Strategic HR Business Partner-Executive Director

Johnson Controls; Milwaukee (WI); On-site; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Johnson Controls seeks a Strategic HR Business Partner, Executive Director, to lead workforce strategy, talent systems, and organizational effectiveness across a large business unit. This senior HR leader partners with senior leaders to translate strategy into measurable workforce outcomes and to establish disciplined execution with enterprise HR products.

The role focuses on driving operating rhythms, improving leader ownership of talent decisions, and delivering continuous improvement in

Responsibilities

• Translate strategy into measurable workforce and talent outcomes.
• Establish a strong operating rhythm, drive follow-through, and strengthen leader ownership of people decisions.
• Enable disciplined adoption of enterprise talent systems and HR products at scale.

Job description

About Us

Johnson Controls, a global leader in thermal management, mission-critical building systems, energy efficiency, and decarbonization, helps customers use energy more productively, reduce carbon emissions, and operate with the precision and resilience required in rapidly expanding industries such as data centers, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, advanced manufacturing, and higher education.

For more than 140 years, Johnson Controls has delivered performance where it really matters. Backed by advanced technology, lifecycle services and an industry-leading field organization, we elevate customer performance, turn goals into real-world results and help move society forward.

Strategic HR Business Partner-Executive Director

What You Will Do

The Strategic HR Business Partner, Executive Director is a senior HR leadership role accountable for improving business performance by driving disciplined execution of workforce strategy, talent systems, and organizational effectiveness across a large business unit, sector, or complex function.

This leader will partner closely with senior business leaders to translate strategy into measurable workforce and talent outcomes. The role establishes a strong operating rhythm, drives clear follow-through, and strengthens leader ownership of talent, workforce, performance, and organizational decisions.

The Executive Director will enable strategy, planning, and execution against three primary sources of business demand:

• Annual operating plans and associated business performance metrics
• Strategic initiatives and workforce plans
• Colleague experience and organizational effectiveness

Success requires strong business acumen, executive-level influence, disciplined execution, data-driven problem solving, and the ability to activate enterprise HR products and talent systems at scale.

How You Will Do It: Our Winning Behaviors

At Johnson Controls, how we deliver results matters. This leader will model and embed our Winning Behaviors across the organization.

Focus on What Matters

• Go to Gemba with leaders to understand business realities firsthand.
• Use business, workforce, and talent data to diagnose root causes and identify the issues that have the greatest impact on performance.
• Prioritize the critical talent, leadership, and organizational challenges that matter most to the business.
• Activate enterprise HR products and solutions where they can create the greatest value.

Win as One Team

• Collaborate across HR Product teams, Centers of Excellence, HR Operations, PMO, Workforce Analytics, and business leadership to deliver integrated solutions.
• Align leaders to enterprise standards while actively influencing and shaping solutions to ensure they address business needs.
• Build alignment across functions and geographies to improve consistency, execution, and enterprise outcomes.

Own the Outcome

• Take accountability for business and talent outcomes, not simply HR activity.
• Ensure leaders own their people, workforce, performance, and talent decisions.
• Translate strategy into execution through disciplined adoption of enterprise talent systems.
• Identify and remove barriers that limit organizational or workforce performance.
• Establish clear expectations, ownership, measures, and follow-through.

Improve Every Day

• Seek truth through data, business results, and leader feedback.
• Use structured problem solving to identify root causes and execution gaps.
• Continuously improve talent systems, leader capability, organizational effectiveness, and workforce outcomes.
• Approach improvement with urgency, curiosity, and humility.

How You Will Lead

Business Strategy Translator

• Connect business priorities, operating plans, and financial drivers to workforce execution.
• Translate business strategy into leadership capability, workforce priorities, organizational actions, and disciplined talent-system execution.
• Ensure workforce and talent strategies result in measurable business outcomes.

Execution System Problem Solver

• Identify breakdowns in execution using structured problem-solving methods.
• Diagnose gaps in operating rhythm, talent-system adoption, workforce planning, and leader follow-through.
• Use standard cadences, metrics, and tools to drive resolution and improve consistency.

Product Activation Leader

• Drive disciplined adoption and use of enterprise HR products as standard solutions.
• Ensure enterprise products are used consistently and effectively to solve business problems.
• Reduce unnecessary local variation and workarounds while improving adoption and execution quality.

Leader Capability Builder

• Build leader capability and accountability for succession, workforce planning, development actions, performance management, and organizational health.
• Coach and challenge leaders to make high-quality talent and workforce decisions.
• Strengthen leader self-sufficiency and ownership of people outcomes.

Operating Rhythm Owner

Establish and sustain an