About Arts Umbrella
Arts Umbrella is Canada's leading not-for-profit arts education organization for children and youth with locations in Vancouver and Surrey. Through programs in Art & Design, Dance, and Theatre, Music & Film, we deliver nationally and internationally recognized programs that inspire young people ages 2–22 to live creative, authentic, and courageous lives.
Each year, we serve more than 20,000 young people across Metro Vancouver and beyond, with nearly 80% participating at no cost thanks to donor-supported programs, scholarships, and bursaries. Our impact extends far beyond our campuses through partnerships with 135 community locations, including schools, community centers, neighborhood houses, healthcare facilities, and remote Northern communities. Together with our partners and donors, we create meaningful opportunities for young people to find their voice, build resilience, express themselves creatively, and realize their full potential. This commitment to access ensures that financial circumstances are never a barrier to experiencing the transformative power of high-quality arts education.
At Arts Umbrella, we believe that access to the arts transforms lives and strengthens communities. Our mission is to be a leader in arts education by building community and delivering profound life experiences through innovation, excellence, and inclusivity.
Because art makes us better humans.
If you are passionate about making a meaningful difference and want to be part of a collaborative, purpose-driven organization where creativity thrives, we'd love to hear from you.
The Opportunity
Arts Umbrella is seeking an experienced and collaborative People & Culture Partner to join our Human Resources team.
Reporting to the Director, Human Resources, the People & Culture Partner is a hands-on HR generalist who helps lead day-to-day HR operations while providing practical, responsive guidance to managers and employees throughout the employee lifecycle. The role combines operational excellence with a collaborative, service-oriented approach aligned with Arts Umbrella's mission.
This is an excellent opportunity for an HR professional who enjoys being close to both people and operations, someone who can provide sound HR advice while ensuring that the processes, systems, and details behind an exceptional employee experience work effectively.
What You’ll Do
As People & Culture Partner, you will work across the full spectrum of HR, including:
- HR Operations: Oversee day-to-day HR processes and employee lifecycle administration, maintain accurate employee records and documentation, and continuously improve HR processes and service delivery.
- Recruitment & Onboarding: Lead end-to-end recruitment, partner with hiring managers, oversee employment documentation and onboarding, and support equitable hiring and workforce planning.
- Employee Relations: Be a trusted first point of contact for managers and employees and provide guidance on attendance, performance, workplace conduct, conflict resolution, accommodations, leaves and return-to-work matters.
- Performance & Compliance: Support performance management processes and help ensure HR practices comply with applicable BC employment, human rights, occupational health and safety, and privacy requirements.
- HRIS & Reporting: Administer UKG Pro and Workforce Management, maintain data integrity, support system improvements, and develop meaningful HR reports and dashboards.
- Payroll & Benefits: Work collaboratively with Payroll and Finance to ensure employment changes are processed accurately and administer benefits, leaves and related employee inquiries.
- Employee Experience: Support recognition, engagement, wellness, learning, internal communications, and initiatives that foster inclusion, belonging and psychological safety.
- Team Leadership: Provide day-to-day supervision, coaching and development to the HR Assistant and support the Director on departmental priorities and initiatives.
What You Bring
You are an experienced HR professional who combines sound judgment and strong HR fundamentals with a genuine service orientation. You are comfortable moving between employee relations, recruitment, HR systems, compliance and day-to-day operations - and you understand that excellent HR is as much about how people experience the process as it is about getting the process right.
You bring:
- A bachelor’s degree in human resources, Business, or a related discipline
- 5–7 years of progressive HR experience
- Supervisory experience
- Demonstrated experience in employee relations, recruitment, HRIS and payroll support
- Experience with UKG is preferred
- A CPHR designation, or progress toward one, is an asset
You are known for your integrity, accountability, collaboration, communication, organization, problem-solving, adaptability, confidentiality and commitment to service excellence.
Why This Role
This is an opportunity to help strengthen the people practices of a dynamic non-profit arts organization. You will have meaningful exposure across the full HR function and the opportunity to improve systems and processes, support leaders, develop an HR team member, and contribute directly to an exceptional employee experience.
Success in this role means delivering compliant and responsive HR operations, effective recruitment and onboarding, accurate HR data and reporting, strong HRIS integrity, consistent manager support, and continuous improvement in how HR serves the organization. If you are a practical, thoughtful and approachable HR professional who enjoys building strong relationships while making HR processes work better, we would love to hear from you.
