Human Resources Manager

HAVERHILL is a fine jewelry brand that celebrates life’s most meaningful moments through personalized, solid gold designs. Our brand is rooted in craftsmanship, sentiment, and timeless design, inspired by the enduring sensibilities of New England. Based in Rhode Island, our vertically integrated team brings together design, production, and digital expertise to deliver highly personal pieces at scale.

We operate in a fast-growing environment with high standards, where collaboration, accountability, and shared success matter. We look for people who take pride in their work, thrive in momentum and change, and understand that the strongest results come from teams aligned around a common goal.

About the role

Reporting directly to the CEO, the HR Manager owns HR for HAVERHILL: benefits, leave, employee relations, and discipline. The role also owns facilities and business compliance: keeping the building running, and staying ahead of licensing and compliance deadlines.

We're about forty-five people in one building in Warren: two units, roughly 75% manufacturing and 25% admin, marketing, and eCommerce. This is a hands-on role.

Core responsibilities

Benefits administration

• Own benefits administration end-to-end: eligibility, enrollment, life events, terminations, COBRA, carrier portals. Educate employees year-round, in their own language.
• Partner with Finance to reconcile carrier invoices monthly and resolve discrepancies directly.

Leave & accommodations

• Administer all leave (medical, parental, personal, unpaid) from request to return, compliant with RI, CT, and NY requirements.
• Handle accommodation requests and the interactive process, with documentation.

Employee relations and progressive discipline

• Own progressive discipline and manage employee concerns, coaching supervisors and keeping documentation that makes a separation defensible.
• Conduct stay and exit conversations and route findings to the right people.

Unemployment and claims

• Own unemployment claims and hearings: meet state deadlines, document the company's position, represent HAVERHILL.
• Coordinate workers' comp claims with Finance, who carries the policy: reporting, return-to-work, employee side.

Onboarding, offboarding, and the employee record

• Run onboarding (offers, I-9s, orientation, benefits) and offboarding (final pay, COBRA, access removal, equipment return) with Finance.
• Coordinate hiring: postings, sourcing, ATS, resume review, background checks, offers. Hiring managers own selection; this role runs the process.

Temporary and seasonal staffing

• Own the staffing agency relationship; seasonal recruitment runs through them, not in-house.
• Forecast seasonal needs with the VP of Production and give the agency enough lead time.
• Keep the co-employment line clear: temp workers are the agency's employees; performance issues route there.

Performance and skills development

• Bring structure to the practices already in place (skills matrices, annual reviews) into one predictable, well-documented cycle.
• Keep instruments usable on the floor (translated, short) and build supervisors' coaching skills.

Morale, engagement and company events

• Own the morale and engagement program: events, recognition, milestones, and the calendar behind them.
• Ask the team what they actually want, adjust year over year, and track spend against results.

Employment compliance

• Own employment compliance: RI hire notice, wage and hour, pay-transparency, bilingual postings, OSHA recordkeeping, I-9s, plus CT/NY remote-employer requirements.
• Assemble a functional handbook and compliance calendar, and keep both current.
• Maintain job descriptions and FLSA classifications company-wide.

HR systems, data and payroll support

• Administer the payroll/HRIS platform: employee records, org data, PTO, document storage, and reporting.

Facilities management

• Primary contact for the Warren facility: vendor coordination (HVAC, cleaning, security, repairs, groundskeeping) against an annual budget.
• Serve as OSHA program administrator, partnering with the Operations Specialist on training records, machine audits, and annual submissions.

Business compliance

• Track licensing, permits, and regulatory deadlines (e.g., precious metals disclosure, environmental and safety), coordinating with outside counsel.
• Flag real legal or financial exposure to the CEO early. This role coordinates the work; it doesn't make the underlying call.

Legal-matter coordination (non-HR)

• Occasional document collection, organization, and deadline tracking for non-HR legal matters (contracts, IP, vendor or customer disputes), supporting outside counsel.
• Explicitly non-HR: employment matters stay inside Employee Relations, to avoid one person coordinating both sides of a dispute.
• Light and as-needed, not a core weekly duty.

Qualifications

• Comfortable being the sole HR presence in the building, with real decision authority and no HR team around: knows when to make the call versus bring it to the CEO, and is used to actually making it.
• Ten or more years of progressive HR generalist or HR management experience, including direct ownership, not just administration, of at least one major program area: benefits, compensation, performance management, or policy.
• Has handled employee relations matters through to resolution, including investigations and involuntary separations, and can describe the documentation they produced.
• Current working knowledge of Rhode Island, Connecticut and New York employment law, including TDI, TCI, and paid sick and safe leave — or a demonstrated track record of getting current fast and staying there.
• Manufacturing, production or other hourly-workforce experience strongly preferred. The skills that matter here are delivering HR to people who do not sit at a desk, do not read email during the day and may not use a computer at all.
• Has managed a staffing or temp agency relationship and held a vendor to a service standard
• Has planned and run employee events and recognition for an hourly workforce. On-shift, on a budget, and actually attended.
• Comfortable owning vendor relationships and regulatory deadlines outside of HR proper: We're a small team, so cross-functional coordination is a strong preference: some demonstrated experience in facilities coordination, business licensing, light legal-document coordination. We don't need deep technical expertise in any of these functions, just the organizational skills to support the team's success.
• Fluent in written and spoken English and Spanish.
• SHRM-CP, SHRM-SCP, PHR or SPHR welcome but not required. Demonstrated experience substitutes.
• Degree welcome but not required.

Compensation & Benefits

This is a full-time, salaried, exempt position budgeted at $90,000–$115,000 annually, commensurate with experience. The position also qualifies for an annual performance-based bonus of up to 15% of base salary.

Full-time employees, defined as 30 or more hours per week, are eligible for:

• Medical coverage through UnitedHealthcare, with multiple plan options and preventive care covered at 100% in network
• Dental coverage through Delta Dental of Rhode Island
• Vision coverage through VSP
• 401(k) through Guideline, with employer matching
• Employer-paid term life, AD&D, and long-term disability insurance through Unum
• A confidential Employee Assistance Program through Unum, covering mental health, financial, and legal support
• 50% employee discount on HAVERHILL jewelry, with payroll deduction available
• Optional voluntary coverage through Colonial Life and Pet Discount Plus at group rates

Full plan documents and coverage details are available during the interview process.

Physical Requirements

• Regularly moves throughout the office and production floor over the course of the day
• Sits or stands for extended periods; occasional bending, reaching, and light lifting (up to approximately 25 lbs) for event setup, filing, and supplies
• Manual dexterity for computer use and paperwork; visual acuity for reviewing records and documents
• Communicates clearly in person, by phone, and in writing, in both English and Spanish
• May involve occasional exposure to typical manufacturing-floor conditions (noise, equipment, materials)
• Reasonable accommodations are available — see Equal Opportunity below

Equal Opportunity

A stone returns light because it's cut from many angles, not one. The same is true of a team.

HAVERHILL is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, pregnancy, national or ancestral origin, age, disability, genetic information, marital status, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law. This applies to every employment decision we make, including hiring, compensation, promotion, training, and termination.

• If you need a reasonable accommodation to participate in the application or interview process, contact careers@haverhill.com.