People & Culture Manager, Talent & Onboarding

TITLE: People & Culture Manager, Talent & Onboarding (Fixed-Term)

STATUS: Full-Time, Fixed-Term Appointment, November 2026 through March 31, 2027 (Exempt)

SCOPE: A generalist seat with a defined focus: recruiting, letters of agreement, onboarding and training.

LOCATION: Hybrid in the off-season, with regular on-site days on the Becket, Massachusetts campus. On-site during the May onboarding waves and throughout the Festival season (June through early September). Based within about one hour of Jacob's Pillow.

REPORTS TO: Interim Director of People & Culture (Ygor Lobo)

DEPARTMENT: People & Culture

WORKS WITH: The People Operations Manager (payroll, benefits, open enrollment, offboarding and the Paycom system); the Office Coordinator (front desk and the info@ inbox); hiring managers and department heads across the organization; IT, Company Management (seasonal arrivals); Finance; training facilitators and partners; search and staffing partners.

COMPENSATION: [$65,000 to $75,000] annualized, commensurate with experience, prorated for the term (less applicable tax withholdings)

BENEFITS (SUMMER ONLY): three meals a day, free access to classes, performances, talks, and studio usage.

BENEFITS: Medical, dental and vision insurance through Blue Cross Blue Shield of MA, Delta Dental and VSP, with coverage beginning day one of employment, plus an employer-funded Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA), Employee Assistance Program and travel assistance.

POSITION OVERVIEW

Jacob's Pillow is a National Historic Landmark, a recipient of the National Medal of Arts, and home to the longest-running international dance festival in the country. On a 220-acre campus in the Berkshire Hills of Becket, Massachusetts, the Pillow presents artists from around the world each summer across three stages, trains dancers at The School at Jacob's Pillow, keeps nearly a century of dance history alive in its Archives, and works year-round with communities across the region. As it approaches its centennial, the Pillow is investing in the people and systems behind the work, and in being a more inclusive and equitable place for everyone who works here.

Jacob's Pillow employs roughly fifty year-round staff and brings on more than a hundred seasonal staff, faculty and interns for each Festival. Most arrive in three waves in May, after a spring in which the organization fills more than fifty positions. The People & Culture Manager, Talent & Onboarding owns that flow of people from posting to signed letter to first day, screens every search before candidates reach a hiring manager, and then makes sure each new colleague gets the training their role requires, when they need it. 

This is a generalist seat with a defined focus. The person in it brings the full HR toolkit, employment basics, employee records, policy, structured and equitable hiring, and points it at four things: recruiting, letters of agreement, onboarding and training. They know the difference between a process question and a people matter. Payroll, benefits, open enrollment, offboarding and day-to-day Paycom sit with the People Operations Manager; employee relations, leave, accommodation and performance sit with the Director. What isn't theirs gets routed the same day, not absorbed.

On training, the Director and the Pillow's partners design the content. This role makes sure it reaches people: a training calendar for the year, required trainings scheduled and tracked to completion for every new hire and every supervisor, role-based sessions built into onboarding, facilitators booked, sessions that run smoothly.

This is a fixed-term appointment through March 31, 2027, created to carry the fall searches and the build of the 2027 seasonal hiring cycle, with the possibility of extension. Every workflow this role runs is documented as it goes, so the organization keeps what was built.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Recruiting. Run the recruiting calendar for year-round, seasonal and temporary positions, including the launch of the 2027 seasonal hiring cycle; give each hiring manager the rubric and question set for their first-round screen; screen the finalists in every search, seasonal crew to director, before an offer is made; schedule interviews, keep candidates informed, and keep the applicant tracking system current.
• Offers and Letters of Agreement. Confirm each offer matches the approved rate; issue the Letter of Agreement through DocuSign within two business days of acceptance; give the hiring manager one business day to check it against the offer; track every letter to signature before day one. Maintain the year-round, seasonal, temporary and mentor templates.
• Onboarding. Run the onboarding checklist by track (year-round, seasonal, temporary, executive): pre-start paperwork through Paycom self-onboarding, I-9 verification within three business days of the start date (including the remote procedure where the Pillow uses it), the PFML written notice within thirty days of hire, handbook acknowledgment in Paycom, required trainings and policy acknowledgments, and a flag to the People Operations Manager when each new hire's benefits enrollment window opens.
• Onboarding waves. Plan and run the May arrival waves with IT, Producing and Housing: roster lock, welcome communications, batched I-9 sessions, orientation scheduling, seven- and thirty-day check-ins, and a short debrief after each wave. 
• Training and learning. Own the training calendar: schedule required trainings (safety, anti-harassment, cultural fluency with the Pillow's partners) and role-based sessions (supervisor foundations, hiring manager training, seasonal check-in guidance) so they land before people need them; build them into onboarding by track; assign and track completion in Paycom Learning; book facilitators and run logistics; report completion and gaps to the Director. Content design stays with the Director and the Pillow's partners.
• Records and compliance. Keep personnel files complete in Paycom; produce employment verification letters and status confirmations; route unemployment claim notices to the Director the same day and prepare responses inside the deadline; confirm new-hire reporting to the Commonwealth is filed; keep certifications and acknowledgments current.
• First-line support. Share the people@ inbox with the People Operations Manager and answer routine policy and process questions. Route payroll, benefits and offboarding questions to the People Operations Manager. Escalate employee relations, leave, accommodation and complaint matters to the Director the same day; this role does not handle them.
• Systems and handoff. Work in Paycom (applicant tracking, onboarding, learning, documents), DocuSign and Google Workspace. Document every workflow as it is run so it can be handed off, and serve as the operator for the applicant, onboarding and learning modules as the Pillow's Paycom rebuild lands.
• Equity in hiring. Apply the Pillow's structured, consistent hiring practices so every candidate gets the same process, and flag to the Director where a process is producing uneven results.
• Other Duties: As reasonably assigned by the supervisor to support the mission of the department.

Qualifications

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Seven or more years as an HR generalist, with hands-on ownership of recruiting and onboarding at volume (for example, 50 or more hires in a cycle).
• Bachelor's degree, or equivalent experience.
• Working knowledge of the fundamentals a Massachusetts employer runs on, including I-9 verification, earned sick time, Paid Family and Medical Leave notices, and pay-range disclosure in job postings.
• Experience running a training calendar and tracking completion in a learning management system, with facilitators inside and outside the organization.
• Fluency with an HRIS applicant-tracking, onboarding and learning module, electronic signature workflows and Google Workspace; comfortable managing a high volume of documents and deadlines.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Paycom experience, especially the Applicant Tracking, Onboarding, Learning and Documents modules.
• Experience in a nonprofit performing arts organization or a seasonal festival environment.
• SHRM-CP, PHR or equivalent credential.
• Multilingual skills
• Willingness to learn the Pillow's systems and season rhythms and to participate in professional development.

SKILLS & ABILITIES

• Ability to engage effectively with diverse groups and build a welcoming, equitable environment.
• Comfortable working in a fast-paced environment with frequent interruptions.
• Ability to prioritize conflicting needs and handle matters expeditiously.
• Treats every applicant and every new colleague as someone the Pillow wants to keep, and communicates early when something changes.

WORKING CONDITIONS/PHYSICAL DEMANDS

This position involves the following environmental realities:

• Workspace: Office space on the Becket campus with close proximity to others; frequent interruptions, especially during the onboarding waves and the Festival.
• Climate: Work is performed primarily indoors, with regular movement outdoors across the campus in the Berkshires. This includes exposure to heat/humidity (limited AC in some spaces), rain, and uneven terrain (gravel, grass, wooded areas).
• Nature: Exposure to native wildlife including insects, ticks, and rodents.
• Physical Output: Stationary work for approximately 80% of the day. Movement across the 220-acre campus (walks of up to about half a mile between buildings) during arrival days, orientation and training sessions. Position occasionally requires moving equipment/supplies weighing up to 20 lbs (e.g., welcome materials, files, a laptop). Note: Carts and team assistance are available.
• Schedule: Standard full-time schedule, with some early mornings, evenings and weekend days during the May arrival waves and the Festival season.

NOT SURE YOU MEET EVERY QUALIFICATION?

Research shows that some candidates, particularly women and people from historically excluded groups, hold back from applying unless they meet every listed qualification. If this role interests you and you meet most of what is described here, we want to hear from you. 

APPLICATION PROCESS

Every candidate who advances goes through the same four steps, with the same questions at each step.

1. Screening conversation with the Interim Director of People & Culture (45 minutes, video): the role, the term, the four lanes, and your experience running recruiting and onboarding at volume.
2. Interview with the Executive & Artistic Director (30 minutes).
3. Panel with the hiring managers this role will serve (60 minutes): a working session on a real Pillow hiring scenario, from posting to first day.
4. A 30-minute conversation with three directors: how the Pillow works across departments, and your questions for us.

Offers are contingent on two professional references and a background check. We aim to complete the process within three weeks of the screening conversation and to have the person in seat by mid-November.