Director, Human Resources - Manufacturing

About the role

This is a highly visible, strategic leadership role as the senior HR partner embedded with plant and distribution leadership in Corona and San Bernardino. The Director, Human Resources - Manufacturing will bring genuine fluency in manufacturing operations, production cycles, and distribution workflows to translate operational realities into a people strategy that keeps staffing, skills, and workforce readiness ahead of the business. With direct leadership of the onsite HR team, you will serve as a hands-on, transformational HR business partner to site leadership and employees at FMIC’s manufacturing facility in Corona, CA and distribution center in San Bernardino, CA.

We are looking for an experienced manufacturing HR leader who believes great HR happens as much on the factory floor as it does in an office—someone who is visible, accessible, and knows the people and the operation. This role requires comfort with challenging the status quo, leading through change, and helping both people and operations perform at their best.

Responsibilities

• Maintain a highly visible presence on the factory and distribution center floors, building trusted relationships with employees across shifts, functions, and levels while developing a firsthand understanding of the people, processes, and issues affecting daily operations.
• Serve as a trusted, embedded strategic partner to site leadership, bringing HR into operational, production, workforce, and shift-planning decisions and translating business priorities into effective people strategies.
• Lead the people side of operational transformation, helping leaders and employees understand, adopt, and sustain new ways of working while identifying and removing organizational barriers to change.
• Own workforce planning and people readiness, forecasting headcount and skill requirements against production and distribution needs and ensuring strong pipelines for hourly, skilled, technical, and leadership talent.
• Build a culture of accountability, performance, and engagement by establishing clear expectations, addressing performance issues, recognizing strong performance, strengthening culture, and ensuring consistent standards across departments and shifts.
• Strengthen frontline leadership capability by coaching supervisors and managers to become stronger people leaders, with a focus on communication, decision-making, accountability, employee engagement, and performance management.
• Partner with Operations, Finance, Quality, and Continuous Improvement to improve workforce effectiveness using data to address labor productivity, staffing, overtime, absenteeism, turnover, training, and other workforce factors affecting operational performance.
• Build the talent and organizational capabilities required for the future, including retention strategies, succession planning, knowledge transfer, organizational design, workforce deployment, and development of critical manufacturing and distribution talent.
• Serve as a strong advocate for employees and the organization by proactively identifying employee concerns, morale and cultural issues, workforce risks, and opportunities to improve employee experience before they become larger problems.
• Provide strong HR governance and employee-relations leadership, overseeing investigations in partnership with Legal, organizational changes, leaves and accommodations, workers’ compensation, and compliance with applicable employment, labor, safety, and workplace requirements.

Requirements

• 10-15 years of progressive HR management experience, including 5+ years as an HR leader in a manufacturing setting.
• Deep, hands-on knowledge of manufacturing operations; experience supporting larger, complex sites strongly preferred.
• Bachelor's Degree in HR Management, Business Administration, Organizational/Industrial Psychology, or a related area of study.
• PHR, SPHR, GPHR, or similar certification strongly preferred.
• Bilingual fluency (English | Spanish) a plus.
• Demonstrated competence in high-volume employee relations and performance management in a fast-paced, production environment.
• Fully versed in CA state employment laws, in addition to working knowledge of all pertinent Federal labor and employee safety laws, particularly OSHA.
• Hands-on experience working within a global, enterprise-wide HRIS program.
• Familiar with behavioral and strategic interviewing methodologies.
• Executive presence and credibility to influence plant, distribution, and senior leadership; comfortable operating at pace in a fast-moving, hands-on environment.

Ideal Candidate Profile

• Has spent meaningful time on a manufacturing floor or in a distribution center, not only in a corporate HR office, and understands shift work, production pressure while driving a Quality and Safety-first mentality.
• Thinks like an operator as much as an HR leader, connecting people decisions directly to throughput, quality, safety, and cost.
• Strong presence and communication skills, with the ability to lead a room, facilitate effective meetings, coach leaders and employees, and motivate teams at all levels across both compliance-driven topics and broader development and engagement initiatives.
• Builds credibility quickly with plant and distribution leadership by showing up as a proactive business partner, not a policy enforcer.
• Is comfortable with transformational change and moves fast with mindfulness to maintain positive communication bridges that keep key stakeholders informed, without cutting corners on compliance or employee relations rigor.
• Brings a continuous improvement mindset to HR itself, consistently looking for ways to make people processes simpler, faster, and more consistent across sites.
• Pushes the envelope with proactive and proficient data analytics, converting cultural impact into meaningful and measurable metrics to validate initiatives.
• Has led through a period of growth, change, or complexity in a manufacturing setting and can speak to specific, measurable outcomes.

About Fender Musical Instruments

Fender Musical Instruments Corporation (FMIC) is one of the world’s leading musical instrument manufacturers, marketers, and distributors, with a portfolio of brands including Fender®, Squier®, Gretsch®, Jackson®, EVH®, and Charvel®. For more information, visit www.fender.com.

Benefits

• Medical and dental coverage
• 401(k) retirement plan
• Paid time off
• Equipment purchase program

Pay

The pay scale for this position is $168,000 to $225,000 per year. The range reflects the salary or hourly wage Fender reasonably expects to pay, adjusted for geographic differentials if applicable. Compensation decisions depend on factors such as skill set, experience, training, licensure, certifications, and business needs.