees technology as an opportunity to make HR more effective, efficient and useful to the business—not simply as a system implementation.
• Can respectfully challenge and advise a strong, entrepreneurial leader while remaining focused on enabling organizational goals.
• Is comfortable operating where every answer has not yet been defined and can bring structure and clarity without unnecessary bureaucracy.
• Communicates exceptionally well and can build credibility with executives, managers and employees alike.

Why This Role

This is an opportunity to join a stable, respected nonprofit at a consequential point in its evolution. The organization has expanded significantly in reach and impact. Its next chapter is about ensuring the organization and its internal capabilities evolve alongside that growth—strengthening leadership, systems, technology, organizational capacity and alignment around a new strategic direction. For the right HR leader, this creates an unusually substantive mandate: lead and evolve an established HR function while serving as a trusted thought partner to an entrepreneurial Executive Director as the organization determines what it needs to become next.