HR and Operations Manager

About Emma’s Torch

Emma’s Torch is a nonprofit social enterprise with a mission to empower refugees, asylees, and survivors of human trafficking through culinary education. Through our paid culinary training programs, cafés, and catering businesses, we help our students build skills, confidence, and meaningful careers in the food industry. We believe in creating a workplace grounded in inclusion, empowerment, integrity, and gratitude.

Position Overview

Emma’s Torch is seeking an HR and Operations Manager with a passion for employee relations, and operational excellence. The HR and Operations Manager will spend approximately 60% of their time on HR and lead HR initiatives across the company. The other 40% of the time will support broader organizational operations in Finance, Grants, and IT. The Manager implements and improves Emma’s Torch systems to support the team in delivering impactful programs to change lives.

Key Responsibilities

1. Human Resources

• Coordinates with hiring managers for employee recruitment and on-boarding.
• Facilitates the separation process for any departing employees.
• Handles initial employee relations issues and advises executive leadership on resolution.
• Manages employee benefit enrollments, changes, and terminations through benefits administrator portals.
• Collaborates with the executive leadership team to ensure that an effective strategy is developed and executed around employee compensation and benefits.
• Updates the company handbook and ensures all new state and federal requirements are communicated to staff including required staff notices.
• Maintains compliance with federal, state, and local employment laws and regulations, and recommends best practices; reviews policies and practices to maintain compliance.
• Ensures Emma’s Torch has an effective workplace safety strategy.
• Develops and produces HR related reporting as needed.
• Identify HR gaps or recurring issues and proactively develop solutions.

1. Finance

• Assists in coding and submitting vendor invoices through the accounting system.
• Reconciles vendor statements and resolves invoice or payment discrepancies.
• Coordinate closely with the Finance Team to support a timely financial close each month.

1. Grants

• Prepares and organizes outcome and financial data needed for grant reporting.
• Prepares data to support grants applications and reports.

1. IT

• Set up IT system accounts and laptops for staff during onboarding.
• Update and troubleshoot IT system accounts as needed for staff during their employment.
• Terminate IT system accounts in a timely manner at the end of employment to ensure data security.

1. Other

• Manage multiple requests and priorities while maintaining attention to detail and follow-through.
• Handle sensitive financial, employee, and organizational information with discretion and care.
• Contribute to a collaborative, inclusive workplace and support the broader mission and values of Emma’s Torch.

This job description is intended to convey essential information about the scope and requirements of the position. It is not an exhaustive list of responsibilities and may be updated to reflect organizational needs.

Qualifications

• Knowledge and work experience of human resources best-practices.
• SHRM-CP or PHR preferred.
• Experience in the restaurant or hospitality industry is a bonus.
• Stays up-to-date and in-the-know of emerging trends in HR, and state and federal compliance
• Strong organizational skills and exceptional attention to detail.
• Experience with Finance, Grants and IT is not required, but a willingness to learn and grow is key.
• Ability to learn new software and IT systems quickly.
• Strong follow-through and ability to keep multiple tasks and requests moving simultaneously.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Strong judgment and resourcefulness, with a willingness to jump in and solve problems.
• Ability to work collaboratively with people across different functions and levels of the organization.
• Comfortable working in a fast-paced, mission-driven environment where priorities can shift.

What We’re Looking For

The right person for this role is someone who believes in the Emma’s Torch mission, and wants to bring their HR expertise to the organization to support the team and mission. The person should be comfortable leading day-to-day HR for the organization, and proactively notice where improvements can be made. When there is a problem or a challenge this person raises their hand to help find a solution. While focused on HR, the position will involve a variety of tasks, and the ideal candidate is comfortable with this variety and takes pride in making the organization run more smoothly behind the scenes.

• Health, vision, dental
• 401k with employer match
• Generous PTO
• Professional development funds
• Daily meals and discounts in our cafes when on site
• Employee Assistance Program