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Senior Director of Human Resources

Location: California (Ventura County / Pleasant Valley Region preferred)

Start Date: ASAP

Role Overview

Vangst is the employer of record for several thousand W-2 hourly employees working at client sites across multiple states. We partner with some of the largest employers in our industry, supporting a high-volume workforce in a fast-paced, highly regulated environment.

We’re hiring an internal Senior Director of Human Resources to build and lead the people operations, compliance, and HR infrastructure that will support our next stage of growth. You’ll develop the systems, policies, and processes that allow us to scale our workforce without increasing risk, while serving as a trusted advisor to leadership on complex employee relations and compliance matters.

This is a compliance-heavy, hands-on leadership role. You’ll set strategy, build scalable HR operations, and work through the day-to-day realities of supporting a very large hourly workforce. This means leading investigations, coaching through difficult employee issues, partnering with legal when appropriate, and continuously improving the policies and processes that drive our business.

What You’ll Own

Hourly and temp workforce

● Own the employee lifecycle for a high-volume W-2 hourly population: onboarding, I-9 and E-Verify, state and industry badging, assignment changes, and offboarding

● Investigate and resolve employee relations issues, including client-site complaints, and drive corrective action to conclusion

● Build onboarding and offboarding that can absorb volume spikes with an emphasis on compliance

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● Develop HR reporting and dashboards that provide leadership visibility into turnover, investigations, compliance risk, hiring trends, and workforce health

● Coach managers and other support and field employees through performance management, documentation, disciplinary action, terminations, accommodations, and difficult employee conversations in California and multi-state compliance

● Wage and hour compliance across all operating states, with California as a priority: meal and rest period rules, premium pay, overtime and daily OT, reporting time page, wage statement accuracy, and final pay timing

● Manage and reduce all exposure; partner with counsel on all demand letters, claims, and settlements

● Paid sick leave, protective leave, and other accommodation administration across multiple states, including CA, CO FAMLI, NY and WA

● All required training and postings, including CA harassment prevention, Cal/OSHA obligations including IIPP and workplace violence prevention plan

● Annual filings and reportings: payroll, benefits, and risk management

● Partner with Payroll and Finance on accurate, on-time, compliant multi-state payroll

● Own relationships with HR vendors including benefits, payroll, workers’ compensation, leave administration, background screening, and compliance partners

● Manage workers’ compensation claims and carrier relationships across states, including return-to-work and audit support

● Work with Operations to identify workplace safety trends, reduce injury frequency, and improve return-to-work outcomes

● Own unemployment claims and hearings Policy, systems, and team

● Work with Legal to own the employee handbook; keep it accurate, state-specific, and free of contradictions

● Design and oversee consistent performance management processes, corrective action procedures and documentation standards

● Improve HR systems and data hygiene across payroll and all other systems of record

● Build and lead the HR team’ establish clear SLAs and escalation paths for onsite and offsite support

● Partner with Operations to forecast workforce needs, support expansions into new markets, and ensure HR processes scale with business growth

● Advise the Leadership team with practical, risk-weighted recommendations

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What Success Looks Like

First 90 days: You’ve built trust with our leadership, support, and field managers by successfully handling the day-to-day HR issues that come with our large hourly workforce. Employee relations matters are being addressed promptly, the team knows where to turn for guidance, and you’ve identified the highest-priority compliance and operational risks to begin addressing.

First 6 months: The top-priority risks are remediated or in flight. The field has clear

guidance and knows how to escalate. All employee relations issues are resolved on a predictable timeline instead of lingering.

First 12 months: HR is a functioning, scalable operation that supports growth into new states without HR or compliance becoming a bottleneck.

What You Bring

Required

● 8+ years in Human Resources with at least 3 in a leadership role

● Demonstrated current California employment compliance experience as a practitioner, not just awareness. You will have handled CA wage and hour issues in a live operating environment and speak to specific situations you resolved

● Experience supporting a large, hourly, non-exempt, or field-based workforce

● Multi-state HR experience with real ownership of compliance issues in multiple states

● Track record of managing employee relations and investigation end to end

● Comfort with ambiguity and volume. You can prioritize when everything is urgent

● Excellent judgement on when to escalate to counsel and when to decide

Strongly Preferred

● Staffing, PEO, EOR, or temp agency experience, with a working understanding of co-employment and joint employer risk

● Experience in a highly regulated industry

● Hands-on experience working with modern payroll and HRIS platforms, comfort building reports and working with AI tools

● Experience defending and preventing PAGA claims or wage and hour class actions

● Experience working with Farm Labor Contractors or agricultural companies

● SHRM-SCP, SPHR or equivalent

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What We Offer

● Competitive compensation package including equity

● Comprehensive medical, dental, vision insurance and 401(k)

● Unlimited PTO and paid company holidays

● Opportunity to build and shape the HR function at a fast-growing company

● Direct partnership with the executive team and meaningful influence on how the company grows

● The chance to make a measurable impact at a company where decisions are made quickly and great ideas become reality

Vangst is an equal opportunity employer. We consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records in accordance with applicable law, including the California Fair Chance Act and the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance.