Watson Goepel is seeking a dynamic Human Resources Manager.  The HR manger will be  responsible for developing, maintaining and implementing policies and procedures, ensuring compliance with employment legislations, and serving as a consultant and change agent.  Day-to-day activities include payroll and benefit plans administration, vacation and personal leave scheduling and tracking, support staff and lawyer education tracking and registrations, direct supervision of float LAA, securing temporary staff when required, support staff recruitment,  support staff performance and salary review administration and participating in decisions around terminations and conducting termination meetings, including diligent documenting of files.  As well the HR Manager looks after articling student administration, ensuring lawyers’ professional membership renewals are up-to-date and assisting staff when conflicts arise.

Duties & Responsibilities

Recruitment & Staffing

• Deliver full recruitment services for support staff including front end needs analysis, job postings, sourcing candidates, interviewing and selection, and making employee offers.
• Provide current and prospective employees with information about policies, job duties, working conditions, wages, promotional opportunities and employee benefits.
• Determine staffing needs and arrange for assistance internally or externally.
• Assist with or make difficult staffing decisions, including dealing with understaffing, overstaffing, conflict resolution, conducting and documenting disciplinary meetings and making decisions regarding termination of employees, and conducting termination meetings.
• Plan and conduct new employee (both support staff and lawyer) orientations.

 Employee Development, Performance and Compensation Management

• Participate in various surveys to benchmark with other firms.
• Administer support staff performance and salary management system and conduct performance and salary review meetings.
• Coach supervisory staff and lawyers regarding how to give appropriate and relevant performance feedback.
• Coach supervisory staff regarding how to conduct salary review meetings.
• Ensure employee development by administering education requests and monitoring education expenses.
• Assist with the identification of training needs, the selection, development and delivery of appropriate programs.

Employee Relations

• Provide coaching and resources to employees and managers with respect to career development, compensation, staffing initiatives, performance management and employee relations.
• Conduct exit interviews to identify reasons for employee termination.
• Provide terminated employees with outplacement or relocation assistance.
• Build strong relationships with local organizations, recruitment agencies, educational institutions, learning and development suppliers to enable Watson Goepel to achieve our business objectives.
• Plan staff appreciation annual event, sits on the Social Committee.

Budget, Payroll, Benefit Administration and Vacation/Personal Leave Tracking

• Prepare annual HR budget (lawyers and support staff) using Excel.
• Educate employees regarding the firm’s group benefit plans and maintain a sustainable relationship with insurance providers, including working with COO at renewal time.
• Administer benefits (including processing additions, terminations, changes and subsequent payroll deduction up-dates).
• Process semi-monthly payroll and monthly Associate Counsel payroll.
• Adhere to year-end payroll procedures.
• Vacation and personal leave tracking including ensuring Reception is kept abreast of daily absences.
• Production and distribution of bi-annual vacation leave reports.

Technical Duties

• Work with Excel spreadsheets for budgeting purposes.
• Be conversant in all softwares related to payroll and benefits (including HRA (HRIS system), ADP (payroll), GroupNet (GWL benefits) and WEBS (long-term disability) and create reports as required.

 Requirements

• Bachelor degree in Human Resource Management or related field experience required.
• Minimum 5 years experience in a Human Resource position required.
• Strong technical skills – Ability to adapt to and learn new softwares.
• Knowledge of applicable employment, wage and salary laws and regulations and ability to interpret and comply with those.
• Effective communication skills with individuals at all levels of the organization along with good empathic skills.
• A well-defined sense of diplomacy, including solid negotiation, conflict resolution, and people management skills.
• Politically and culturally sensitive with strong ethics, along with a commitment to staff confidentiality.
• Sound leadership, staff management, and teambuilding skills.
• Able to provide leadership and support for supervisors to enable them to properly manage their employees in order to drive results and achieve top performance.
• Sound documentation skills.
• Computer literacy, including effective working skills of MS Word, Excel, ADP software, GroupNet and WEBS (benefit softwares) and e-mail required.
• Strong problem identification and problem resolution skills.

Ability to think analytically and make logical choices, while keeping an objective viewpoint.

Please forward your resume to jkroser@watsongoepel.com