Senior Manager, Employee Relations

About us

At Udemy, we’re on a mission to transform lives through learning. Through our intelligent skills platform and a global community of instructors, we’ve helped over 70 million learners and 16,000 organizations achieve their goals. Come join us in ensuring everyone, everywhere has access to the skills they need to unlock their potential and create possibilities for themselves and others.

About you

You’re a connector who puts people first and values the lasting ​partnerships you’ll build. You’re an active listener who cares about the stories people share and are energized by communication and collaboration. You love learning new things and are known for bringing innovative perspectives and questions to the table. You’re deadline and results-driven, passionate about creating new processes, systems, and best practices that help your internal partners do their best work.

About this role 

The Employee Relations function is an integral part of Udemy and essential to maintaining our culture. This role requires a consultative, and hands-on leader to help us guide the continued evolution of our employee relations and investigations model to align with the importance of foundational Udemy values. In addition, this role is an opportunity to build the ER function from the ground up.

The role will work closely with the Employment, Legal and People Partner teams to ensure that Udemy’s treatment of employees is fair, respectful, and consistent with our core values. The role will drive critical employee relations issues that are highly sensitive and require building trust and collaboration, such as workplace investigations, consultation on challenging employee and manager situations, and/or manager training. Balancing time between projects and crisis-response is a critical component for success in the position. The role will also work as a project manager on proactive programs that improve employee relations and HR/Legal compliance initiatives.

What you'll be doing

• Build the newly created Employee Relations function including designing the strategic roadmap and education and adoption for the ER function at Udemy in partnership with the legal team. 
• Conduct investigations into routine and non-routine workplace matters, including: employee concerns about discrimination, harassment, and/or retaliation and violation of other Udemy policies.
• Use effective investigation techniques to promptly and thoroughly investigate concerns, including: gathering and analyzing facts, applying relevant policies and practices to reach conclusions, preparing investigation reports, and documenting findings in online case management system to facilitate prompt and effective resolution of workplace concerns
• Provide consultation, guidance and coaching to People Partners and people managers to address employee behavior and possible policy violations.
• Provide guidance and assistance with the development and delivery of appropriate feedback or corrective / disciplinary actions that align with Udemy approach, practices, and processes  
• Support design, implementation and continued evolution of end-to-end employee relations strategy and methodology to address work-related issues
• Develop and implement best practice templates/forms/playbooks to assist with process and/or documentation requirements
• Conduct manager training in partnership with People Partners and Employment Legal Team.
• Manage or participate on special projects / programs requiring employee relations stakeholder input, as needed (i.e. M&A).
• Serve as a point of contact on matters of employee/company policies and compliance, partnering closely with various stakeholders including: People Partners, Employment Legal, Business Leaders, Privacy & Security, and other internal teams
• Build trusted relationships quickly, and lead with warmth, empathy, compassion, and creativity to think inside of and outside of the box to drive the right solutions
• Report on overall employee relations trends by geography, team and/or organization to strengthen policies/practices/leader enablement
• Liaise between the People Team, Employment Legal Team, business groups, and other stakeholders at Udemy, all while representing Udemy values and culture.

About your skills

• General knowledge of all functional areas in HR. 
• Experience building Employee Relations function
• A business consultant with strong analytical skills with the ability to use data to form hypothesizes, operate, advise with empathy in the “gray” areas.
• Adept understanding of client motivations and business pain points; leverages inputs to influence business decisions.
• Ability to synthesize complex