Principal Human Resources Business Partner

Department: Human Resources

Classification: Administrative Faculty

Job Category: Administrative or Professional Faculty

Job Type: Full-Time

Work Schedule: Full-time (1.0 FTE, 40 hrs/wk)

Location: Fairfax, VA

Workplace Type: Hybrid Eligible

Sponsorship Eligibility: Not eligible for visa sponsorship

Salary: Salary commensurate with education and experience

Criminal Background Check: Yes

We are not just filling a role. We are launching a new era of HR partnership at George Mason University.

Introducing the Principal HR Business Partner — the first role in our new centrally managed, field-deployed HR Business Partner model and one of the most consequential HR positions we have ever built.

This is a principal-level appointment. That word matters. It is a statement of seniority, mastery, and enterprise accountability. We are not looking for someone who manages HR. We are looking for someone who transforms how HR shows up at the highest levels of a major research institution.

Human Resources serves as the university’s strategic partner in advancing institutional effectiveness through people — developing and implementing strategies, policies, and services that support the recruitment, development, engagement, and retention of a high-performing workforce across a Carnegie-classified R1 institution.

The Opportunity

The Principal HR Business Partner will sit alongside vice presidents, deans, and senior leaders — not as a support function, but as a true strategic partner. A thought leader. A change agent. A workforce architect who can see around corners, challenge assumptions, and help George Mason’s leadership build the organization it needs to fulfill its mission.

This is a director-level individual contributor role with enterprise impact. It partners directly with senior leaders to translate institutional priorities into effective organizational structures, talent strategies, and workforce plans — helping George Mason modernize how work is designed, how talent is developed, and how leadership capability is strengthened across a large and complex research institution.

Serving as lead strategic partner for cabinet and division-level portfolios as assigned, this role advances George Mason’s Workforce of the Future strategy — ensuring the university’s workforce remains agile, high-performing, and aligned with evolving academic, research, and operational priorities.

“The Principal HR Business Partner is not about maintaining an existing structure. It is about building one.”

What Does Principal-Level HR Partnership Look Like at GMU?

• Transformational workforce strategy — advancing George Mason’s Workforce of the Future agenda by connecting people, culture, and leadership capability to long-term institutional performance. Because institutions do not perform — people do.
• Enterprise change leadership — driving organizational effectiveness, workforce realignment, and structural transformation across complex, matrixed academic and administrative portfolios.
• Executive-level influence — serving as a trusted advisor and strategic enabler to senior leadership, shaping decisions that impact colleagues and the institution’s long-term trajectory.
• Systems integration — serving as the primary bridge between institutional leadership and our full suite of HR Centers of Excellence, mobilizing the right expertise at the right moment to solve the right problems.
• Data-driven insight — translating workforce analytics into leadership intelligence, surfacing what leaders need to see before they know to ask for it.

“This is not a role for someone who wants to administer HR. It is a role for someone who wants to reinvent how HR leads.”

Essential Functions:

Organizational Effectiveness & Workforce Planning

• Drive the design and alignment of organizational structures and workforce models across supported portfolios, strengthening organizational effectiveness and advancing Workforce of the Future priorities.
• Lead coordinated organizational design, restructuring, and workforce realignment initiatives within supported portfolios, aligning organizational structures with institutional priorities, job architecture, and Workforce of the Future strategy.
• Design and drive workforce planning approaches that anticipate growth, capability gaps, succession needs, and organizational risks across supported portfolios.

Enterprise Workforce Strategy

• Advance George Mason’s Workforce of the Future strategy, aligning talent attraction, development, and retention with institutional priorities.
• Partner with senior leaders to anticipate emerging workforce capabilities required to support academic innovation, research growth, and operational modernization.
• Provide strategic insight on workforce trends, organizational readiness, and long-term talent sustainability.

Strategic Direction on Talent Programs

• Shape leadership decisions related to compensation strategy, retention planning, performance effectiveness, and employee and labor strategy considerations.
• Drive the integration of compensation strategy, performance engagement, reward and recognition, retention planning, and employee and labor relations frameworks across supported portfolios.
• Oversee resolution of systemic workforce challenges, ensuring durable solutions that strengthen organizational performance and workforce effectiveness.

Workforce Agility & Leadership Capability

• Shape workforce strategies that strengthen organizational agility and productivity, guiding leaders in the adoption of emerging technologies, evolving work models, and workforce capability development.
• Advance disciplined role clarity and performance accountability across supported portfolios, reinforcing alignment between job architecture, leadership expectations, and institutional standards.
• Shape and reinforce leadership capability strategies across supported portfolios, strengthening leadership effectiveness and development at key career transition points.

Data-Informed Workforce Insights

• Leverage workforce analytics and talent insights to inform leadership decision-making.
• Develop and interpret portfolio-level workforce insights and dashboards that help leadership assess workforce capacity, productivity trends, workforce movement, and organizational health.
• Translate data into actionable strategic insights that inform leadership planning.

HR Center of Excellence Integration

• Serve as the primary integrator between academic and administrative units and HR Centers of Excellence.
• Translate leadership priorities into coordinated HR strategies and mobilize COE expertise across Talent Acquisition, Total Rewards, Employee and Workforce Relations, Talent Development, HR Operations, and HR Technology.
• Ensure workforce initiatives align with enterprise HR programs while addressing operational realities.

What This Role is Designed to Do

The Principal HR Business Partner is not about maintaining an existing structure. It is about building one. This role helps design and implement the frameworks, operating mechanisms, and workforce strategies that enable leaders to align talent, performance, and organizational capability with institutional priorities.

The role is intentionally focused on enterprise strategy, organizational design, and senior-level partnership. It does not include responsibility for day-to-day HR operations. Instead, it provides strategic consultation on complex workforce matters, while operational HR support is delivered through HR Centers of Excellence, shared service functions, and unit-based HR.

Through strategic partnership and cross-functional integration, the Principal HR Business Partner helps shape how the university attracts, develops, and retains talent, influencing workforce decisions, performance accountability, adaptability to emerging technologies, and structured leadership development aligned with the university’s academic mission.

Qualifications & Experience

Success in this role requires strong strategic judgment, analytical rigor, and the ability to influence senior leaders without direct authority. The Principal HR Business Partner operates across complex environments, surfaces enterprise workforce insights, and drives practical workforce solutions that support institutional excellence.

Required

• Bachelor’s degree in a related field.
• Significant progressive HR experience, including senior-level HR business partnership in complex organizations (typically seven or more years).
• Demonstrated experience shaping workforce strategy, organizational effectiveness, and talent programs with senior leadership.
• Experience supporting organizational design and workforce planning initiatives.
• Experience using workforce data and organizational insights to inform strategic decisions.
• Knowledge of organizational effectiveness and workforce planning.
• Strong influencing skills and executive-level partnership capability.
• Demonstrated skill in data-informed analysis and decision-making.
• Strong enterprise and strategic thinking capability.
• Knowledge of cross-functional integration.
• Systems thinking with demonstrated skill in leading and sustaining change.

Preferred

• Master’s degree in Human Resources, Organizational Development, Business Administration, or related field.
• Extensive progressive HR experience, including senior-level HR business partnership in complex organizations (typically ten or more years).
• Experience in higher education, research institutions, healthcare systems, or similarly complex environments.
• Experience supporting enterprise workforce transformation initiatives.

Instructions to Applicants:

For full consideration, applicants must apply for the Principal Human Resources Business Partner at https://jobs.gmu.edu/. Complete and submit the online application to include three professional references with contact information, and provide a cover letter and resume for review.

Compensation:

The expected range for this position is $145,000 to $160,000.

George Mason University provides salary ranges representing a good faith estimate of the compensation the university reasonably expects to offer for this position. The salary extended to a selected candidate will be determined based on factors such as — but not limited to — the scope and responsibilities of the position, the qualifications and experience of the selected candidate, internal equity, and alignment with the university's compensation philosophy and approved pay structures.

At George Mason University, base salary is one component of a comprehensive total rewards package that includes competitive health and wellness benefits, retirement contributions, generous leave, tuition benefits for employees, and the opportunity to contribute to the mission of Virginia's largest and most diverse public research university.

About George Mason University

George Mason University is the largest public research university in Virginia and the most diverse institution in the Commonwealth. As a Carnegie-classified R1 institution, we serve more than 12,000 employees and 40,000 students across four campuses, including an international location. We are a high-access, high-outcomes institution with a mission that demands bold, forward-thinking people leadership.

We are building a new model here. The Principal HR Business Partner is its foundation. If you are a seasoned HR strategist, a proven change agent, and a leader who has earned the trust of executive teams by delivering outcomes that matter — we built this role for you.

Principal-level impact. Institutional scale. Mission that lasts.

Posting Open Date: March 19, 2026

For Full Consideration, Apply by: April 2, 2026

Open Until Filled: Yes