Director, People Operations

Job Description

Who are we?

Sidewalk Labs is an urban innovation company that tackles cities' greatest challenges. We create products and solutions, invest in new companies, and help developers build more sustainable, innovative, and equitable places around the world. Our ambitious vision requires us to push ourselves beyond conventional thinking, and we work hard in pursuit of our mission. Our cross-disciplinary team consists of experts from real estate, urban planning, government, finance, technology, and engineering, among other backgrounds.

Our urban innovations include Delve (a generative design product that empowers real estate teams to design better, faster, with less risk), Mesa (an easy-install kit for commercial buildings that cuts energy costs, improves tenant comfort, and simplifies building operations), Pebble (a low-cost vehicle sensor to help manage parking and curb space), and Affordable Electrification (a new way to manage home energy use to meet a customer’s monthly budget). We're also developing an offsite construction company that can deliver high-quality mass timber buildings for more sustainable living and working.

With the potential to radically improve quality of life in cities for all, our work is both exciting and complex. We are working to achieve something unprecedented — help us build it!

To date, we've incubated and invested in multiple companies focused on solving urban problems.

We now seek to create an offsite construction company delivering high-quality mass timber buildings for more sustainable living and working. The company's end-to-end approach will combine craft design and advanced manufacturing to produce customizable buildings with speed and certainty. It will be based in the Pacific Northwest. We have a unique opportunity to transform the way our urban environment is built, and build a successful venture in doing so. This company’s efforts will include:

• Designing, building, and operating a world-class advanced manufacturing facility and supply chain to produce panelized mass timber building components (floor cassettes, structural members, facade panels, and walls).
• Working with developers and architects to create high performance, market ready buildings that are optimized for production in our factory.
• Using advanced model-based digital manufacturing techniques to simulate and validate the production system design and performance, enabling us to deliver greater and earlier certainty project delivery price and schedule for our customers.
• Shipping optimally flat-packed, ready-to-assemble building parts to a customer’s development site, once the site is prepared for vertical construction.
• Investing in and scaling multiple business lines beyond the first factory, including digital design products, new material technologies, and digital factory solutions.

What is the role?

We are looking for a Director of People Operations, to join our team, reporting to the President and COO. We are seeking someone who has experience with factory and construction environments and policies. You will be a senior-level People Operations professional who is interested in interacting with the various parts of a fast-moving, entrepreneurial, high-profile company.

The focus of this role is to build and execute on our mass timber factory team’s HR strategy by enabling the business to scale with sound policies and procedures and an efficient and effective workforce. The person in this role will be expected to develop workplace policies, define and implement any future benefits, and execute on a hiring strategy for both Mass Timber corporate and factory employees, in compliance with company guidelines.

We are operating a complex company that continues to grow and evolve significantly, which means building out our foundational policies and practices now is critical to our success.

This is a real growth opportunity to make an impact in a unique organization, dense with diverse talent.

This position is located in Seattle, WA with an expectation to spend time at the factory site and corporate office. Travel will be expected as needed.

What are the deliverables?

Within your first 3 months you will:

• Conduct analyses and set benchmarks for compensation, benefits, and leveling in partnership with Sidewalk Labs and external consulting firms.
• Evaluate org structure and career paths for corporate and factory roles.
• Implement a process for utilizing new leveling and communicating with employees.
• Manage any relevant consultants (potential to manage one or more direct reports in the future).

Within your first 6 months you will:

• Lead development of EID strategy. Incorporate EID policies into employee life cycle (hiring, promotions, opportunity for growth, exposure to leaders) and business decisions.
• Lead development of workforce training and apprenticeship programs
• In coordination with Talent, develop strategy for hiring practices and sourcing for both corporate and factory hires.
• Oversee all employee onboarding.
• Work cross functionally with Legal, Finance, and Leadership on strategic initiatives.
• Create EID commitments for 2022.
• Communicate with management regularly regarding employee relations and organizational structure.

After 12 months you will:

• Implement new policies (workplace, learning and development, safety, etc) for factory location.
• Be seen as a thought leader for the team who improves processes and builds new programming to meet the needs of best in class employee experience.
• Review current benefits programs to assess if we should be cutting or adding any perks based on the market and employee usage.
• Be seen as a trusted partner and have supported the team leads on any engagement / retention strategies and any performance improvement efforts.

What We Expect

We’re looking for a People Operations professional with 10+ years of relevant work experience. Experience working in startups is a plus. To thrive on this journey with us, you will need to bring interest in People Operations processes and have examples for the following:

• You are passionate about people & process; you like getting things done.
• You have experience with factory and construction site policy and compliance (OSHA, etc).
• You have knowledge of factory labor recruitment, retention, onboarding, training, safety, benefits, and employee relations.
• You have strong communication and cross-functional collaboration skills.
• You have knowledge of federal and local Washington state HR rules and regulations (EEO, ADA, ERISA, PFML, etc).
• You know what development and training needs exist for factory labor and corporate roles.
• You have experience with compensation and benefits implementation across distributed and diverse workforces.
• You value the importance of professionalism when handling sensitive employee data.
• You want to be a part of a dynamic team that is fast-paced, where you embrace ambiguity and collaborate across teams.
• You are detail-oriented and maintain a culture of continuous improvement and operational excellence, including operating in compliance with policies and procedures.

We are very excited to hear from you.

Sidewalk Labs is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We actively seek applicants from underrepresented communities. Even if you are not 100% sure you are right for the role, please apply and we will be happy to consider your application. All employment is based on merit and business need, and we respond to each application we receive.