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

Role Description

Every day, teacher absences cost students learning time, a loss felt hardest in under-resourced schools. Kokua closes that gap by connecting schools with passionate guest educators who step in and make an immediate difference in the classroom, delivering substitute teaching staffing services across a growing, multi-state footprint that we're continuing to expand.

At Kokua, compliance is how we keep classrooms safe and covered. Every guest educator we place has to be screened, cleared, and credentialed for the state, district, and school they're working in. If that work is wrong, students may be put at risk. If it's slow or overly complex, classrooms go uncovered. Either way, school partners lose trust in us. Getting it right is central to the service we provide.

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. Rather than owning every process that touches a compliance requirement, you'll translate legal and regulatory complexity into simple, scalable processes that Talent, Operations, and other frontline teams can execute themselves, with you providing the oversight, monitoring, training, and escalation path that keeps it all working.

You'll work closely with Talent, Operations, Payroll, and HRBP to make sure compliance gets executed where the work actually happens, not just designed centrally and handed down.

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, with measurable improvements in accuracy, turnaround time, or operational simplicity.
• 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

• 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.
• Independently manage routine and moderately complex ER cases, including investigation, documentation, recommendations, and resolution.
• Partner with managers and HRBPs to determine appropriate responses, corrective action, and follow-up.
• 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, assess their impact on Kokua's policies and processes, and translate those changes into updated guidance.
• Serve as the specialist partner to the HRBP function, owning compliance standards, formal investigations, and guidance on employee relations risk.
• 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.
• Help leaders assess risk, determine appropriate next steps, and understand when an issue requires escalation.
• Track 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.

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, paid time off.