Vice President of Human Resources

Who We Are:

Are you ready to work at a dynamic institution that believes in higher education with lower obstacles? Benjamin Franklin Cummings Institute of Technology (now known as Franklin Cummings Tech) is a nationally accredited non-profit, technical college serving Massachusetts. The college was seeded in 1791 with funds from the estate of Benjamin Franklin given to the City of Boston to proliferate access to apprenticeship and entrepreneurship. Today, that legacy has evolved into an accredited college that delivers accessible tech and trade education to level the playing field for aspiring talent.

With a mission to deliver transformative technical and trade education that leads to economic advancement, Franklin Cummings Tech offers a unique mix of certificates and degrees that appeal to enterprising students from Eastern Massachusetts and respond to employer demand for a well-prepared workforce. Intentional partnerships with the industries we serve coupled with high graduation and job placement rates, recently attracted the largest philanthropic gift in the history of the college from the Cummings Foundation, helping to spur incredible growth in the past four years.

Franklin Cummings Tech educates more than 1,000 learners annually across three student types: 1) certificate and degree seekers, 2) continuing education enrollees, and 3) early college students. As evidence that our mission holds resonance student enrollment is up and Fall 2027 applications have soared 16% year over year.

We seek optimistic, data-informed, and dedicated colleagues who are eager to increase student success outcomes and boost total enrollment to 1,500 learners by 2030. Join us in this mission-driven work.

Position Summary:

The Vice President of Human Resources serves as the College’s senior human resources leader and a strategic advisor to the President and the executive leadership team. Reporting directly to the President & CEO and operating in close partnership with the Vice President of Finance and Administration, the Vice President ensures that talent priorities are directly connected to the College’s Building Momentum strategic plan. The Vice President designs and owns the systems, frameworks, and programs that make up the College’s talent architecture — workforce planning, talent acquisition, performance management, learning and leadership development, succession planning, total rewards, compliance, and culture — for a community of approximately 130 faculty and staff. Serving as both a strategic leader and a hands-on practitioner, the Vice President builds an engaged, high-performing workplace culture that advances the College’s student-centered mission and supports student recruitment, retention, graduation, and career placement outcomes.

Essential Functions and Responsibilities:

The following duties are representative of the work performed in this position. Other duties may be assigned based on organizational needs.

Talent Strategy and Workforce Planning

• Serve as a trusted strategic advisor to the President and senior leadership on organizational design, workforce planning, succession, and institutional change initiatives
• Partner with senior leadership and department heads to translate the Building Momentum strategic plan into a rigorous workforce plan, defining the capabilities, career pathways, and skill requirements needed by function and level, and identifying buy, build, or borrow strategies to close gaps
• Coach leaders on critical talent identification, providing clear visibility into bench strength, succession plans, and development priorities
• Lead full-cycle talent acquisition for faculty, staff, and administrators, including sourcing, search committee support, offer development, and onboarding

Culture and Employee Experience

• Lead the activation and embedding of the College’s mission and operating values into talent programs and processes, including hiring, onboarding, performance, recognition, and leadership behavior
• Design and lead the employee experience and engagement strategy, including administration of the employee engagement survey and resulting action plans
• Design recognition programs that celebrate high performance and alignment with the College’s values
• Lead cultural change initiatives that accelerate achievement of institutional strategic priorities

Performance Management and Onboarding

• Own the College’s performance management philosophy, framework, and cadence, including goal setting, annual reviews, and continuous feedback, and lead the annual performance review cycle to completion
• Equip executives and managers to execute the performance process with consistency and quality, using qualitative and quantitative measures to drive feedback, growth, and accountability
• Design the new employee onboarding and orientation experience, including cultural orientation and practical guidance for hiring managers, ensuring new employees are set up for success from day one

Learning and Leadership Development

• Own the College’s learning and development strategy end to end — assessing capability needs, setting priorities, and building programs that grow institutional capability in service of the Building Momentum strategic plan
• Design and maintain a core learning curriculum, including compliance, professional skills, and role-specific training, developed in partnership with functional leaders
• Build and steward the College’s leadership pipeline, identifying and developing high-potential talent and strengthening bench strength in coordination with workforce and succession planning
• Design and deliver manager and supervisor development that equips people leaders to hire, coach, give feedback, and manage performance effectively
• Establish measures of learning effectiveness and program impact, using participation, capability growth, and outcome data to evaluate and continuously improve the College’s development investments

HR Operations, Total Rewards, and Compliance

• Oversee employee relations, including workplace investigations, performance improvement, corrective action, and separations; coach supervisors and partner with outside counsel on complex matters
• Direct compensation administration, including market benchmarking, position classification, salary range development, internal equity analysis, and compliance with the Massachusetts Pay Transparency Act
• Administer employee benefits and leave programs, including open enrollment, vendor management, and FMLA, PFML, ADA, and workers’ compensation administration
• Develop, maintain, and communicate HR policies, procedures, and the employee handbook; ensure compliance with federal and Massachusetts employment laws and regulations
• Optimize the College’s HRIS (Paylocity) and use workforce data, metrics, and dashboards to support leadership planning, budgeting, and decision making
• Manage the HR budget and vendor relationships, and prepare workforce reporting for the executive team and Board of Trustees as requested