Lead, Employee Relations

The Farmer’s Dog was born from a mission to change the landscape of pet health, providing dogs and their humans with honest, smart, and simple care. We’re starting by radically improving the $90 billion pet food industry, replacing bags of highly-processed pellets with a personalized subscription service that sends complete and balanced, freshly-made dog food directly to customers’ doors. Our ultimate goal is to create innovative, delightful and personalized experiences across all aspects of pet care, and we believe our direct-to-consumer business model, holistic approach to growth, and dynamic culture uniquely position us to shepherd this backwards industry into the future.
To date, The Farmer’s Dog has delivered over 1 billion meals nationwide and raised over $150M in funding to help us build a company as healthy as the dogs who are eating those meals. Join us as we continue to develop ways of bringing peace of mind to customers, health to their companions, and much-needed change to the way people feed and care for their pets.

#LongLiveDogs

As the Lead, Employee Relations, you’ll lead the charge in establishing our inaugural Employee Relations (ER) Center of Excellence. Partnering with Humans Business Partners, our Legal team, and leadership, you’ll shape and scale our ER approach across both HQ (salaried) and Customer Care (hourly, 24/7) populations. This role demands a sharp, nuanced first principles approach that enhances all employee experiences.

This isn’t just about ticking boxes or being compliant——it’s about creating a COE that reinforces our culture of trust, kindness, respect, and growth while building the best experience of our employees’ careers. This role offers a unique opportunity to shape the future of employee relations at our company. If you’re excited about the challenge of building a Center of Excellence that will have a lasting impact on our organization, this role is for you!

One Team: We don’t think of ourselves as “Acquisition Marketers”, “Engineers”, “Data Analysts”, or “Product Managers”. Beyond denoting skill sets and areas of expertise, we don’t think departments matter. We’d rather align ourselves to the goals we’re working to achieve and make sure we have necessary subject matter expertise to drive meaningful impact. We strive to orient ourselves around customer problems TOGETHER – getting the right people, with the right context, in the right rooms/Zooms to solve problems holistically.

We are skeptical about everything and precious about nothing:  Ideas can and should come from anywhere, and we aren’t tied to our own. We proactively source input. We talk to our customers and leads regularly and are quick to change course if we know there’s a better or more impactful way to solve problems.

We consider the customer journey in all of our decisions:  We know that no interaction exists in a silo and therefore understand how important every single one is.  We ensure our strategy sets prospective and new customers up for success and drives long-term retention.  We answer questions and address problems early and proactively.  We understand the value of different channels, initiatives, and messages and know how to articulate impact and advocate for prioritization holistically.

We Execute For Impact: We don’t subscribe to “best practices” or “industry KPIs”. We’re uninterested in how we compare to “benchmarks”; instead we orient ourselves around being the best we can possibly be. Similarly, we don’t subscribe to rigid or classical expectations of roles – i.e. acquisition is hyper-focused on improving customer retention and experience.

We Are Focused and Work Without Assumption: We are not beholden to ideas. We have goals and believe everything beyond that is a series of hypotheses to validate. To that end, we seek to work in sequence and not in parallel. We constantly ask ourselves, “what’s the most important hypothesis I should be working on right now? How do I confirm or reject that hypothesis as fast as possible?”. We rarely have timelines/deadlines and are constantly taking in new information and adjusting our priorities accordingly. We don’t expect to be perfect the first time.

• Build and evolve our Employee Relations Center of Excellence. Assess where we are today and build scalable frameworks, processes, tools, and best practices that create a consistent, high-quality ER experience across TFD.
• Lead complex employee relations work end-to-end, partnering closely with Humans Business Partners and Legal to navigate sensitive issues with urgency, sound judgment, and a strong understanding of our culture and business.
• Conduct rigorous, fair investigations including interviews, e-discovery, and documentation, and drive thoughtful resolutions that balance employee experience, policy, legal requirements, and business needs.
• Bring creativity and emotional intelligence to conflict resolution, using mediation and sound judgment to help people and teams move forward.
• Raise the bar on the employee experience for both salaried HQ and hourly Customer Care employees, bringing care, consistency, and investment to every interaction while ensuring alignment with policy and applicable legislation.
• Shape ER strategy and policy across TFD, identifying opportunities to strengthen our approach, developing new policies and programs, and partnering with Humans Business Partners, Humans Operations, Legal, and other functions to bring them to life.
• Design and lead ER programs, training, and initiatives that strengthen manager capability, support a high-performance culture, and help TFD handle employee matters well before they become employee relations issues.
• Use data, feedback, and first-principles thinking to identify patterns, challenge assumptions, and turn complex or ambiguous ER issues into practical solutions.
• Lead cross-functional projects from idea through execution, bringing together the right partners across Humans and the broader organization to deliver meaningful improvements.
• Help shape what’s next for ER at TFD, bringing thoughtful insights and a forward-looking perspective to organizational strategy, risk, and the employee experience.
• Build trust and credibility at every level, serving as a cultural steward and trusted partner to employees, leaders, and the broader Humans team.

• ER expertise: You have 8+ years of progressive HRBP/Employee Relations experience, with a passion for ER and its impact on culture, employee experience, and the business. You’re a trusted partner for complex ER matters, with strong investigation, mediation, documentation, confidentiality, and judgment skills.
• Hourly & field experience: You have experience and authentic interest in supporting hourly employees and are excited to build relationships across our NY and Nashville teams.
• Build & lead: You’ve built and scaled COEs and programs from scratch and are energized by the opportunity to create our ER Center of Excellence.
• Cross-functional partnership: You partner effectively across functions and levels, including with HRBPs, Employment Counsel, and other COEs, while navigating competing priorities and focusing on the highest-impact work.
• Business-minded problem solver: You bring strong analytical and conceptual thinking, balancing the needs of the individual and the business to reach creative, practical solutions.
• Travel: This role requires approximately 10% travel, including quarterly trips to New York (and Florida once the new office opens) and travel based on investigation needs.
• You love dogs. 🐶

We are an in-office culture, made of in-office people who thrive on the collaboration and magnetism of working in a shared space. We are seeking individuals who excel in this type of environment, where being present fosters deeper connections and engagement. We ask all team members to be in office 4 - 5 days a week to build a collaborative and invested environment to foster our unique in-person culture we are proud to have. This office policy is subject to change at company discretion.

At TFD, we believe Belonging is a shared commitment to creating a workplace where every person feels respected, valued, and empowered to be themselves. When people feel a true sense of belonging, they do their best work, take smart risks, and bring forward diverse perspectives — leading to stronger decisions and deeper relationships.
We anchor this belief in a simple phrase: “Everyone’s welcome at the dog park.” No matter your background, identity, or role, there’s space for you here. There’s no one way to show up at the dog park— just shared space, mutual respect, and the freedom to be yourself. Being included is just the beginning, it’s about contributing your voice, growing through challenges, and building trust through shared goals. This philosophy guides how we lead, how we hire, how we communicate, and how we grow.
                    
We continuously evaluate to ensure we are creating a consistent experience that cultivates belonging for all employees, from hiring and performance reviews to talent development. We also believe Belonging happens in everyday moments of connection; lunch with a new teammate, a shared laugh, or a quick story about your weekend. Our structure includes biannual employee surveys, manager training, TFD camps, and support from Humans to ensure we’re listening and learning from our Team.

Together, these efforts reflect what Belonging means at TFD: a culture where everyone can thrive.

• Dog-friendly office in SoHo
• Market-competitive compensation and equity packages
• Comprehensive Healthcare, Dental, and Vision
• Company supported mental health benefits
• 12 week paid parental leave
• Competitive 401k plan with company match
• Flexible PTO 
• Discounted fresh food for your pup
• Your pet interrupting video calls (and in-person meetings) is now a feature, not a bug

The Farmer's Dog, Inc. is an equal employment opportunity employer and does not discriminate in hiring on the basis of sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, color, religion, creed, national origin, physical or mental disability, protected veteran status or any other legally protected characteristic or status. For more information, please visit Know Your Rights.

TFD complies with applicable federal, state, and local disability laws and makes reasonable accommodations for applicants and employees with disabilities.  If a reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and/or to receive other benefits and privileges of employment, please contact [email protected].

We’re happy to answer any questions you may have about the position or our hiring process - please reach out at [email protected].