Program Director, Employee Relations

Watkins Wellness; Livonia (MI); On-site; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Masco is seeking a Program Director, Employee Relations to lead and build the enterprise ER Center of Excellence, partnering with HR, Legal, and business leaders to deliver consistent, high-quality employee relations across the enterprise. You will personally manage high-risk investigations, advise senior leaders, and design scalable processes while remaining hands-on with day-to-day ER work.

Based at Masco's corporate HQ in Livonia, Michigan, or at one of our business-unit offices in Southern

Job description

**The Opportunity**Masco is evolving for its next chapter of growth, with a continued focus on strengthening how we operate as an enterprise and enabling our businesses and leaders to perform at their best. As we introduce new technology, capabilities, and ways of working, we're also evolving our HR operating model to support a more connected, scalable, and effective enterprise. Employee Relations (ER) is an important part of that evolution. We're building an enterprise ER Center of Excellence (CoE) to bring greater consistency to how employee matters are handled, strengthen decision-making, and help our businesses address issues earlier and more effectively. The **Program Director, Employee Relations** will be at the center of building this capability. Operating through Masco's HR for HR model and reporting to the Executive HR Business Partner, this role will help shape how ER works across the enterprise while serving as a trusted advisor on our most complex employee matters and workforce challenges. The role serves as the enterprise ER subject matter expert and escalation point for complex employee matters, partnering closely with HR and business leaders to drive thoughtful, consistent outcomes. This is a true player/coach role. You'll help build the future-state ER capability while remaining deeply involved in the day-to-day work, personally leading high-risk, sensitive, and precedent-setting employee matters. We're looking for someone who has built or meaningfully transformed an ER function before, knows what good looks like, and is excited to roll up their sleeves and do it again. You'll need to be comfortable building something new while managing the realities of today. Some days that means working through a difficult investigation or advising a leader on a sensitive employee decision. Other days, it means simplifying a process, identifying opportunities to work more effectively, or helping HR teams build capability and confidence. Often, it'll be a combination of both. This role will be based at Masco's corporate headquarters in Livonia, Michigan, or at one of our business-unit corporate offices in Southern California or Indianapolis, Indiana, with travel across the enterprise as needed. **What You'll Build and Lead** **Build the enterprise ER model:** * Turn our ER strategy into practical ways of working, including clear responsibilities, decision-making processes, escalation paths, and consistent standards. Partner with key stakeholders to build an approach that works across the enterprise and makes it easier to navigate employee matters. **Personally lead complex employee matters:** * Personally lead complex investigations and high-risk, sensitive, and precedent-setting employee matters from intake through resolution. Help leaders and HR teams work through difficult situations, weigh risks, and make thoughtful, timely decisions. **Make ER easier to navigate:** * Build clear, effective processes for how employee matters are raised, assessed, escalated, documented, and resolved. Use case management technology, automation, and emerging tools to reduce unnecessary complexity, improve visibility, and help teams spend more time on the work that matters. **Help leaders and HR teams get better at ER:** * Create practical tools, training, and playbooks that help leaders and HR teams handle difficult conversations, address performance concerns, and navigate employee issues with greater confidence. Be a hands-on resource when situations get complicated. **Turn insights into action:** * Look beyond individual cases to understand what's happening across the workforce. Use case trends, employee insights, and workforce data to identify recurring themes, spotlight opportunities, flag emerging risks, and help leaders take action earlier. **Make the model work in practice:** * Partner across the enterprise to put new processes and tools into action, gather feedback, and make improvements along the way. Balance building for the future with addressing the challenges in front of you today. **What You've Done**You're an experienced ER leader who knows how to build while doing. You've worked through difficult employee situations, helped organizations improve how they manage ER, and understand what it takes to turn a good strategy into something that actually works. We're looking for 10+ years of progressive HR experience, including significant ER leadership experience in a complex, matrixed, or multi-site organization, supporting diverse workforce populations. Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience required. **Your experience includes:*** Leading the build, expansion, or meaningful transformation of an ER function, CoE, or enterprise service model, with results you can point to.* Turning ER strategy into clear processes, standards, tools, and ways of working that people actually use.* Personally conducting complex workplace investigations and navigating sensitive, high-risk employee matters.* Advising senior leaders through difficult employee decisions, balancing legal risk, business needs, and employee impact while influencing clear, timely decisions.* Partnering closely with Legal on sensitive investigations, employment matters, and decisions with meaningful organizational risk.* Handling complex performance concerns, corrective action, accommodations, documentation, and separation decisions.* Using employee relations data and case trends to spot patterns, identify risks, and improve how issues are managed.* Coaching leaders and HR teams through challenging situations and building their confidence and capability over time.* Leading change across different businesses, locations, and teams through strong relationships, practical solutions, and hands-on execution. You bring deep knowledge of U.S. employment practices, sound business judgment, and the ability to make thoughtful decisions when the answer isn't always clear. Global experience is a plus. You're a builder at heart, but you're also a doer. You don't need everything mapped out before getting started, and you're just as comfortable handling a difficult investigation as you are designing a better process for managing one. You understand how employee issues connect to broader business, talent, and organizational challenges and know how to help leaders navigate both. You're practical, resourceful, and comfortable with ambiguity. You build trust quickly, bring a strong point of view, and know how to move difficult issues forward with credibility, empathy, and sound judgment. **Why This Role Is Different** You're not inheriting a mature ER function or stepping away from the work to manage one. You'll help build the capability while remaining directly involved in the employee matters that need your expertise most. This is an opportunity to take what you've learned from building and leading ER elsewhere and help create something meaningful at Masco. You'll work closely with HR teams, Legal, and business leaders to establish better ways of working, address complex workforce challenges, and make it easier for our teams to navigate difficult employee situations. Success isn't just having new processes or tools in place. It's creating better outcomes. Employee issues are addressed earlier, leaders feel more confident handling difficult situations, HR teams have clearer guidance and stronger support, and we're better equipped to recognize and manage workforce risks. For someone who's built this kind of capability before and genuinely enjoys both the strategy and the hands-on work, this is an opportunity to bring that experience to Masco and make a lasting impact across a Fortune 500 enterprise.