The HR Business Partner, Restaurant & Retail is responsible to provide full spectrum human resources support to the Retail, Sales, and Professional Products divisions. This role is focused on fostering a vibrant and welcoming place to work and attracting, developing and retaining Ghirardelli top talent.

This is achieved by a consultancy-based service that delivers best practices and HR solutions to support company business objectives.

Accountable for proactively partnering with Retail, Sales, and Professional Products leadership to facilitate and deploy solutions in the following areas that drive achievement of our company goals:

Effective Business Partner

• Be a trusted advisor and business partner to the Restaurant & Retail, Sales and Professional Products divisions. Work closely with leaders, store/district managers and the retail store staff to drive business processes, improvement initiatives, and equitable employment practices across the organization.

• Provide effective guidance and coaching to leadership and employees in the resolution of employee relations concerns and issues in compliance with company policies, practices and values.
• Promote organization's DEI initiatives, model diverse and inclusive behaviors and drive accountability for the program and results.
• Stay connected and involved with Retail organization through frequent store visits, video/conference calls, attending staff meetings and company and team events.
• Develop processes to improve the employee retail onboarding effectiveness to foster a welcoming and vibrant work environment.
• Responsible for the administration of worker compensation claims and enforcement of labor/union relations policies and agreements and ensure adherence to established business and union rules and practices in relation to collective bargaining agreements (CBA).
• Help leaders attract and retain the talent needed to achieve business and growth objectives.
• Complete special projects and other duties as assigned.

Employee Relations & Investigations

• Manage employee relations cases and issues, including grievances for one union store, through consistent and fair application of company policies and practices. Facilitate equitable and timely issue resolution.
• Advise employees requiring HR support and/or guidance. Work in partnership with management to resolve employee relations issues in a timely manner, mitigating company risk.
• Develop proactive employee relations initiatives and tools to support and empower leaders to resolve issues.
• Ensure regulatory and legal compliance and understanding of EEOC, ADA, and union rules and practices in relation to collective bargaining agreements (CBA).

Talent Management & Recruiting

• Support Talent Management initiatives by ensuring performance evaluations, individual development plans, succession planning and career pathing are being executed in an impactful way at the store level. In partnership with Talent Acquisition Manager & Retail Leadership, understand current and future staffing needs, aid in recruiting top talent selection, interview/provide input on hiring decisions.
• Partner with Talent Acquisition team to create and drive strategic external partnerships to ensure a diverse pipeline of talent and robust talent engagement with underrepresented groups and reinforce inclusive hiring tools to facilitate process utilization.