Director of People and Culture

The Akron Art Museum recently celebrated its centennial and is now looking to the next 100 years of celebrating art and people. The Akron Art Museum values our people-first culture. This is the opportunity for an energetic professional with strong communication skills and a passionate commitment to help lead a vibrant and healthy organization.

Located in the heart of downtown, the Akron Art Museum has 20,000 square feet of gallery space, a garden, and a world class collection of more than 7,000 objects from regional, national, and internationally known artists. Plans are underway to renovate the historic part of the Museum complex built in 1899 to include additional gallery, education, and visitor engagement spaces.

Summary

The Director of People and Culture oversees the overall function and strategic direction of the Human Resources department at the Akron Art Museum and serves on the organization’s Leadership Team. The director is responsible for developing and ensuring effective implementation of plans including systems, policies, and processes to support the organization’s culture, talent acquisition, talent retention, training and development, team engagement and relations, legal compliance and recordkeeping, compensation, and benefits. This position requires a keen sense of organizational development as it relates to today’s culture as well as that of arts and Culture institutions and specifically art museums overall. A priority for the director is the building of collaboration and consensus toward shared outcomes.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Partner with the Leadership Team to formulate, develop, implement, and evaluate an HR and talent management strategy to achieve the organization’s mission and goals.

• Oversee recruitment efforts to ensure that the organization is effectively and efficiently sourcing and selecting the right candidates.

• Develop and drive talent management strategies to ensure effective staffing alignment with the needs of the Museum. Create systems to attract talent, identify critical talent needs, develop core competencies and corresponding development opportunities, and engage leadership in succession planning.

• Identify ways to increase staff retention and productivity, including strategies to enhance employee engagement, leadership and staff development, regular feedback and coaching, career pathing, and promoting a coherent organizational culture that positions AAM as an “employer of choice.”

• Lead the effective and efficient administration of the performance management process, making sure that the organization’s leaders are equipped to engage in constructive and ongoing feedback and coaching, collaborate effectively when co-managing staff, and encourage staff to actively participate in identifying and addressing performance gaps.

• Mitigate legal risk to the organization through proactive training and education, clear systems and processes for managing conflicts with and between employees, handling and investigating complaints of harassment/discrimination and other unjust practice allegations.

• Maintain current knowledge and application of all relevant laws and regulations at the local, state, and national level relating to employment and ensure organizational compliance. This includes educating and advising leaders on HR-related legal and regulatory matters and ensuring HR programs, practices and policies are aligned. Ensure that employee files and records are properly and securely maintained.

• Design and implement a competitive compensation system and benefit package to attract and retain staff. Partner with leadership to develop a Total Rewards/Pay philosophy, regularly review compensation and benefits market data. Monitor pay practices and proactively address issues, support benefit broker resources and benefits enrollment process. Support HR administration duties and the payroll function.

• Design and implement a strategy to optimize and integrate HR technology, enabling managers and employees to easily perform people-related transactions (e.g., benefits enrollment), facilitate delivery of effective HR services, securely store employee data, and support people-related decisions.

• Perform other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

Bachelor’s degree or the equivalent years of experience in Human Resources or related field • 3 to 5 years of HR experience partnering directly with senior leadership to develop, align and implement HR and organizational development strategies. HRCI and/or SHRM Certification is a plus. • Experience supervising and developing staff • Experience implementing strategies and systems for talent management, compensation and benefits, and HR technology • Strong business acumen and leadership abilities • Working knowledge of employment laws and other compliance issues • Ability to listen and probe to understand underlying needs and/or root cause of an issue • Ability to provide thoughtful, progressive and strategic guidance • Expertise in analysis, critical decision making, project management, and process improvement • Strong interpersonal, verbal and written communications skills, including proficiency in developing and delivering presentations • Demonstrated ability to anticipate and solve practical problems • Ability to identify, influence, and collaborate with key stakeholders to achieved desired organizational outcomes • Outstanding judgement, sensitivity and high discretion • Strong application of emotional intelligence. Proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite and HR system applications.