Senior Employee Relations Partner in Durham

Reimagine the infrastructure of cancer care within a technology and science community that values integrity, inspires growth, and is uniquely positioned to create a more modern, connected oncology ecosystem. We’re looking for a Senior Employee Relations Partner to help us accomplish our mission and improve and extend lives by learning from the experience of every person with cancer.

Our People Team strives to foster a culture of purpose and performance where employees feel equipped, empowered, and engaged to make meaningful contributions with confidence, compassion, and clarity. We support employees, managers, and leaders by driving growth, scaling operations, and delivering a world-class employee experience — all while serving as a role model team within the organization.

As a Senior Employee Relations Partner, you will play a critical role in strengthening organizational health, mitigating risk, and reinforcing our values through fair, consistent, and empathetic practices. In this role, you'll own the end-to-end employee relations function — leading complex case management, investigations, and policy interpretation across our global workforce. This position reports to the Director, Head of HRBP & Employee Relations.

This role is ideal for someone who blends deep ER/employment law expertise with strong emotional intelligence, and who thrives on building scalable, consistent processes that reduce risk and support employees through difficult moments.

In addition, you’ll:

• Employee Relations Case Management: Lead the intake, investigation, documentation, and resolution of complex global ER matters — including conduct issues, policy violations, and workplace conflicts — ensuring fair, consistent, and legally compliant outcomes.
• Manager Coaching & Enablement: Coach managers and HRBPs through performance management, disciplinary actions, and difficult conversations. Provide tools, templates, and guidance to build manager capability and reduce risk.
• Escalation & Resolution: Serve as the key point of escalation for sensitive employee concerns, driving resolution with empathy, integrity, and sound judgment, and partnering closely with Legal as needed.
• Policy & Compliance Ownership: Develop, review, and update HR/ER policies and training programs to ensure compliance with local employment laws (US, UK, DE, Japan) and reinforce Flatiron's values and best practices.
• Process Design & Operational Excellence: Build and continuously improve scalable ER systems (case trackers, templates, workflows) to ensure clean documentation, audit readiness, and reduced administrative burden on HRBPs and managers.
• Insights & Pattern Recognition: Use ER case data to identify trends, surface systemic risks, and proactively recommend solutions. Partner with HRBPs to inform broader people strategies based on case patterns and employee sentiment.

Who You Are

You're a kind, passionate and collaborative problem-solver who values the opportunity to think beyond the way things are. You're someone who can independently manage sensitive, high-stakes situations with discretion, fairness, and calm under pressure. You care deeply about employee experience and want to build the systems and judgment-based practices that make ER support consistent and scalable. You’re an empathetic, collaborative problem-solver who values impact, welcomes feedback, and works with kindness and clarity.

In addition, you have:

• A BA/BS degree or higher (JD a plus, not required), with 8-10+ years of Employee Relations or employment law-focused HR experience, ideally in a global or fast-scaling organization.
• Deep expertise in employment law across markets where we operate (US, UK, DE, Japan), and experience managing complex, sensitive ER matters and investigations with legal/compliance awareness.
• A systems-thinking approach — experienced in designing and scaling repeatable ER processes that reduce risk and increase consistency.
• Exceptional judgment, discretion, and the ability to navigate ambiguity with clarity and empathy.
• Strong communication and coaching skills, with the ability to influence managers, HRBPs, and senior leaders on ER matters.
• A forward-thinking mindset, with experience (or interest in) integrating AI-driven tools into ER/HR operations and leveraging people data for insights.
• Ability to handle highly sensitive and confidential information with the utmost discretion and diplomacy.

Extra credit

• Benefits subject matter expertise
• Law degree

Where you’ll work

In this hybrid role, you’ll have a defined work location that includes work from home and 3 office days set by you and your team. For more information on our approach to hybrid work, please visit the how we work website.