Head of Employee Relations & Workforce Advisory

This transformational leadership role combines deep expertise in Employee Relations (ER) with workplace advisory services in a position that protects the bank, strengthens trust with colleagues, and enables leaders to navigate a rapidly evolving workforce landscape.

You will lead the function as a strategic risk and culture capability addressing a wide range of complex people management issues—integrating employee voice, fair and consistent outcomes, proactive risk identification, and leader enablement-- across a highly regulated financial‑services environment.  This role directs the Employee Relations team, the HR Service Center, and the Leave Program Office as a cohesive enterprise capability—balancing empathy and compliance while keeping a strong employee experience central to all operations.

Key Responsibilities

1. Strategy & Governance

• Define and execute the function’s strategy aligned to organizational values, risk and regulatory expectations, and employee experience goals; focus on providing consultative support and scenario-based advisory guidance in addition to managing investigations.
• Establish clear enterprise standards, decision frameworks, and escalation models for employee relations matters as well as HR Service Center and related operations teams.
• Partner with HR Risk to ensure ER is embedded into risk assessments, controls, and governance routines.
• Develop and maintain a consistent global ER framework based in US employment law but responsive to a global footprint.
• Cultivate strong relationships with business lines, HR business partners and other COEs, Corporate Security, Ethics Office, Incentive Management and HR Legal.  Ensure the equitable application of organization policies and procedures.
• Provide strategy and governance model for leave administration, including statutory, medical and other company-sponsored leave programs
• Design new workforce policies and procedures to support consistent application of workforce programs
• Ensure audit readiness and accountabilities for vendor performance.

2. Proactive Risk Identification & Analytics

• Evolve function from reactive resolution to early intervention and prevention, reducing litigation, regulatory exposure, and employee distrust.
• Build and maintain a workplace health analytics capability that tracks leading indicators of workplace risk; use case data, listening insights, and workforce analytics to identify systemic risks (e.g., repeat issues, leader capability gaps, hotspots).

• Monitor trends related to collective action, workplace activism, DEI‑related concerns, and hybrid work.

  
  

3. Complex Case & Crisis Leadership

• Oversee ER matters, some of which will be high profile, ensuring consistency, sound judgment, and defensible outcomes. Analyze evidence, apply relevant laws, policies and past practice to reach conclusions. 
• Partner with Legal, Compliance and Risk to manage matters with regulatory implications and banking-specific conduct standards.
• Lead crisis‑oriented employee relations responses (e.g., misconduct, retaliation, high‑profile exits) in close partnership with Legal and Compliance.
• Ensure learnings from cases translate into policy, training, or process improvements.

4. Leader Enablement & Capability Building

• Design and lead the workplace advisory function as a confidential, accessible channel for employees to raise questions and seek guidance.
• Equip people leaders with practical ER guidance, coaching, and tools to prevent escalation.
• Strengthen leader capability in evolving workforce topics such as managing hybrid teams, navigating conflict and performance conversations, and applying policies consistently and empathetically
• Serve as a trusted advisor to senior leaders on sensitive workforce decisions.

5. Employee Voice, Fairness & Trust

• Champion employment practices that reinforce fairness, transparency, and dignity, even in difficult situations.
• Ensure employee voice and other workplace programs are credible, responsive, and action‑oriented.
• Align team outcomes with Citizens’ employee value proposition, culture, and commitment to belonging and psychological safety.

6. Operations 

• Modernize digital solutions, support model and playbooks for case management to facilitate insights, increase self-service and drive operational efficiencies. 
• Drive continuous improvement through AI enablement, automation, knowledge base development and tiered escalation design. 
• Establish and monitor SLAs for key metrics 

Experience & Capabilities

Required

• 10+ years of progressive HR/ER experience with at least 5 years in a senior leadership role.
• Demonstrated experience managing ER in a multi-jurisdictional environment; global experience preferred
• Deep working knowledge of US Employment Law, ideally as applied to financial services or another regulated industry. 
• Proven success building or transforming ER and workplace advisory capabilities at an enterprise scale, with established metrics on program effectiveness and high levels of customer satisfaction.
• Proven track record using analytics to drive ER and HR service interventions; ability to translate data into clear, executive‑level narratives and use of data to inform risk identification, colleague experience enhancement, process improvement and demand reduction. 

• Experience establishing clear service boundaries and escalation models between HR Service Center, Employee Relations, HRBPs, COEs, and external vendors; operational discipline in defining SLAs, resolution standards, documentation expectations, and handoff criteria.

• Experience leveraging case management platforms and digital employee experience tools to enable intake, triage, documentation, and resolution at scale using tiered service delivery and AI enablement, preferred.

• Proficient in managing leave programs that intersect with performance management, employee relations, accommodations, and workforce planning.

• Strong judgment navigating ambiguity, regulatory scrutiny, and reputational risk.

Strongly preferred

• JD/employment law

• Experience with employment litigation support

• Proficiency in HR technology including Service Now, Oracle HCM or equivalent

• Experience managing teams across time zones

• Prior work with banking regulators on HR related examinations

• Experience executing corporate integrations

  
  
  

  To thrive as a colleague at Citizens, candidates must demonstrate a strong customer-centric mindset, exhibit persistence and resilience in the face of challenges, and embrace continuous learning to adapt and grow in a dynamic environment.

   

Hours and Work Schedule: (4 days in office, 1 day remote)

Hours per Week: 40

Work Schedule: Monday-Friday

Colleague MUST work in Johnston, RI, Boston, MA or Stamford, CT.

Pay Transparency

The salary range for this position is $241,000-$304,000 per year, plus an opportunity to earn an annual discretionary bonus. Actual pay is based on various factors including but not limited to the budget work location, and relevant skills and experience.

We offer competitive pay, comprehensive medical, dental and vision coverage, retirement benefits, maternity/paternity leave, flexible work arrangements, education reimbursement, wellness programs and more. Note, Citizens’ paid time off policy exceeds the mandatory, paid sick or paid time-away policy of every local and state jurisdiction in the United States. For an overview of our benefits, visit https://jobs.citizensbank.com/benefits .

Equal Employment Opportunity

Citizens, its parent, subsidiaries, and related companies (Citizens) provide equal employment and advancement opportunities to all colleagues and applicants for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, citizenship, physical or mental disability, perceived disability or history or record of a disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity or expression, genetic information, genetic characteristic, marital or domestic partner status, victim of domestic violence, family status/parenthood, medical condition, military or veteran status, national origin, pregnancy/childbirth/lactation, colleague’s or a dependent’s reproductive health decision making, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, or any other category protected by federal, state and/or local laws. At Citizens, we are committed to fostering an inclusive culture that enables all colleagues to bring their best selves to work every day and everyone is expected to be treated with respect and professionalism. Employment decisions are based solely on merit, qualifications, performance and capability.

Equal Employment and Opportunity Employer

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Background Check

Any offer of employment is conditioned upon the candidate successfully passing a background check, which may include initial credit, motor vehicle record, public record, prior employment verification, and criminal background checks. Results of the background check are individually reviewed based upon legal requirements imposed by our regulators and with consideration of the nature and gravity of the background history and the job offered. Any offer of employment will include further information.