Talent Director

Why Work for Park Lawn Corporation?

Service

- At every level, our dedicated team members display a strong work ethic and commitment to our core values, respect for the family, the profession, and the individual.

- Work with leading experts in the funeral and cemetery profession.

Benefits

- Retirement Plan options available for Full-Time employees along with a Company Match.

- Variety of Vacation, Personal Days and Sick Days based on your role emphasizing the importance of physical and emotional replenishment for our team.

- Employee Discounts on services, merchandise, and property to help our team members in their time of need.

Culture

- We value honesty, courage, integrity, ethical behavior and the development of personal growth.

- We are rooted in the communities to provide a personal touch to every family we serve.

- We believe in the value of funeral and cemetery service, drawing on decades of experience to create the best experience for our families.

Position Status

- This is a newly created position to support the continued growth of the organization.

Summary/Objective

This role is responsible for shaping and progressively leading the organization's enterprise-wide talent strategy. The role will prioritize learning and development and talent acquisition, including strengthening the learning infrastructure, standardizing onboarding and required training, expanding leadership development, building a foundational recruiting capability, and building practical capabilities that improve employee performance, customer service excellence, and operational effectiveness.

As the company and Human Resources function grow and mature, the mandate has the potential to broaden into an integrated talent portfolio encompassing leadership development, succession planning, career development, and employee engagement. This leader will connect these disciplines into a coherent talent strategy that builds workforce capability, strengthens leadership pipelines, improves the employee experience, and supports sustainable growth and organizational continuity.

Essential Functions

- Develops and executes a multi-year talent strategy aligned with organizational goals, workforce priorities, operational excellence, culture, and growth initiatives.

- Establishes a phased roadmap for the function, with an initial emphasis on learning and development and talent acquisition, and an intentional evolution toward broader enterprise talent leadership as organizational needs, team capacity, and HR programs mature.

- Builds and maintains scalable talent infrastructure, governance, processes, tools, and service standards that support a multi-location funeral, cemetery, cremation, and corporate services organization.

- Partners with executive, operational, and HR leadership to identify workforce and organizational capability gaps and implement talent strategies that improve performance, engagement, retention, internal mobility, and succession readiness.

- Serves as a strategic advisor to senior leadership on talent, organizational effectiveness, workforce readiness, leadership capability, employee experience, and change management.

- Uses workforce insights, employee feedback, talent data, and business performance measures to establish priorities, evaluate effectiveness, demonstrate value, and drive continuous improvement.

Focus: Learning and Development, and Talent Acquisition

- Leads the enterprise learning and development strategy and establishes a culture of continuous learning, professional development, accountability, and knowledge sharing.

- Designs, implements, and continuously improves learning programs for funeral service professionals, cemetery personnel, sales teams, managers, leaders, and corporate staff.

- Creates and standardizes onboarding, orientation, role-based training, certification, and career development pathways that accelerate employee readiness and support long-term growth.

- Leads leadership development programs, including new manager training, coaching, performance management, communication, change leadership, and development for high-potential talent.

- Partners with Sales Leadership to strengthen consultative sales effectiveness, customer experience, ethical selling practices, product knowledge, and business performance.

- Ensures employees receive required operational, safety, compliance, and regulatory training and that training records and certifications are accurately maintained.

- Establishes consistent learning standards, operational best practices, facilitator resources, and training materials across all company locations.

- Oversees the administration and optimization of the Learning Management System (LMS), learning technologies, content providers, vendor relationships, and applicable budgets.

- Applies adult-learning principles, instructional design practices, learning analytics, and performance data to improve program relevance, adoption, knowledge transfer, and business impact.

- Talent Acquisition: Develops an enterprise talent acquisition strategy, operating model, employment brand, sourcing approach, selection standards, and candidate experience that enable the company to attract and hire talent for frontline, professional, leadership, and critical roles. Builds foundational recruiting capacity, including near-term use of temporary or agency support to address open requisitions while the permanent function is built out.

Evolving Talent Mandate

As the organization and function evolve, this role has the potential to expand into additional areas of the talent portfolio. Depending on business needs and organizational readiness, this may include:

- Workforce and Talent Planning — translating growth plans and workforce needs into talent priorities and proactive pipelines.

- Leadership Development — building leadership capability for current and emerging leaders.

- Succession Planning — strengthening bench strength and continuity for critical roles.

- Career Development and Internal Mobility — helping employees grow and move within the organization.

- Employee Engagement — establishing a consistent approach to listening and engagement.

- Talent Programs and Governance — integrating talent disciplines into a coherent employee and leader experience.

The specific scope, sequencing, and reporting structure for any expanded mandate will be determined based on business needs and organizational readiness, at the Company's discretion.

Growth, Integration and Change

- Leads talent and organizational development initiatives associated with mergers, acquisitions, and integration activities, including workforce transition, onboarding, change management, cultural alignment, leader assimilation, and standardization of operating practices.

- Develops repeatable talent playbooks and scalable programs that can be deployed consistently while remaining responsive to local operating needs.

- Builds strong partnerships across Operations, Sales, Finance, Marketing, Communications, Legal, Safety, and other functions to align talent solutions with business priorities.

- Presents talent strategies, workforce insights, progress updates, risks, recommendations, and results to executive leadership.

- Builds the future talent function by defining roles, capabilities, priorities, service delivery expectations, vendor support, technology needs, and budgets as the mandate expands.

- Performs other duties as assigned.

Competencies

- Enterprise Talent Strategy.

- Strategic Learning Leadership.

- Talent Acquisition.

- Leadership Development.

- Succession and Talent Planning.

- Employee Engagement and Listening.

- Organizational Development.

- Change Management.

- Coaching and Mentoring.

- Business Partnership and Consulting.

- Program and Project Management.

- Data Analytics and Measurement.

- Executive Presence and Influence.

- Communication and Facilitation.

- Operational and Customer Service Orientation.

- Team Leadership and Collaboration.

- Judgment, Prioritization, and Detail Orientation.

Required Education, Experience, Certifications and Licensure

- Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Organizational Development, Education, Business Administration, Adult Learning, or a related field.

- Minimum of 10 years of progressive experience across learning and development, organizational development, talent management, talent acquisition, employee engagement, or related Human Resources disciplines.

- Minimum of 5 years of leadership experience designing and leading enterprise talent or learning programs.

- Demonstrated success building scalable learning strategies, leadership development programs, and talent processes in a growth-oriented organization.

- Experience supporting multi-site or geographically dispersed organizations and partnering with operational leaders.

- Experience with talent systems and technologies, including an LMS, applicant tracking system, engagement platform, talent review tools, and workforce analytics.

- Experience using talent and workforce data to diagnose needs, establish priorities, measure effectiveness, and influence decisions.

- Strong instructional design, curriculum development, facilitation, and learning technology experience.

- Demonstrated ability to lead through influence, manage change, and evolve a function from a focused mandate to a broader, integrated talent portfolio.

- Valid state-issued driver's license in good standing and acceptable driving record.

Preferred Education, Experience, Certifications and Licensure

- Master's degree in Organizational Development, Education, Human Resources, Business Administration, Industrial/Organizational Psychology, or a related discipline.

- Professional certification such as CPTD, SHRM-SCP, SPHR, Certified Executive Coach, or an equivalent talent acquisition or change management credential.

- Experience leading or partnering across multiple talent disciplines, including talent acquisition, learning, leadership development, succession planning, career development, and employee engagement.

- Experience in funeral services, cemetery operations, healthcare, hospitality, retail, senior living, or another service-oriented industry.

- Experience supporting organizations undergoing rapid growth, transformation, and acquisition integration.

Additional Eligibility Qualifications

- Ability to read, write, and speak English fluently. Bilingual capability is an asset.

- Effective and professional communication skills, with strong verbal, written, facilitation, and presentation capabilities.

- Proficiency with learning management, training course, talent acquisition, engagement, and talent management technologies.

- Knowledge of Microsoft software products.

- Ability to manage multiple strategic and operational priorities, sequence work thoughtfully, and exercise sound judgment.

- Ability to build credibility with executives, operational leaders, managers, employees, and external partners.

- Ability to work with sensitivity and professionalism in environments involving grief, loss, and family care.

- Passion for service, community stewardship, and supporting employees who care for families during life's most difficult moments.

Supervisory Responsibility

This position will initially lead and may oversee employees, contractors, consultants, and vendor partners across learning and development and talent acquisition, including near-term temporary or agency recruiting support as needed. As the talent mandate and function grow, the position has the potential to build and lead a broader team across additional talent disciplines.

Physical Demands and Work Environment

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job.

- The duties associated with this position are generally performed in an indoor office setting.

- Proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite, including Outlook, Word, Excel, Access, and PowerPoint, is required.

- Equipment used to perform the essential functions of this position includes, but is not limited to, a computer, fax, copier, merchant terminal, multi-line phone system, and personal or Company-owned vehicle.

- Employees in this role are regularly required to climb, sit, stand, bend, kneel, and frequently lift up to 25 pounds.

- The employee may be required to drive a vehicle while on Company business, maintain a good driving record, and be insurable under Company vehicle insurance.

- This position may also require reaching, pushing, and pulling.

- This position may be exposed to chemicals and/or blood-borne pathogens. Exposure risk is considered: Low

Travel

- This position may require up to 50 percent out-of-area and overnight travel.

- Travel may include local business-day travel and travel to company locations, leadership meetings, integrations, and talent programs.

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. Duties, responsibilities and activities may change at any time with or without notice.