Principal Manager, People Operations Business Partner at Nava

<div class="content-intro"><h2><strong>About Nava</strong></h2> <div>Nava is a consultancy and public benefit corporation working to make government services simple and effective. Since 2015, federal, state, and local agencies have trusted Nava to help solve highly scrutinized technology modernization challenges.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>As a client services company, we guide agencies constrained by legacy systems to a future with sharp user experiences built on secure, reliable, fault-tolerant cloud infrastructure. We bill for our time, offering our expertise and problem-solving approach to help our government partners enhance their digital products and services. People are at the heart of our work, from members of the public who rely on benefit programs to government agency staff. Through human-centered design and modern engineering best practices, we help our government partners understand user needs and deliver on their missions more effectively. This focus gives everyone at Nava the opportunity to do work that is meaningful, impactful, and deeply connected to public good.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div></div><div class="section page-centered" data-qa="job-description"> <h2><strong>Position summary&nbsp;</strong></h2> </div> <div> <p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The Principal Manager, HR Business Partner is a strategic people leader responsible for the direction, effectiveness, and growth of Nava's HR Business Partner function, including the direct management and development of the People Operations Business Partner (POBP). This role sets the strategy for how Nava's people practices support the business, translating enterprise priorities into workforce frameworks, organizational design principles, and talent strategies that HR Business Partners apply across their assigned business areas.&nbsp;</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The Principal Manager builds a high-performing People Operations Business Partner team, coaching and developing POBP talent while serving as a trusted strategic advisor to senior executives on organizational structure, workforce planning, performance, and labor and employee relations. This role co-owns the enterprise frameworks: workforce planning, career pathing, and organizational design standards that POBP’s use to advise business leaders, and ensures those frameworks remain consistent, equitable, and aligned with Nava's mission.&nbsp;</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">As Nava evolves toward an AI-native operating model, the Principal Manager, People Operations Business Partners sets the strategic point of view on how artificial intelligence and automation will change roles, skills, team structures, and management practices, and equips the POBP team to guide leaders through that change responsibly, balancing efficiency gains with employee trust, equity, compliance, and sound human judgment. Working closely with People Operations leadership, Finance, Legal, Talent Acquisition, and business operations leaders, the Manager ensures that people strategy and POBP practice are financially responsible, legally compliant, operationally practical, and aligned with Nava's values.&nbsp;</span></p> </div> <h2><br>What you'll do</h2> <ul> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Directly manage, coach, and develop the People Operations Business Partner, setting clear goals and providing regular feedback and career development support&nbsp;</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Build and scale the People Operations Business Partner function across the employee lifecycle managing the workload distribution as the organization scales&nbsp;</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Establish performance expectations, competencies, and quality standards for POBP work and regularly assess the team&nbsp;</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Foster a culture of accountability, trust, and continuous improvement within the POBP team&nbsp;</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Serve as a trusted strategic advisor to senior executives on organizational design, workforce planning, performance management, and employee relations</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Translate enterprise business priorities into people strategy, ensuring HRBP practice aligns with company goals&nbsp;</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Set the strategic point of view on how AI and automation will affect roles, skills, team structures, and management practices, and equip HRBPs to guide leaders through responsible adoption&nbsp;</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Partner with Talent Acquisition, Total Rewards, and Learning &amp; Organization Enablement leadership to deliver a cohesive, enterprise-wide employee experience&nbsp;</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Represent the People Operations Business Partner function in enterprise-level people strategy and planning discussions</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Develop and maintain Nava's enterprise workforce-planning frameworks, and career-pathing structures that POBPs apply across business areas&nbsp;</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Partner with Finance, Operations, and Delivery business leaders to align workforce plans with delivery commitments, organizational capacity, and financial plans</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Guide organizational design decisions, including team restructures, leadership transitions, position eliminations, and other significant workforce actions</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Evaluate spans of control, reporting structures, and organizational capability across the business to identify opportunities for greater effectiveness</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Set standards for evaluating technology-enabled efficiency proposals, ensuring they are supported by realistic change-management plans and workforce data</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Coach the POBP team on how to develop leaders and managers on organizational leadership, team effectiveness, accountability, and performance&nbsp;</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Identify recurring, cross-organizational manager challenges and direct the development of scalable tools, guidance, and learning interventions&nbsp;</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Champion the build of inclusive, accountable, and psychologically safe teams across the business&nbsp;</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Guide the POBP team through complex or sensitive leadership situations, promoting sound judgment, consistency, and fairness</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Own the people and organizational strategy for significant business changes, setting direction for the HRBP team's execution</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Direct assessments of stakeholder impact, organizational readiness, and employee-relations risk for major change initiatives&nbsp;</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Set change-management standards and ensure the HRBP team delivers clear implementation plans, communications, and manager resources</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Monitor the impact of organizational changes at the enterprise level and adjust strategy based on workforce data and outcomes</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Serve as an escalation point for complex, high-risk, or sensitive labor and employee relations matters&nbsp;</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Partner with Legal and People Operations leadership on high-impact investigations and risk assessments&nbsp;</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Maintain enterprise-level knowledge of applicable federal, state, and local employment requirements and ensure HRBP practice reflects current law&nbsp;</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Set the strategy for employee- and labor-relations practices related to AI-enabled workplace changes, including monitoring, workload, and role requirements&nbsp;</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Support employee-relations practices within Nava's unionized environment and ensure compliance with collective bargaining obligations&nbsp;</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Identify systemic patterns in employee concerns and direct the development of organization-wide solutions</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Escalate significant organizational, legal, cultural, or employee-experience risks appropriately</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Sponsor and oversee complex, cross-functional people initiatives from problem definition through implementation and evaluation&nbsp;</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Coordinate with leaders across People Operations, Finance, Legal, IT, Talent Acquisition, and delivery teams</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Provide clear, executive-level updates on initiative progress, risk, and outcomes</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Ensure initiatives are meaningfully adopted and sustained across the organization</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Set the strategy for using workforce data to identify trends, organizational health indicators, and emerging risks</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Partner with People Workforce Insights, Staffing, and Finance to improve enterprise workforce reporting and decision-making&nbsp;</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Translate data into clear insights and recommendations for executive leadership</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Ensure appropriate data integrity, confidentiality, and documentation standards across the POBP function</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Drive cross-functional initiatives that improve the employee and manager experience</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Identify and resolve policies, processes, systems, or operating practices that create unnecessary complexity, inconsistency, risk, or administrative burden</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Direct improvements that increase clarity, scalability, compliance, and organizational effectiveness</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Ensure People Operations programs and processes are practical for managers and aligned with Nava’s broader people strategy</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Champion the adoption of self-service tools and standardized practices while preserving appropriate judgment for complex situations</span></li> </ul> <p>&nbsp;</p> <h2>Required skills</h2> <ul> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">10+ years of People Operations and/or Human Resources experience</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Demonstrated experience translating business strategy into organizational design, workforce planning, and talent strategy at the enterprise level&nbsp;</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Thorough knowledge of People Operations and Human Resources principles and applicable federal and state regulations (FMLA, ADA, FLSA, NLRA, etc.)</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Strong competency with HCM systems&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Demonstrated ability to influence senior executives and stakeholders without relying on formal authority.</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Experience coaching and developing talent&nbsp;</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Ability to develop and maintain collaborative working relationships with executives, managers, employees and union representatives&nbsp;</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Strong analytical skills and experience using workforce data to identify trends, evaluate risk, and support decisions&nbsp;</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Strong judgment and the ability to provide clear recommendations in complex, sensitive, or ambiguous situations</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Ability to develop and maintain collaborative working relationships with employees, managers, and union representatives</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Ability to work independently and with little supervision</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Extraordinary discretion, confidentiality, flexibility, and willingness to work closely with a cross-functional team</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Proficiency in GSuite, Slack, Zoom, Excel, Apple computers, and other tools used to support a remote-work environment</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Attention to detail and the ability to work independently and in a team environment</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Ability to work effectively in a distributed, remote-first environment</span></li> </ul> <div class="section page-centered"> <div> <h2>Desired skills</h2> <ul> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Experience supporting a government contractor, professional-services organization, consulting organization, technology company, or project-based workforce&nbsp;</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Experience working in a unionized environment or supporting labor-relations matters</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Experience with Workday HCM&nbsp;</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Experience supporting organizational redesign, workforce restructuring, mergers, acquisitions, or other significant organizational changes&nbsp;</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Experience with job architecture, compensation administration, talent reviews, succession planning, or workforce analytics&nbsp;</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Experience supporting leaders in a rapidly evolving and scaling organization&nbsp;</span></li> </ul> </div> </div><div class="content-pay-transparency"><div class="pay-input"><div class="title">Compensation</div><div class="pay-range"><span>$132,000</span><span class="divider">&mdash;</span><span>$148,500 USD</span></div></div></div><div class="content-conclusion"><h2><strong>Other requirements</strong></h2> <div><strong><em>All roles at Nava require the following:</em></strong></div> <div>Legal authorization to work in the United States</div> <div>Ability to meet any other requirements for government contracts for which candidates are hired</div> <div>Work authorization that doesn’t require visa sponsorship, now or in the future</div> <div>May be subject to a government background check or security clearance, depending on the contract</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <h2><strong>Perks working with Nava</strong></h2> <div><strong>Health coverage</strong>&nbsp;— comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans to support your overall health needs</div> <div><strong>Insurance coverage</strong>&nbsp;— Nava provides disability, life, and accidental death insurance at no cost</div> <div><strong>Time off&nbsp;</strong>— vacation, holidays (including Juneteenth), and floating holidays to rest and recharge</div> <div><strong>Company holidays</strong>&nbsp;— enjoy 12 paid federal holidays each year on top of your regular PTO</div> <div><strong>Annual bonus</strong>&nbsp;— when Nava meets its goals, eligible employees receive a performance-based annual bonus</div> <div><strong>Parental leave</strong>&nbsp;— paid time off for new parents, plus weekly meals delivered to your home</div> <div><strong>Wellness program</strong>&nbsp;— full platform offering physical, mental, &amp; emotional health resources &amp; support tools</div> <div><strong>Virtual care</strong> — see doctors online with no copay through a virtual visit program (depending on available providers)</div> <div><strong>Sabbatical leave</strong>&nbsp;— earn extended unpaid leave after continuous service for personal growth or rest</div> <div><strong>401(k) match</strong>&nbsp;— Nava matches 4% of your salary to support your retirement savings plan</div> <div><strong>Flexible work</strong>&nbsp;— remote-first environment with flexibility built around your schedule and responsibilities</div> <div><strong>Home office setup</strong>&nbsp;— company laptop &amp; setup assistance provided via Staples for remote work needs</div> <div><strong>Utility support&nbsp;</strong>— monthly reimbursement to help offset eligible home office utility expenses</div> <div><strong>Learning opportunities</strong>&nbsp;— internal training programs and resources to help grow your professional skills</div> <div><strong>Development opportunities</strong>&nbsp;— LinkedIn Learning access &amp; an annual allowance for courses, tuition, &amp; certs&nbsp;</div> <div><strong>Referral bonus</strong>&nbsp;— get rewarded when you refer great people who join the Nava team</div> <div><strong>Commuter benefits</strong>&nbsp;— pre-tax commuter programs to support in-office travel when applicable</div> <div><strong>Supportive culture</strong>&nbsp;— A collaborative and remote-friendly team environment where people genuinely care</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <h2><strong>Location</strong></h2> <div>We have fully remote options if you reside in one of the following states:&nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, DC, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>*If you are not living in one of the states listed above, unfortunately, you will not be considered for a position at this time.&nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <h2><strong>Stay in touch</strong></h2> <div>Sign up for our&nbsp;<a class="postings-link" href="https://navapbc.us10.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=c69eb1fd5475fa5122ef55965&amp;id=a994830182">newsletter</a>&nbsp;to find out about career opportunities, new partnerships, and news from the broader civic tech community.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Please contact the recruiting team at [email protected] if you would like to request any form of reasonable accommodation during the application or interviewing process. &nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div><em>We participate in E-Verify. Upon hire, we will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the U.S. This role requires you to work from the contiguous United States.&nbsp;</em></div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <h2><strong>Equal Employment Opportunity</strong></h2> <div>Nava is committed to providing equal employment opportunities without discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, gender and/or gender identity or expression, color, creed, religion, religious creed, age, national origin, ethnicity, disability, veteran or military status, sex, sexual orientation, reproductive health autonomy, pregnancy, childbirth, and medical conditions related to pregnancy or childbirth, genetic information, domestic violence victim status, marital status, citizenship status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Nava prohibits any such discrimination or harassment. This policy applies to all employees, applicants, contractors, and temporary workers of Nava.</div></div>