Director, Global Employee Relations

Company Description

At Western Digital, our vision is to power global innovation and push the boundaries of technology to make what you thought was once impossible, possible.

At our core, Western Digital is a company of problem solvers. People achieve extraordinary things given the right technology. For decades, we’ve been doing just that—our technology helped people put a man on the moon and capture the first-ever picture of a black hole.

We offer an expansive portfolio of technologies, HDDs, and platforms for business, creative professionals, and consumers alike under our Western Digital, WD, , and San Disk Professional brands.

We are a key partner to some of the largest and highest-growth organizations in the world. From enabling systems to make cities safer and more connected, to powering the data centers behind many of the world’s biggest companies and hyperscale cloud providers, to meeting the massive and ever-growing data storage needs of the AI era, Western Digital is fueling a brighter, smarter future.

Come join the Human Resources team as Director, Global Employee Relations. In this role, you will lead a dedicated team of ER professionals focused on enabling leaders and teams to foster a high-trust, high-performance culture across the company. This role works in partnership with our business clients, Legal, HR Business Partners, HR Leader Support and COE teams to deliver strategic ER capability and is the anchor point for Employee Relations across the globe.

• Lead the global employee relations strategy to ensure alignment with corporate goals and objectives across the Americas, APAC and EMEA regions.
• Deliver an effective global ER coverage model to support cyclical volume of cases, investigations, and negotiations.
• Strengthen team capability, leveraging a consistent framework and driving for quality case reviews, closure and report out.
• Develop and execute on a knowledge management strategy for our global policies, including a governance process to ensure policies are current and maintained by the respective owners.
• Provide regular reports and updates to senior leadership, including key issues, challenges and action plan.
• Advise leadership on employee relations challenges, trends and matters affecting the workforce, ensuring compliance with local labor laws, company policies and industry standards.
• Partner with the HR Leader Support team in developing and implementing tools, resources and training related to performance management for managers overseeing employees in an office environment as well as those overseeing large, hourly manufacturing populations.
• Manage complex employee relations cases, including grievances, investigations, disciplinary actions and terminations.
• Analyze data sets to look for and anticipate trends within employee relations with the intent to proactively develop programs and practices that mitigate issues and create the best employee experience.
• Manage union related activities in multiple Asia sites and labor relations strategies, partnering closely with legal and the business proactively and during negotiations.
• Partner with the broader HR, Legal and Security teams in creating and implementing integrated solutions for employee-related issues.

• Bachelor’s degree in HR or a related field with 10+ years of progressive experience required, including leading Employee Relations or a related function across multiple regions; technology and manufacturing experience strongly preferred.
• Ability to think strategically and manage projects with a global scope and diverse cultural considerations.
• Strong knowledge of global labor laws, compliance issues, and employee relations best practices across multiple regions.
• Proven track record in managing complex employee relations issues and developing effective solutions.
• Experience working with unions, works councils, and employee representative bodies in a global context preferred.
• Systems thinking with the ability to define connections and interdependencies.
• Goal-oriented, proactive, resourceful, accountable and passionate about driving results.
• Exceptional communication, negotiation, and conflict…