SUMMARY:

The Associate Vice President of Human Resources Operations (AVP, HR) is a senior executive role reporting directly to the President and Dean. This position provides strategic leadership, vision, and implementation for all Human Resources functions at South Texas College of Law Houston, advancing the institution's mission, vision, and strategic objectives. The AVP, HR is responsible for overseeing HR operations, developing long-term HR strategies, managing budgets, and contributing to high-level institutional decision-making. This role is critical in fostering a positive and productive work environment while ensuring the efficient use of resources.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES include the following:

1. Strategic Budget and Resource Management: Lead the development and management of the Human Resources department’s annual operating budget, ensuring alignment with the law school's financial objectives and strategic goals. Provide recommendations for cost-effective solutions while maintaining the quality and effectiveness of HR services.

2. Long-Term Financial Planning: Collaborate with the Chief Financial Officer and other senior leaders to contribute to long-term financial planning and forecasting, particularly around workforce planning, compensation strategies, and employee benefits programs. Ensure HR strategies are financially sustainable and aligned with the overall institutional budget.

3. Talent Acquisition and Workforce Planning: Develop and lead comprehensive workforce planning strategies, ensuring that the law school attracts, retains, and develops top talent in alignment with long-term organizational goals. Identify future workforce needs, manage succession planning initiatives, and develop strategies to address skills gaps.

4. Executive Leadership and Collaboration: Partner with the executive leadership team in organizational decision-making, offering insights into HR-related risks, opportunities, and resource allocation. Participate in the development of the law school's strategic plan, ensuring that HR programs support institutional priorities and organizational growth.

5. High-Level Policy Development: Spearhead the design, review, and implementation of HR policies at the executive level, ensuring alignment with the law school's mission, vision, and strategic initiatives. Establish governance frameworks and decision-making processes to ensure consistent application of policies across the institution.

6. Risk Management and Compliance: Work closely with legal counsel to assess and mitigate HR-related risks, ensuring the institution remains compliant with federal, state, and local employment laws. Lead efforts to minimize legal exposure through sound HR practices, workplace investigations, and proactive risk management strategies.

7. Leadership and Justice: Partner with The Agosto Center for Leadership and Justice department to champion DEI initiatives across the law school, developing and implementing strategies that promote diversity, inclusion, and equity in recruitment, retention, and workplace culture. Collaborate with senior leaders to set institutional DEI goals and ensure their integration into HR practices.

8. Organizational Development and Change Management: Lead major organizational change initiatives, including restructuring, realignment, and workforce transformations. Develop change management strategies to support the successful implementation of new programs, systems, or organizational shifts.

9. Compensation Strategy and Benefits Optimization: Oversee the development of competitive compensation structures and benefits programs that attract and retain talent while maintaining fiscal responsibility. Conduct regular reviews of compensation and benefits offerings to ensure market competitiveness and alignment with the institution's financial objectives.

10. Data-Driven Decision Making: Utilize advanced analytics to provide leadership with actionable insights into workforce trends, HR metrics, and organizational health. Leverage data to inform strategic decisions related to staffing, compensation, and overall human capital management.

11. Vendor and Contract Management: Manage relationships with key HR service providers, including benefits administrators, payroll processors, and HR software vendors. Lead negotiations for service contracts, ensuring cost efficiency and high levels of service delivery.

12. Executive-Level Communication and Reporting: Regularly present HR initiatives, budget reports, and performance metrics to the Board of Trustees, executive leadership, and other senior stakeholders. Communicate complex HR matters in a clear and compelling way to facilitate informed decision-making at the highest levels of the organization.

13. Comply with all aspects of the law school’s Customer Service Standards.

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SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES:

Directly supervises the HR team and may oversee additional administrative staff or third-party vendors as needed.

QUALIFICATIONS:

To perform this role successfully, an individual must demonstrate the ability to lead at the executive level with a focus on financial management, strategic planning, and organizational development. The requirements below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and ability needed to meet expectations.

1. Strong leadership, financial acumen, and organizational skills.
2. Extensive experience managing large, complex budgets, and ensuring alignment between financial and strategic goals.
3. Experience with executive-level decision-making and collaboration with senior leadership teams.
4. Proven ability to lead through change and drive organizational development initiatives.
5. Experience managing high-level vendor contracts and negotiating service agreements.
6. Proficiency with HRIS systems, data analysis, and reporting tools.

EDUCATION and/or EXPERIENCE:

1. Master’s degree in Human Resources Management, Business Administration (MBA), or a related field is required.
2. A minimum of ten (10) years of progressively responsible HR experience, with at least five (5) years in a leadership role.
3. Demonstrated experience managing large, complex budgets and contributing to high-level institutional decision-making.
4. Experience in higher education or non-profit human resources management preferred.

LANGUAGE SKILLS:

Must be able to read, analyze, and interpret general business periodicals, professional journals, technical procedures, or governmental regulations. Strong writing skills are required, to include writing reports, business correspondence, and procedure manuals. Must be able to effectively present information and respond to questions from groups of managers, clients, customers, and the general public.

REASONING ABILITY:

Ability to define routine problems, collect data, establish facts, and draw valid conclusions to solve routine problems and/or deal with a variety of variables in situations, especially when department head may be out of office or unavailable. Ability to interpret a variety of instructions furnished in written, oral, diagram, or schedule form.

CERTIFICATES, LICENSES, REGISTRATIONS:

Senior-level HR certification such as SPHR or SHRM-SCP is required.

PHYSICAL DEMANDS:

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to sit and talk or hear. The employee is regularly required to stand and walk. Occasional light to moderate lifting from floor level, at waist, and above shoulders are required. Infrequent bending and stooping are necessary. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision in order to accurately enter data and proofread; distance vision in order to recognize and assist visitors to the department.

WORK ENVIRONMENT:

Fast-paced, multi-tasking environment. Must be able to work the general business schedule of the law school (9:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.), with flexibility for extended hours as needed.

Required Skills

Required Experience

REQUIRED SKILLS:

Minimum Required Skills:

• Demonstrated strong leadership skills including the ability to interact effectively with all levels of personnel, operating, maintenance personnel, business units, manufacturing and other staff support groups
• Proven ability to lead through influence
• Subject Matter Expert reliability and maintenance
• Ability to bring value to the bottom line by bringing forward and implementing solutions
• Skilled in using technical tools to problem solve
• Proven ability to get results
• Ability to be self-directed and direct others
• Good communications skills, both written and oral
• Ability to network with Subject Matter Experts and Industry contacts to find solutions

 

Preferred Skills:

• Leadership Capacity to get results across an entire enterprise.