Jobs at Iowa Select Farms (Now Hiring) — 26 open

IOWA SELECT FARMS JOB DESCRIPTION 

TITLE: Employee Relations & Development Manager

REPORTS TO: Vice President of Human Resources

LAST REVISION DATE: 05/20/2026

 

PURPOSE OF POSITION: 

The Employee Relations & Development Manager builds the capability, confidence, and judgment of leaders across the organization to effectively lead people. Serving as a trusted coach, educator, and strategic partner, this role designs and delivers leadership development programs while equipping supervisors, managers, and leaders with the skills, tools, and support to confidently navigate people leadership challenges and foster a respectful, engaged, and high-performing workplace.

Unlike a traditional employee relations role focused primarily on resolving workplace issues, this position emphasizes developing leaders who can effectively prevent, address, and manage employee situations with increasing independence over time. Through coaching, training, consultation, and practical resources, the Manager strengthens leadership capability while providing guidance on complex or high-risk employee relations matters when needed. As a player-coach, the Manager also leads and develops the Employee Relations team while partnering with more than 200 leaders across 55 counties in Iowa.

Success in this role is measured not only by effective employee relations outcomes, but by the growth and confidence of leaders throughout the organization. By empowering leaders to make sound people decisions and resolve challenges independently, this role strengthens leadership effectiveness, enhances organizational culture, and builds a proactive, consistent approach to people leadership across the organization.

ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Build Leader Capability

• Serve as the organization's primary coach and advisor for people leadership practices.
• Develop the confidence and capability of more than 200 supervisors, managers, and leaders to effectively manage employee situations.
• Coach leaders through challenging conversations while teaching them how to independently navigate similar situations in the future.
• Help leaders strengthen judgment, decision-making, communication, and accountability in managing their teams.
• Foster a culture where leaders view people management as a core leadership responsibility rather than an HR function.

Leader Development & Training

• Providing effective coaching, feedback, and recognition
• Employee engagement and accountability
• Conducting difficult conversations
• Providing de-escalation and conflict resolution skills
• Performance management programs
• Documentation and HR forms
• Determining appropriate or progressive disciplinary responses and correction actions
• Conducting termination meetings professionally and respectfully
• Situational leadership
• Communication and relationship-building

Employee Relations

• Provide consultation and guidance on complex employee relations matters, including performance concerns, workplace conflict, policy interpretation, disciplinary actions, investigations, and employment decisions.
• Partner with leaders to resolve workplace issues while balancing employee experience, organizational consistency, and legal compliance.
• Personally manage complex, sensitive, or high-risk employee relations cases.
• Identify trends and recommend proactive strategies to reduce recurring employee relations issues.
• Ensure consistent application of policies, employment laws, and HR best practices.

HR Team Development

• Provide functional leadership to HR team members with dotted-line responsibility for employee relations.
• Mentor, coach, and develop HR staff to expand their employee relations knowledge and consultation skills.
• Help establish consistent practices, tools, and approaches across the HR team.
• Balance workload across the employee relations function, personally stepping in to manage cases or projects when needed.

Organizational Partnership

• Travel throughout Iowa to provide on-site coaching, training, and support.
• Collaborate with HR leadership to continuously improve employee relations practices, leadership effectiveness, and organizational culture.
• Recommend improvements to policies, procedures, training, and leadership resources based on organizational trends and needs.
• Administer annual company feedback survey and help assist leaders with the follow up and action planning from the results
• Provide HR metrics and reporting around engagement, retention, turnover trends and employee feedback on a routine basis to various audiences. 

 

LEADERSHIP COMPETENCIES

• Act with integrity, professionalism, and confidentiality; Trustworthy when handling sensitive information and communications 
• This position will work closely with employees, managers, supervisors, support departments, external individuals, etc. so strong written and verbal skills are vital for clear and timely communication. Strong interpersonal skills and professionalism with the ability to collaborate with all departments and audiences across the business
• Time Management and Organizational Skills: Our business culture is fast paced. Ability to prioritize daily tasks, manage multiple tasks, manage timelines, and meet deadlines. Ability to delegate when needed. Maintain structure and routines while remaining flexible.
• Highly organized and proactive; Manage the scheduled day/paperwork and people while taking the initiative are essential. Must be detail-oriented and have a high degree of accuracy, quality control and thoroughness.

• Strong personal initiative, accountability, problem-solving skills, creativity and ability to work independently and as a member of a team. Ability to work well in partnerships involving a wide variety of stakeholders and organizations.
• Adaptable and comfortable with evolving responsibilities 

COMPANY VALUES AND EXPECTATIONS:

• Adhere to Iowa Select Farms bio-security policy at all times which includes reporting any violations or concerns to management team
• Adhere to Iowa Select Farms animal wellbeing policy at all times and partner with the Health and Care team in a timely manner if an incident occurs 
• Compliance with Iowa Select Farms safety policies and procedures 
• To maintain biosecurity standards, employees working on a farm are prohibited from cohabitating with employees from other production departments or support teams that access farms other than those assigned to their department.

 

WORK ENVIRONMENT

• This position is usually performed indoors and will have occasional time performed outdoors due to project work working events or capturing photos.
• This job usually operates in an office that is climate controlled and includes hazards typical to that environment. 
• This role routinely uses standard office equipment such as computers, phones, photocopiers, filing cabinets and fax machines.
• This position also includes time on farm when necessary for interaction in person and will need to be comfortable working in and being exposed to all facility environments. 

 

PHYSICALITY REQUIREMENTS

• Required to stand; walk; sit; use hands to finger, handle, or feel objects, tools, or controls; reach with hands and arms; climb stairs; balance; stoop, kneel, crouch or crawl; talk or hear. 
• The employee must have the ability to sit for long periods of time and to maintain focus on projects such as computer screens or detailed paperwork.
• Ability to lift or move up to 10 pounds and occasionally lift or move up to 75 pounds. 
• The employee must be able to continuously repeat necessary movements such as bending, lifting and different hand movements as needed to complete tasks.
• Specific vision abilities required by the job include reading, close vision, distance vision, color vision, peripheral vision, depth perception and the ability to adjust focus. 

POSITION TYPE/EXPECTED HOURS OF WORK

• This is an on-site position requiring all daily job duties to be performed in person at designated Iowa Select Farms locations, including office, warehouse, and farm sites, based on business needs and company policy.
• This is a full-time position that will require at least 40 hours a week, typically Monday - Friday. Must be available for weekend and evening work, when necessary.

TRAVEL

 

SUPERVISOR RESPONSIBILITIES

EDUCATION, EXPERIENCE and OTHER QUALIFICATIONS 

Preferred

• Experience mentoring or leading HR professionals.
• Experience supporting geographically dispersed operations.
• Bilingual in English and Spanish.
• SHRM-CP, SHRM-SCP, PHR, or SPHR certification.

 

OTHER DUTIES

• Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Additional duties, responsibilities, and activities may be assigned or changed at any time with or without notice.