People Partner, Blue Bottle Coffee
$84-105k
More information about location
Coffee roaster and retailer
Be an early applicant
Coffee roaster and retailer
501-1000 employees
Be an early applicant
$84-105k
More information about location
501-1000 employees
Company mission
Blue Bottle Coffee's mission is to provide great coffee for everyone.
Role
Who you are
- Able to combine great people intuition, business judgment, and discretion in your decision-making
- A deeply empathetic listener who people naturally trust and seek out for help or another perspective
- Someone who inherently believes in the potential within people, but also recognizes problems and doesn’t shy away from difficult conversations to help them grow and succeed
- Collaborative and able to build trust-based relationships with executives, leaders, and employees
- A clear and effective communicator in both conversation and written word
- Adept at recommendations to effectively resolve problems or issues, using judgment that is consistent with Blue Bottle culture as well as standards, practices, and/or employment law
- Highly organized and detail-oriented, able to prioritize while not letting anything drop
- Comfortable with ambiguity, rapidly changing environments, and building from scratch
- Confident working with Google Suite and meeting both virtually and in-person
- A resident within a commutable distance to one of the three areas it supports: Boston, Chicago, or Washington, DC
- Must have at least 6 years experience as an HR generalist/Business Partner (ideally in consumer retail, food/beverage, hospitality, and/or production facilities) and/or regional multi-unit business leadership experience
- Strong grasp of US and state-specific risk, safety, labor/employment law and practices both in and out of union environments, especially as they relate to non-exempt workforce
- Broad familiarity with general HR disciplines and best practices (i.e., the full employee life-cycle, training, compensation/benefits, organizational development) and ability to apply practices with judgment to state-specific situations
- Specific experience with employee relations and navigating difficult situations and conversations
- Superb judgment and integrity, including excellent decision-making skills and a bias to action
- Experience working in unionized environments is strongly preferred
- Last but not least, a deep love for great coffee, food, and exceptional customer experience
- The following is a list of the physical activity requirements and environmental factors related to this role
- Expressing or exchanging ideas by means of the spoken word
- Perceiving the nature of sounds at normal speaking levels with or without correction, and having the ability to receive detailed information through oral communication
- Making substantial movements (motions) of the wrists, hands, and/or fingers
- Close visual acuity to perform an activity such as: preparing and analyzing data and figures; transcribing; viewing a computer terminal and written documentation
- Exerting up to 10 pounds of force occasionally and/or a negligible amount of force frequently or constantly to lift, carry, push, pull, or otherwise move objects, including the human body. This role requires a mix of sedentary work and active on-site engagement in cafe environments. Occasionally, walking, climbing stairs, and standing occur in this role
- Environment: This role is protected within a building, but may be exposed to mild changes in temperature with heating or air conditioning
- Additional walking, stooping, sitting, and mobility may be required. Exposure to outside environmental elements may be experienced due to travel through airports, airplanes, and in between facilities
What the job involves
- Our People Partners provides strategic and tactical People consultation to optimize talent, performance, development, and culture with the goal of achieving exceptional business results across Blue Bottle Coffee
- We are building the next great company that everyone wants to work for, and this role is critical to pursuing that mission as we grow
- This position will support a growing number of cafes and require regular cafe visits to three distinct Metro markets and the surrounding areas within the Boston, Chicago, and DC areas
- Provide strategic business partnership to leaders within your business and/or market with a clear focus on performance management, change management, leadership development, and conflict resolution
- Perform routine cafe visits to work directly with the cafe team members in order to assess People-related focus areas and drive employee engagement through People initiatives
- Use your insights and learnings from cafe experiences, observations, feedback, and learnings to provide crucial feedback to the business to shape the direction of People and Operations work
- Partner, investigate, and help resolve employee relations matters and investigations, including workplace conflicts or allegations of policy and/or legal violations; work to ensure issues are properly identified, reported, investigated, and resolved
- Contribute to the development of People programs and processes such as succession planning, learning and development, recognition programs, and DEI&B
- Build collaborative working relationships with the broader People function to roll out company-wide programs. Evaluate and recommend best practices in the application of HR processes, systems, and policies
- Participate and lead cross-functional teams to complete assigned People projects on time, to specifications, and with accuracy and efficiency
- Evaluate and recommend best practices in the application of HR processes, systems, and policies
- Facilitate learning and development programs for Blue Bottle Coffee
- Maintain an awareness of People principles, practices, and the related regulations in the US with specific emphasis on the geographies assigned to the position
- Help maintain a consistent team member experience across union and non-union cafes while honoring all legal and contractual obligations
Our take
Founded in 2002, Blue Bottle Coffee is a coffee roaster and retailer that has become a major player in the third wave coffee movement, in part, thanks to a sales boost from Nestlé’s acquisition of a majority stake in the company. Blue Bottle has over 100 stores in operation across the US, Japan, and Korea, and is expanding into new territories, product collaborations and merchandising.
Blue Bottle Coffee’s subscriptions has multiplied in recent years, following the shift in consumer behaviour. This demonstrates the company's command over a sufficient customer base to have capitalized on the consumer trend towards subscription services offering higher grade products over the year.
The company strategically used the small business closures over the pandemic to its advantage. Blue Bottle, given their backing by Nestlé, was able to stay afloat during those periods, and seize greater market share which has been key to its dominance today. Despite things having gone back to normal, Blue Bottle is working hard to retain its market share and even seizing more by expanding into newer territories. 2023 has seen new partnerships with the likes of leading coffee company Nespresso and even multi-award-winning musician Abel "The Weeknd" Tesfaye, indicating Bulebottle's growing publicity.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
7% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 4 rounds)
Jun 2015
$70m
SERIES C
Jan 2014
$25.7m
SERIES B
Total funding: $135.7m
Company benefits
- Dental and Vision cover
- 401(k) plan
- Paid time off
- Discount and complimentary products
- Work from home opportunities
- Health insurance
Company HQ
Old Oakland, Oakland, CA
Leadership
James Freeman
(Founder)Former Music Analyst at Mongo music and freelance musician.
Salary benchmarks
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