U.S. Travel Association

Summary: 

The Vice President, Employee Experience serves as a senior people leader of U.S. Travel Association, responsible for architecting and delivering a cohesive, mission-aligned employee experience for the association’s staff. Critically, this leader will play a central role in positioning U.S. Travel for sustainable organizational growth—ensuring that a resilient, scalable personnel foundation is in place upon which the association's broader strategic ambitions can be built. 

This is a dual-natured role: the VP must bring enterprise-level strategic vision to every dimension of human capital—from culture and talent to total rewards and organizational design—while also functioning as a hands-on leader and individual contributor who provides daily operational HR support. The VP will serve as both a supervisor and a practitioner, comfortable moving between long-range strategy and day-to-day employee relations without losing effectiveness in either. 

U.S. Travel seeks a leader who is as comfortable presenting a multi-year workforce strategy to the executive team as they are resolving a complex employee relations matter, managing an open enrollment cycle or coaching a first-time manager. This leader will be a credible voice to the executive team and a trusted resource for every member of staff.

Responsibilities:

Strategic Leadership & Organizational Design

•       Serve as the organization's primary architect of people infrastructure for growth—anticipating the talent, structural and cultural requirements of a growing organization and building the systems, processes and capabilities needed to scale effectively.

•       Develop and execute a multi-year employee experience strategy aligned with U.S. Travel’s strategy, mission and values.

•       Advise senior leadership on organizational design, workforce planning and the structural conditions required to achieve business goals.

•       Anticipate workforce trends, identify emerging capability gaps and bring a forward-looking perspective to executive conversations.

•       Balance near-term execution with medium-term capability building and long-range organizational vision.

•       Serve as a steady, credible advocate for the employee voice in organizational decision-making. 

Culture & Engagement

•       Architect and steward an intentional organizational culture that reflects U.S. Travel’s values— strategic, curious, ambitious, high-performing and collaborative—across the full employee lifecycle.

•       Embed employee listening into the rhythm of the organization’s management practices including, but not limited to, conducting pulse checks, stay conversations and exit interviews as a natural part of ongoing team engagement and using the data gathered to make informed decisions and drive meaningful action.

•       Champion a culture where employees feel confident self-advocating and advocating for one another, taking risks and contributing fully.

•       Set clear, behavioral expectations for what a welcoming workplace looks like in practice, partnering with leaders to build environments where every employee feels valued and connected.

•       Connect culture to measurable business outcomes, including retention, productivity and organizational performance.

Talent Acquisition & Retention

•       Oversee and as needed, directly execute full-cycle talent acquisition for a mission-driven, 60-person and growing organization.

•       Build broad talent pools and pipelines through intentional sourcing strategies and partnerships with organizations that connect the association to candidates it might not otherwise reach.

•       Design structured, consistent hiring processes that comply with federal and D.C. employment law.

•       Design and oversee a structured onboarding program that accelerates new hire integration, connects employees to the organization's mission and culture from day one and equips managers to set their teams up for early success.

•       Implement differentiated retention strategies by employee segment; build internal mobility as a retention lever.

Learning & Professional Development

•       Design and champion a learning ecosystem—encompassing formal programs, coaching, mentoring, peer learning and stretch assignments—that builds organizational capability and supports individual growth.

•       Translate business strategy into capability requirements; connect learning investments to workforce planning and talent retention goals.

•       Develop manager capability as the organization’s highest-leverage learning multiplier.

•       Build a culture of continuous learning where growth is recognized, rewarded and embedded in daily work. 

Rewards & Benefits Administration

•       Oversee the design, governance and continuous evolution of U.S. Travel’s total rewards strategy, including compensation, benefits, recognition and well-being programs.

•       Ensure rewards programs are competitive, equitable and experienced as meaningful by a diverse workforce; examine whether benefits programs serve the full staff across life stages, family structure and health need.

•       Conduct pay analyses grounded in market data, job qualifications, performance, internal equity and budget realities, ensuring compensation decisions reflect the organization's values and commitment to fairness.

•       Manage benefits administration, open enrollment and vendor relationships with strategic rigor and operational discipline delivering the best overall value for the association.

•       Ensure employees understand and value the full scope of their total compensation through clear communication and manager enablement. 

HR Operations & Compliance

•       Build and govern the operational infrastructure that makes the employee experience reliable, consistent and trustworthy—including HR systems, workflows, data management and policy administration.

•       Maintain a comprehensive, current understanding of relevant employment law; in partnership with counsel, proactively manage compliance across all HR practices.

•       Lead workplace investigations with confidentiality, fairness, thoroughness and impartiality.

•       Partner closely with Legal to ensure employment law and regulatory requirements are continuously embedded in existing and new HR processes, policies and programs.

•       Ensure HR technology, data governance and people analytics capabilities support effective, evidence-based decision-making. 

Performance Management

•       Design and govern a performance management philosophy and system that drives individual and organizational excellence while ensuring equity and developmental richness.

•       Build manager capability to deliver honest, timely, behaviorally grounded feedback and to differentiate performance fairly; develop inclusive leadership skills across the management team.

•       Oversee the design, governance and continuous evolution of U.S. Travel’s promotion process, including eligibility, success metrics, position leveling and skills analysis

•       Connect performance outcomes to total rewards and advancement decisions with transparency and consistency. 

Employee Relations & Conflict Resolution

•       Maintain an employee relations philosophy grounded in fairness, dignity, transparency and accountability.

•       Build conflict resolution capability across a continuum, deploying the right approach for each situation.

•       Diagnose systemic patterns in employee relations data and advocate for structural interventions that address root causes, not just individual incidents.

•       Develop manager capability to address conflict constructively at the earliest stage. 

Supervisory Responsibility:

•       Supervise and develop a small team of HR professionals, providing direction, coaching, performance management and professional growth opportunities.

•       As of the posting date of this role, direct reports may include an HR Generalist or HR Coordinator; the structure may evolve with organizational needs.

•       Foster a collaborative, high-performing team culture that models the values U.S. Travel aspires to embody organizationally.

Key Attributes:

•       A natural relationship builder who earns trust across every level of an organization—equally credible with the executive team and an individual contributor navigating daily HR functions—and brings the interpersonal range to shift fluidly between those dynamics in a single day.

•       Brings warmth, directness and emotional intelligence to every interaction; skilled at delivering feedback, mediating conflict and holding difficult conversations in ways that preserve dignity and keep relationships intact.

•       Excellent interpersonal, communication and presentation skills; ability to engage credibly with staff at all levels, including at the executive level.

•       Demonstrated ability to navigate ambiguity, make sound decisions with incomplete information and maintain composure under organizational pressure.

Education, Experience and Skills:

•       15 or more years of progressive HR or employee experience leadership, with at least 4–5 years in a senior leadership role (Director level or above).

•       Experience working within or for organizations with 50 or more employees, where the HR function requires significant individual contributor work alongside strategic leadership.

•       Demonstrated experience functioning as both a strategic HR leader and a hands-on HR practitioner, including direct execution of operational HR responsibilities.

•       Deep expertise across multiple HR functional areas: talent acquisition, total rewards, performance management, employee relations and HR operations.

•       Strong command of employment law; proven track record of proactive compliance management.

•       Experience supervising and developing HR professionals.

Other:

·       Position based in Washington, DC. U.S. Travel staff work in the office Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays with the option to work remotely on Mondays and Fridays.

·       Limited travel (up to 4 times per year) is required.

·       Salary: 215-230K with bonus potential.

·       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.

Benefits:

·       Comprehensive healthcare package with fertility coverage.

·       Generous paid leave including family leave.

·       Routine staff functions and opportunities for social connection.

·       Transportation and cell phone benefits.

·       Robust wellness initiatives and Employee Assistance Plan (EAP)

·       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.