HR Business Partner

Role Responsibilities

• Serve as the primary HR advisor to director-level and above leaders across the UO brand — participating in leadership team conversations, bringing a talent lens to business decisions before they are made, and advising on people matters with confidence and appropriate urgency
• Connect UO leadership to URBN COE expertise across Compensation, Benefits, L&D, HR Ops, and ER — serving as an informed connector and quality monitor, ensuring COE programs land well for UO's specific population
• Lead annual talent calibration and talent mapping sessions with UO leadership, identifying high-potential talent, at-risk talent, succession depth, and critical role gaps
• Drive adoption and quality of URBN Connects (UO's performance management program with four annual touchpoints: goal-setting, mid-year, year-end, and development planning) — coaching managers on effective performance conversations and holding the program to a high standard of execution
• Coach managers and directors on leadership effectiveness, team performance, and individual development with specificity and care — not generic HR guidance, but insight grounded in knowledge of the person, the team, and the business context
• Partner with the TD and L&D COEs to connect high-potential UO employees to development programs; follow through on nominations, program participation, and post-program development actions
• Analyze workforce data for the UO population — turnover trends, engagement results, talent health indicators, performance distribution — and translate that data into clear, actionable recommendations for UO leadership
• Drive UO's participation in the Employee Engagement Survey and Employee Lifecycle Survey; facilitate leadership communication of results and accountability for follow-through on action plans
• Identify patterns in people data — recurring ER themes, turnover triggers, engagement gaps by team or function — and surface them to the HR Leadership with supporting analysis
• Champion the UO employee experience across the full lifecycle — from the moment a candidate engages with the brand through onboarding, development, recognition, and transition — ensuring the experience reflects UO's creative, individual, and community-oriented culture
• Partner with UO leadership on culture-building programming and engagement initiatives that reinforce UO's brand identity and values
• Coordinate with the onboarding logistics and program execution — ensuring that the operational experience (Day 1, I-9, orientation, New to URBN program completion) is seamlessly integrated with the strategic experience (manager introductions, 90-day check-ins, culture immersion)
• Advise managers on employee relations matters — performance management processes, disciplinary actions, and separations — ensuring consistency, fairness, and legal compliance across the UO population
• Partner with the HR Leadership and Legal on investigations, accommodation requests, and high-risk ER matters; escalate appropriately and follow through to resolution
• Maintain working knowledge of federal, state, and local employment law (ADA, FMLA, Title VII, ADEA, FLSA, EEO) as applied to the UO brand population
• Support UO leadership on organizational changes — restructures, role redesigns, team transitions — in partnership with the HR Leadership and URBN Shared Services; develop communications, manage stakeholder alignment, and support adoption
• Partner with the HR and Talent Leadership on larger brand transformation efforts; own discrete change management workstreams within broader initiatives
• Create and review job descriptions when UO is establishing new roles or updating existing ones; ensure alignment with compensation structures and organizational architecture
• Manage the operational logistics of recurring HR programs for the UO population — URBN Connects cycle reminders and completion tracking, engagement survey response rate monitoring, merit communication follow-through.

Role Qualifications

• Experience 6–9 years of progressive HR experience, with at least 3 years in an HR Business Partner role and demonstrated comfort carrying both strategic and operational HR responsibilities — this role requires fluency at both levels during a defined transition period
• Experience in retail, fashion, lifestyle brand, or consumer-facing creative industry strongly preferred — demonstrated understanding of how brand culture, seasonal rhythms, and consumer identity shape people strategy
• Track record of building credible, trusted relationships with senior leaders and influencing outcomes without direct authority
• Demonstrated experience using people data and HRIS analytics to support business conversations — comfortable building reports, spotting trends, and presenting workforce insights to non-HR audiences
• Experience independently managing ER case intake and documentation, onboarding program stewardship, and HR program coordination — not just supporting these areas, but owning them end-to-end alongside strategic partnership responsibilities
• Experience supporting talent calibration, succession planning, performance management delivery, and competency or career framework design in a complex, multi-stakeholder environment
• Knowledge & Skills: Solid working knowledge of talent management: performance management, talent calibration, development planning, succession, and competency framework design; Working knowledge of compensation principles sufficient to partner effectively with the URBN Compensation COE on merit, bonus, and equity decisions; Working knowledge of federal, state, and local employment law (ADA, FMLA, Title VII, ADEA, FLSA, EEO) — applied both to strategic ER advising and to operational compliance documentation; Proficiency with HRIS platforms (UKG or equivalent): comfortable with standard transaction processing (job changes, status updates, reporting) and analytics reporting (dashboards, workforce trends, program completion tracking); Strong written and verbal communication: able to communicate clearly to non-HR audiences, write legally defensible ER documentation, present workforce insights to brand leadership, and design employee-facing program materials; Change management skills: ability to develop communications, manage stakeholder alignment, and support employee adoption through structured transitions; Coaching skills: demonstrated ability to coach managers and directors on leadership effectiveness, team performance, and people decisions with specificity and appropriate challenge; Operational discipline: demonstrated ability to manage a high volume of concurrent HR tasks — onboarding, ER cases, program logistics, data reporting — without letting operational volume crowd out strategic partnership capacity