Principal Manager, People Operations Business Partner

What you'll do

• Directly manage, coach, and develop the People Operations Business Partner, setting clear goals and providing regular feedback and career development support 
• Build and scale the People Operations Business Partner function across the employee lifecycle managing the workload distribution as the organization scales 
• Establish performance expectations, competencies, and quality standards for POBP work and regularly assess the team 
• Foster a culture of accountability, trust, and continuous improvement within the POBP team 
• Serve as a trusted strategic advisor to senior executives on organizational design, workforce planning, performance management, and employee relations
• Translate enterprise business priorities into people strategy, ensuring HRBP practice aligns with company goals 
• Set the strategic point of view on how AI and automation will affect roles, skills, team structures, and management practices, and equip HRBPs to guide leaders through responsible adoption 
• Partner with Talent Acquisition, Total Rewards, and Learning & Organization Enablement leadership to deliver a cohesive, enterprise-wide employee experience 
• Represent the People Operations Business Partner function in enterprise-level people strategy and planning discussions
• Develop and maintain Nava's enterprise workforce-planning frameworks, and career-pathing structures that POBPs apply across business areas 
• Partner with Finance, Operations, and Delivery business leaders to align workforce plans with delivery commitments, organizational capacity, and financial plans
• Guide organizational design decisions, including team restructures, leadership transitions, position eliminations, and other significant workforce actions
• Evaluate spans of control, reporting structures, and organizational capability across the business to identify opportunities for greater effectiveness
• Set standards for evaluating technology-enabled efficiency proposals, ensuring they are supported by realistic change-management plans and workforce data
• Coach the POBP team on how to develop leaders and managers on organizational leadership, team effectiveness, accountability, and performance 
• Identify recurring, cross-organizational manager challenges and direct the development of scalable tools, guidance, and learning interventions 
• Champion the build of inclusive, accountable, and psychologically safe teams across the business 
• Guide the POBP team through complex or sensitive leadership situations, promoting sound judgment, consistency, and fairness
• Own the people and organizational strategy for significant business changes, setting direction for the HRBP team's execution
• Direct assessments of stakeholder impact, organizational readiness, and employee-relations risk for major change initiatives 
• Set change-management standards and ensure the HRBP team delivers clear implementation plans, communications, and manager resources
• Monitor the impact of organizational changes at the enterprise level and adjust strategy based on workforce data and outcomes
• Serve as an escalation point for complex, high-risk, or sensitive labor and employee relations matters 
• Partner with Legal and People Operations leadership on high-impact investigations and risk assessments 
• Maintain enterprise-level knowledge of applicable federal, state, and local employment requirements and ensure HRBP practice reflects current law 
• Set the strategy for employee- and labor-relations practices related to AI-enabled workplace changes, including monitoring, workload, and role requirements 
• Support employee-relations practices within Nava's unionized environment and ensure compliance with collective bargaining obligations 
• Identify systemic patterns in employee concerns and direct the development of organization-wide solutions
• Escalate significant organizational, legal, cultural, or employee-experience risks appropriately
• Sponsor and oversee complex, cross-functional people initiatives from problem definition through implementation and evaluation 
• Coordinate with leaders across People Operations, Finance, Legal, IT, Talent Acquisition, and delivery teams
• Provide clear, executive-level updates on initiative progress, risk, and outcomes
• Ensure initiatives are meaningfully adopted and sustained across the organization
• Set the strategy for using workforce data to identify trends, organizational health indicators, and emerging risks
• Partner with People Workforce Insights, Staffing, and Finance to improve enterprise workforce reporting and decision-making 
• Translate data into clear insights and recommendations for executive leadership
• Ensure appropriate data integrity, confidentiality, and documentation standards across the POBP function
• Drive cross-functional initiatives that improve the employee and manager experience
• Identify and resolve policies, processes, systems, or operating practices that create unnecessary complexity, inconsistency, risk, or administrative burden
• Direct improvements that increase clarity, scalability, compliance, and organizational effectiveness
• Ensure People Operations programs and processes are practical for managers and aligned with Nava’s broader people strategy
• Champion the adoption of self-service tools and standardized practices while preserving appropriate judgment for complex situations

Required skills

• 10+ years of People Operations and/or Human Resources experience
• Demonstrated experience translating business strategy into organizational design, workforce planning, and talent strategy at the enterprise level 
• Thorough knowledge of People Operations and Human Resources principles and applicable federal and state regulations (FMLA, ADA, FLSA, NLRA, etc.)
• Strong competency with HCM systems  
• Demonstrated ability to influence senior executives and stakeholders without relying on formal authority.
• Experience coaching and developing talent 
• Ability to develop and maintain collaborative working relationships with executives, managers, employees and union representatives 
• Strong analytical skills and experience using workforce data to identify trends, evaluate risk, and support decisions 
• Strong judgment and the ability to provide clear recommendations in complex, sensitive, or ambiguous situations
• Ability to develop and maintain collaborative working relationships with employees, managers, and union representatives
• Ability to work independently and with little supervision
• Extraordinary discretion, confidentiality, flexibility, and willingness to work closely with a cross-functional team
• Proficiency in GSuite, Slack, Zoom, Excel, Apple computers, and other tools used to support a remote-work environment
• Attention to detail and the ability to work independently and in a team environment
• Ability to work effectively in a distributed, remote-first environment