Employee Relations Operations Manager

Posting Description

Are you looking to make an impact within an HR organization? As the Employee Relations Operations Manager, you'll navigate complex employee challenges, mitigate risk, and help shape a culture where colleagues can thrive.

This role is hybrid out of our Chicago, IL office.

Aon is in the business of better decisions

At Aon, we shape decisions for the better to protect and enrich the lives of people around the world.

As an organization, we are united through trust as one inclusive team, and we are passionate about helping our colleagues and clients succeed.

What the day will look like

The Employee Relations Operations Manager leads the service delivery team and is part of Aon Business Services. The role is accountable for operational excellence, team capability, service quality, controls and effective case progression across approved markets and service tiers.

• Lead, mentor and develop a team of Senior Specialists in the Global Capability Centers (GCC).
• Allocate work based on volume, urgency, complexity, language, geography and capacity; manage workflows and demand fluctuations.
• Conduct coaching, case reviews, quality calibration and capability-building activities.
• Manage performance against agreed service levels, quality standards, productivity measures, workflow objectives and colleague outcomes.
• Oversee informal and formal coaching support, including process navigation, template use, draft-quality review, milestone tracking and documentation; ensure Performance improvement plans (PIPs), mutual agreements, termination decisions, disputes and exceptions are routed to People Matters COE (Employee Relations).
• Supervise approved absence and wellbeing admin, workplace-adjustment and return-to-work support, provider coordination and country-specific routing.
• Prevent informal scope expansion into conduct, investigations, locally retained or expert-level work.
• Ensure allegations, discrimination or harassment, misconduct, retaliation, workplace violence, litigation, potential illegal activity, organizational change, high-risk performance matters and other retained work are raised promptly.
• Maintain quality controls, privacy safeguards, case documentation standards and country-specific procedures for critical colleague and health data.
• Raise material operational, capacity, privacy, control or compliance concerns through established governance channels.
• Participate in service reviews, governance forums, scope discussions, capacity planning, solution-identification workshops and operational planning.
• Monitor case volumes, aging, backlog, service levels, quality outcomes, issue patterns and capacity.
• Provide reliable performance reporting and use trends to identify training needs, process gaps and standardization opportunities.
• Lead corrective actions and service improvements within GCC authority and coordinate changes affecting retained regional responsibilities.
• Maintain an accurate service catalogue and communicate how colleagues access GCC support and when cases transfer to retained experts.

How this opportunity is different

The Manager is the primary operational bridge with People Matters COE service ownership, translating approved requirements into scalable procedures while maintaining clear handoffs, governance, controls and accountability.

Skills and experience that will lead to success

• Experience leading Employee Relations support, People Operations, HR shared services, case management or a comparable service-delivery team.
• Demonstrated experience managing high-volume operational work, competing priorities, workflows and multi-market coverage.
• Strong people leadership, coaching, workforce management and capability-development skills.
• Strong judgment and experience applying risk-based escalation criteria, service levels, quality standards and controls.
• Ability to translate service requirements into clear procedures, responsibilities, process maps, controls and measures.
• Experience handling confidential and sensitive colleague information and partnering across global, regional and local teams.
• Preferred: GCC/shared-services leadership, transition experience, HR case-management systems, operational reporting and process or quality improvement.
• Consistent achievement of service-level, quality, productivity and workflow objectives.
• Accurate, timely escalation and clear handoffs for complex, sensitive, regulated or retained matters.
• Clear accountability across GCC, ABS and ASC/People Matters and shared adoption of new scope.
• Strong team capability, engagement, data quality, privacy compliance and measurable service improvement.
• Stakeholder relationship management and shared ownership in outcomes for colleagues and the company.

Education: Bachelor’s degree or equivalent years of industry experience.

For positions in San Francisco and Los Angeles, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction record in accordance with local Fair Chance ordinances.

Aon is not accepting unsolicited resumes from search firms for this position. If you are a search firm, you will not be compensated in any way for your submission of a candidate, even if Aon hires that candidate.

Nothing in this job description restricts management's right to assign or reassign duties and responsibilities to this job at any time.

Pay Transparency Laws:

The salary range for this position (intended for U.S. applicants) is $110,000 - $115,000 annually. The actual salary will vary based on applicant’s education, experience, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity and alignment with market data. The salary may also be adjusted based on applicant’s geographic location.

This position is eligible to participate in one of Aon’s annual incentive plans to receive an annual discretionary bonus in addition to base salary. The amount of any bonus varies and is subject to the terms and conditions of the applicable incentive plan.

Aon offers a comprehensive package of benefits for full-time and regular part-time colleagues, including, but not limited to: a 401(k) savings plan with employer contributions; an employee stock purchase plan; consideration for long-term incentive awards at Aon’s discretion; medical, dental and vision insurance, various types of leaves of absence, paid time off, including 12 paid holidays throughout the calendar year, 15 days of paid vacation per year, paid sick leave as provided under state and local paid sick leave laws, short-term disability and optional long-term disability, health savings account, health care and dependent care reimbursement accounts, employee and dependent life insurance and supplemental life and AD&D insurance; optional personal insurance policies, adoption assistance, tuition assistance, commuter benefits, and an employee assistance program that includes free counseling sessions. Eligibility for benefits is governed by the applicable plan documents and policies.