Senior Organization Effectiveness Specialist/ Business Partner

This posting will remain open until a sufficient quantity of qualified applicants have been received and may close at any time after December 30th, 2025

. Applicants are encouraged to apply early to ensure they are considered.

A Senior Organizational Effectiveness Specialist is a strategic business partner to his/her leadership team(s) - providing expert advice on organizational culture, employee communication, organizational effectiveness, change management, leadership development, employee engagement, and human capital strategies such as strategic

workforce planning, succession planning and performance management.

The focus of the role is always strategic, as the position is influential in shaping people strategies. At the same time, the role often requires hands-on tactical support for implementation and is expected to partner with People Services & Strategies (PS&S) oftentimes serving as a liaison between PS&S and the business.

This position will be required to work onsite two or three days a week on a regular basis.

Purpose

The Organization Effectiveness Specialist will be a member of the Workforce, Diversity, and Enterprise Partnership team, and may directly support an Executive and their management team. Provides expert consulting and support to people and organizational effectiveness strategies, including organizational culture and engagement, employee communication, organization design, change management, process improvement, executive and supervision development, and human capital strategies such as strategic workforce planning, succession planning, and performance management.

Nature and Scope

This is the senior/subject matter expert level within the series. Incumbents in this role may direct, guide and coordinate the work of other Organizational Effectiveness (OE) staff. In conjunction with department management may assist in the development, implementation and managing of department goals, objectives, policies, and priorities. May assist or oversee in selecting, training, motivating, evaluating, and developing other department personnel and ensure that department strategic objectives and priorities are achieved and coordinated with other departments.

Duties and Responsibilities

- Serves as a technical and subject matter expert responsible for planning, developing, and implementing short- and long-term strategies to drive business performance and ensure SMUD is a great place to work for all employees.

- Change management:

Partners to support current and future organizational needs. Creates clear and strategic process to prepare for, manage and reinforce change. Provides tactical support to ensure employee stakeholder input and effective change communications. Teaches methods to manage resistance to change and articulates the benefits of organization change. Champions agile, collaborative, and consultative approach throughout change efforts. Facilitates internal collaboration across all subject matter processes.

- Employee engagement and culture:

Acts as a strategic partner and trusted coach to help leaders create a healthy, engaging, and inclusive culture. Assists leaders in embedding desired practices that support strong communication, collaboration, accountability, and trust. Consults with supervision and teams on engagement measurement and strategies.

- Leadership and team development:

Provides team effectiveness facilitation and consulting support to leadership. Coaches leaders in development of their problem-solving, team building, conflict resolution, and related management skills. Provides input to and alignment with enterprise management development strategies. Facilitates succession planning talent reviews. Provides advice and coaching to supervision on performance management and involvement of Employee Relations.

- Strategic workforce development:

Conducts strategic workforce planning and performs gap analysis to assess talent alignment with current and future business needs. Identifies appropriate organization development opportunities. Processes change initiatives. Develops tactics and teams needed to bring projects to fruition while ensuring best practice is shared and alignment is driven where appropriate.

- Organization design and development:

Provides consulting support to reshape organizational structure and roles to achieve optimal performance. Assists the business through intervention design and implementation, including training.

- Process improvement:

Identifies, develops, and executes process improvement opportunities utilizing continuous improvement fundamentals. Facilitates cross functional process improvement project teams ensuring deadlines and goal are met and return on investment is realized.

- Champions People Services & Strategies' and SMUD-wide initiatives:

Ensures a strong partnership and mutually beneficial acceptance of and accountability for both workforce and business unit needs.

- Monitors, guides, reviews, and conducts work activities associated with department internal/external projects in accordance with established task objectives and schedule as outlined in the project plan/contract.

- Plans, organizes and coordinates assigned projects. Establishes and maintains a collaborative, cooperative approach between other work groups and the project.

- Develops and implements employee communication strategies to support ongoing initiatives, programs and processes.

- Partners with Enterprise Performance office to support goal setting. Facilitates planning and discussion with senior management as necessary.

- Monitors, evaluates and reports on outcomes of culture, engagement and workforce-related initiatives and suggests improvements to advance them further.

- Performs other related duties as needed to include working outside of typical business hours when necessary.

Required Education

- BA/BS degree in Business Administration, Human Resources Management, Organization Effectiveness, or other related discipline from an accredited college or university or equivalent experience. If no degree, nine (9+) years of relevant experience is required.

Required Experience Qualifications

- At least five (5+) years of progressively responsible experience influencing senior leaders in the areas of organization development, workforce, and operational planning and/or process design and implementation and/or continuous improvement. Working knowledge of guiding an organization through large scale change.

Knowledge Of

Fundamentals and practices of Organization Effectiveness and Development, including one-on-one and organizational change management; fundamentals and practices of relationship-building, influence and communication; typical business operations, including the application and administration of policies, rules, regulations, and operating procedures, as well as business planning; application of process improvement, process modeling, project management, and strategic planning best practices; fundamentals of Human Resources practices; fundamentals of contract administration; fundamentals and practices of safety management; pertinent local, State and Federal laws, ordinances and rules.

Skills To

Provide direction and build mutually beneficial relationships at all levels of an organization; think strategically to develop short/long term integrated strategies; assess and interpret policies and procedures; plan, assess and evaluate strategies for their impact on people and operations; make formal and informal presentations clearly and concisely in one-on-one or group settings; reconcile significant and/or controversial differences to bring interested parties to consensus; effectively communicate verbally and in writing; evaluate complex issues and develop/implement resolution alternatives; solve problems at the root cause creatively and quickly; work collaboratively and effectively with senior-level staff; exercise good judgment; work well under pressure of deadlines; influence decision makers to support the achievements of the enterprise.

Desirable Qualifications

- PHR and general HR experience and/or education

- Experience partnering directly with senior-level leaders

- Ability to build strong relationships with client groups and peers

- Experience designing and implementing programs and strategies to support employee engagement and/or organizational culture

- Experience providing both formal and informal leadership on boarding, development and coaching.

- Change management training or certification such as PROSCI

- Coaching Certification (ICF ACC)

- Experience supporting people strategies across both represented and non-represented employee groups.

- Master’s degree in related discipline

Physical Requirements

Applicants must be able to perform the essential job functions with or without a reasonable accommodation.

Hybrid Work

This position will be required to work onsite two or three days a week on a regular basis; sometimes more or less, depending on the work and, at times, early mornings or evenings for onsite meetings. This position may be eligible for SMUD's hybrid work benefit.

CalPERS

SMUD is a CalPERS agency

. As a member of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS), SMUD offers eligible employees access to a defined benefit pension plan along with other valuable retirement and health benefits. This program helps provide financial security both during your career and after retirement. To learn more about CalPERS and the benefits it offers, please visit www.calpers.ca.gov.