HR Manager

Chabot Space & Science Center seeks an experienced, organized, and relationship-oriented HR Manager to support and strengthen the employee experience across recruiting, benefits, onboarding, employee relations, training, compliance, and culture. This role helps ensure that Chabot’s people practices are consistent, responsive, legally sound, and aligned with the organization’s mission, values, and evolving strategic priorities.

The HR Manager will serve as a trusted resource for staff and managers, balancing day-to-day support with the judgment to identify patterns, elevate risks, and recommend improvements. The position works closely with the CEO, Chief of Staff, Finance, hiring managers, outside vendors, and administrative partners to strengthen Chabot’s internal systems and employee lifecycle.

The role owns tactical HR work across hiring, onboarding, benefits administration, compliance, and employee relations, while partnering with leadership and outside advisors on specialized HR matters.

Reporting to the Chief of Staff, the HR Manager provides hands-on HR leadership and day-to-day people operations support across the organization.

• Manage full-cycle recruiting for open roles: post positions, screen candidates, coordinate interview panels, and check references.
• Partner with hiring managers on job descriptions and interview questions.
• Extend offers and coordinate start dates with the hiring manager and finance.

Benefits Strategy & Administration

• Own the annual benefits review: evaluate current plan performance, utilization, and cost trends against staff needs.
• Research alternatives when current offerings fall short (plan design, carriers, ancillary benefits) and bring recommendations with cost comparisons to Chief of Staff and Finance for approval.
• Lead open enrollment planning and staff communication each year, once decisions are finalized.
• Own the vendor/broker relationship and negotiate renewal terms.
• Selects and negotiates benefit plans, coordinate with support from finance on enrollment processing and billing.

Onboarding & Employee Lifecycle

• Own the non-administrative side of onboarding: new hire orientation, culture and mission introduction, 30/60/90 check-ins.
• Manage and maintain electronic office personnel records of employees and prepare paperwork with supporting documentation.
• Coordinate onboarding insurance/Tri Net.
• Conduct exit interviews and share themes with Chief of Staff.

Employee Relations

• Serve as the first point of contact for employee concerns and workplace issues.
• Coach managers through accountability and performance conversations.
• Oversee the Performance Review process.
• Support consistent application of policies across departments.

Training & Development

• Coordinate required trainings (harassment prevention, safety, etc.) and track completion.
• Identify recurring skills or knowledge gaps surfaced through employee relations work and propose training responses.
• Support managers in onboarding new supervisors into people-management basics.

Policy & Compliance Support

• Maintain and update the employee handbook.
• Track compliance deadlines (postings, required training, leave law changes).
• Flag legal or compliance risk to Chief of Staff early rather than resolving independently.
• Manage relationship with Tri Net, a professional employer organization, and/or a fractional HR consultant for specialized compliance support, including leave law, multi-state issues, handbook updates, and other technical HR matters.

Culture & Engagement

• Support staff recognition and engagement efforts.
• Flag recurring culture or management patterns from 1:1s and exit interviews to Chief of Staff, so they can feed into ongoing organizational diagnosis rather than being handled as one-off HR cases.