[Hiring] Senior Manager, Compliance and Employee Relations @Careers at Kokua

Role Description

The Senior Manager, Compliance & Employee Relations owns Kokua's workforce compliance framework: the standards, controls, and employee relations expertise that keep Kokua's people practices sound as the company scales into new states. You'll translate legal and regulatory complexity into simple, scalable processes that Talent, Operations, and other frontline teams can execute themselves, with you providing oversight, monitoring, training, and escalation paths.

Essential Duties

• Educator clearance and student safety
  • Maintain a requirements matrix by state, market, and school partner covering screening, credentialing, training, and other placement requirements.
  • Define background screening, fingerprinting, credentialing, and mandatory reporting training requirements for guest educators.
  • Establish controls that prevent assignments before required clearance is complete, and monitor those controls for gaps.
  • Coordinate educator misconduct matters and required reporting with Operations, the VP of People, and counsel.
• Employee relations case management and investigations
  • Independently manage routine and moderately complex ER cases, including investigation, documentation, recommendations, and resolution.
  • Escalate high-risk or legally complex matters to the VP of People and/or external counsel as appropriate.
  • Partner with managers and HRBPs to determine appropriate responses, corrective action, and follow-up.
• Compliance program ownership
  • Own the standards, controls, and framework for Kokua's workforce compliance program across the full employee lifecycle.
  • Develop and maintain scalable processes, controls, documentation, and training that make compliance requirements simple enough for regional and frontline teams to execute consistently.
  • Monitor changes in employment requirements and translate those changes into updated guidance for the teams responsible for applying them.
• Partnership with HRBP
  • Serve as the specialist partner to the HRBP function, owning compliance standards, formal investigations, and guidance on employee relations risk.
  • Work with HRBPs to keep that line clear in practice, with defined handoffs when a performance or manager issue picks up compliance or ER risk.
  • Support HRBPs and leaders in situations that involve both organizational or performance considerations and compliance or ER risk.
• New market launch support
  • Own the compliance readiness checklist for each proposed market, including requirements, accountable owners, dependencies, deadlines, and unresolved risks.
  • Provide a documented readiness recommendation before launch and promptly escalate issues that could affect the launch date.
  • Research applicable employment and workforce requirements and identify changes needed to policies, processes, systems, and training.
  • Coordinate with internal stakeholders and external counsel to ensure compliance requirements are understood and operationalized before launch.
  • Build scalable approaches that allow Kokua to enter new jurisdictions without unnecessarily creating complexity for frontline teams.
• Risk escalation and advisory
  • Help leaders assess risk, determine appropriate next steps, and understand when an issue requires escalation.
  • Provide practical guidance on matters that may arise throughout the employee lifecycle, including accommodations, leave, employee conduct, workplace safety, wage and hour, immigration, and other employment-related compliance issues.
• Reporting
  • Track ER resolution case volume, resolution timelines, and complexity trends to give leadership a clear, current picture of ER health and workload.
  • Report on audit results, credentialing and background-check accuracy, and the status of any open remediation items across Kokua's markets.
  • Track whether compliant policies and processes are in place ahead of confirmed market launches, and flag readiness gaps early.
  • Track how the range of issues Talent and Operations teams are equipped to handle independently continues to grow, and the resulting reduction in escalations to the central team.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of progressive HR, employee relations, or compliance experience, including direct investigation experience.
• Demonstrated success implementing multi-state compliance programs in a high-volume, distributed workforce.
• Strong working knowledge of employment practices and requirements across multiple U.S. jurisdictions.
• Experience with I-9/E-Verify, background and credential compliance, wage and hour, leave, accommodations, or other workforce compliance programs.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain complex or sensitive issues clearly to non-HR audiences.
• Demonstrated ability to operate independently, manage competing priorities, and build structure in a growing organization.

Requirements

• Experience in high-complexity, employee-protective states such as New York, Illinois, or California.
• PHR/SPHR or SHRM-CP/SCP.
• Experience in staffing, contingent workforce, or education-sector HR.
• Experience supporting or leading HR/compliance work associated with entering a new state or market.
• Experience designing compliance tools or training for non-HR audiences.

Benefits

• This role may be performed remotely from anywhere in the United States, with a preference for candidates based in Eastern, Central, or Mountain time zones.
• The anticipated base salary range for this role is $100,000 to $115,000 USD.
• Actual starting pay within this range will depend on the candidate's experience, qualifications, and skills relative to the role's requirements.
• This role is eligible for bonus compensation and participation in Kokua Education's benefits program, which includes medical/dental/vision coverage, 401k retirement plan and company match, and paid time off.