Employee Relations Specialist

Overview Our people are our biggest competitive advantage. By putting people first and treating them with care, we maximize General Mills’ ability to Make Food the World Loves. You’ll join a fun-loving, supportive team who collectively adds great value to General Mills. The ER team provides employees with a sense of dignity and fairness as we help resolve some of their most sensitive workplace issues. We also provide leaders at all levels with coaching and a consistent framework to help them support their employees’ performance. Our work mitigates risk to the organization, builds trust, restores performance, and delivers actionable insights along the way. As a member of the Employee Relations team, you will make significant and meaningful contributions to the businesses and teams you support. You will form lasting partnerships with a broad range of leaders at all levels of the organization who look to you for guidance and advice on sensitive matters concerning their teams. You will provide employees with a sense of dignity and fairness. And, you’ll join a fun-loving, supportive team who collectively adds great value to General Mills. Applicants should have demonstrated experience with the accountabilities, competencies/behaviors, and skills/experiences mentioned below. Accountabilities Coach managers on how to improve and foster their employees’ performance, as well as how to elevate their own leader skills as they coach their teams. Show managers how to deliver an effective and consistent employee experience on sensitive matters relating to misconduct, accommodation, and separations. Pair investigatory and regulatory expertise with empathy, objectivity, and consistency to look into and resolve sensitive concerns including harassment, discrimination, misconduct, and others. Support partners on a broad range of issues including reorganizations and restructures, while proactively creating, identifying, and sharing related tools and best practices that build partners’ organizational skills and capabilities. Understand trends relating to your work, develop actionable insights, identify training opportunities, and identify related policy and process improvements. Expertly manage and leverage stakeholders to ensure all solutions are aligned with company culture, corporate policies, and the law. Partner across the organization to make meaningful contributions to ER’s priorities focusing on data and analytics, training, and CoE expansion to name just a few. Competencies/Behaviors A solutions mindset. Our ER team identifies solutions that add value, often beyond what is expected. An objective and critical eye. We maintain an unbiased perspective, challenge assumptions and norms as appropriate, and examine a situation from all sides, helping to identify the best solution and outcome. Influence. We must successfully influence leaders to adopt our recommendations despite having no decision rights. Partnership. Each member helps advance ER’s brand and mission. We partner heavily with one another, as well as with many experts throughout the company. Curiosity. We intentionally make time to learn from our work, from each other, and from our internal partners and external peers. We understand these insights help our company meet its business goals. Leadership and growth. We integrate leadership behaviors into our work, and help our partners and leaders do the same. We work hard to help partners and one another grow. Cool demeanor. Others have remarked at how cool we are. We are counted on to maintain a calm confidence, especially when others are uncertain, stressed, or concerned. We must prioritize competing demands and maintain executional excellence. Minimum Qualifications Bachelors Degree 3+ years ER or related HR experience Subject matter expertise in performance management and performance management lifecycle Consultative, coaching, and action planning skills Experience investigating and addressing misconduct issues Ability to anticipate issues, problem solve, and implement solutions, including referring critical issues to the appropriate resource Strong written and verbal communication skills Ability to quickly and productively network and establish effective working relationships Familiarity with HR related regulations strongly preferred (e.g. ADA, FMLA, discrimination laws) Additional Skills/Experiences Experience leading change initiatives and process improvements a plus COMPANY OVERVIEW We exist to make food the world loves. But we do more than that. Our company is a place that prioritizes being a force for good, a place to expand learning, explore new perspectives and reimagine new possibilities, every day. We look for people who want to bring their best — bold thinkers with big hearts who challenge one other and grow together. Because becoming the undisputed leader in food means surrounding ourselves with people who are hungry for what’s next.