Senior Director, Construction Trades & External Workforce Relations

At Lilly, the work is demanding because patients are waiting. We unite caring with discovery to help make life better for people around the world, knowing that every decision, every detail, and every day matters. Headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, our over 50,000 employees around the globe take on complex challenges to discover and deliver life-changing medicines, strengthen how health is understood and managed, and support the communities we serve. This is hard, urgent, selfless work—but it’s work worth doing. If you’re driven by purpose and ready to bring your best to work that truly matters for patients, we invite you to join us. 

The Senior Director, Construction Trades & External Workforce Relations is responsible for establishing, integrating, and implementing a comprehensive construction workforce engagement strategy across Lilly. Central to the role is building meaningful, mutually beneficial relationships with skilled trades organizations, employers, and relevant community organizations, in line with business objectives that ultimately serve the needs of patients. The role works to help all interested parties remain competitive and responsive to evolving construction workforce needs across Lilly’s capital projects.

As Lilly continues an extraordinary period of capital expansion, this role ensures that the skilled trades workforce required to build and sustain our manufacturing footprint is anticipated, secured, and supported. It serves as the senior point of connection between Lilly’s construction and project organizations, our engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) partners, and the external trades and community networks that supply that workforce.

Key Responsibilities

• Serve as the lead for construction workforce policy priorities, ensuring that external stakeholder strategies (skilled trades organizations and associations, EPC firms, third-party advocacy, federal and state workforce-access efforts, and support for manufacturing) are fully aligned to Lilly’s priorities.
• Develop and maintain trust-based relationships with construction trades partners and related stakeholders, acting as a Lilly ambassador in the external construction workforce environment.
• Ensure proper advance notice of construction workforce needs, aligning and collaborating with Lilly cross-functional colleagues across Projects, Construction, Government Affairs, Corporate Affairs, Legal, and Manufacturing, as well as with key EPC contractors.
• Partner with each Project Manager and Construction Manager to coordinate engagement efforts directly with EPC firms and major construction subcontractors, taking direction on project-specific priorities and timing.
• Communicate workforce needs — timing, quantity, skill type, and region — to all interested parties on a continuous basis, so that supply is matched to project demand.
• Lead stakeholder mapping and insight generation across the construction workforce environment to identify key relationships and project opportunities, and develop specific engagement strategies and plans.
• Maintain a detailed understanding of federal, manufacturing, employer, and community objectives, as well as the broader external environment, including the dynamics of each sub-regional workforce market and the influences Lilly must anticipate.
• Interpret detailed workforce and trades market intelligence down to the level of specific skills and trades, and synthesize that intelligence to help each project formulate its best ongoing approach.

Basic Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree, or equivalent professional experience.
• 10+ years of relevant experience in construction workforce strategy, skilled trades engagement, large-scale capital construction, external/stakeholder relations, or a closely related field.

 

Additional Skills and Preferences

• Demonstrated experience partnering with organized labor and skilled-trades organizations on large capital construction; including collective bargaining relationships, negotiated workforce agreements, and signatory-contractor networks.
• Deep knowledge of the construction trades environment and regional construction workforce markets, including the ability to interpret detailed trades and market intelligence.
• Demonstrated success building trust-based relationships and influencing external partners, senior leaders, and stakeholders who are not under direct control.
• Experience operating in a complex, matrixed organization and coordinating across multiple functions and external parties simultaneously.
• Strong strategic thinking, with the ability to translate market insight into actionable engagement plans across a portfolio of capital projects.
• Excellent communication, collaboration, and stakeholder-management skills across all levels and formats.
• Familiarity with EPC delivery models and large capital construction programs in a regulated industry is strongly preferred.
• Position can be located in Indianapolis, IN or may consider remote USA with higher level of travel.

Lilly is dedicated to helping individuals with disabilities to actively engage in the workforce, ensuring equal opportunities when vying for positions. If you require accommodation to submit a resume for a position at Lilly, please complete the accommodation request form (https://careers.lilly.com/us/en/workplace-accommodation) for further assistance. Please note this is for individuals to request an accommodation as part of the application process and any other correspondence will not receive a response.

Lilly is proud to be an EEO Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of age, race, color, religion, gender identity, sex, gender expression, sexual orientation, genetic information, ancestry, national origin, protected veteran status, disability, or any other legally protected status.

Our employee resource groups (ERGs) offer strong support networks for their members and are open to all employees. Our current groups include: Africa, Middle East, Central Asia (AMECA), Black Employees at Lilly (BE@Lilly), Chinese Culture Network (CCN), EnAble, Evolve, Lilly Indian Network (LIN), Organization of Latinx at Lilly (OLA), Pride (LGBTQ+ Allies), Veterans Leadership Network (VLN) and Women’s Initiative for Leading at Lilly (WILL).

Actual compensation will depend on a candidate’s education, experience, skills, and geographic location.  The anticipated wage for this position is

$163,500 - $239,800

Full-time equivalent employees also will be eligible for a company bonus (depending, in part, on company and individual performance). In addition, Lilly offers a comprehensive benefit program to eligible employees, including eligibility to participate in a company-sponsored 401(k); pension; vacation benefits; eligibility for medical, dental, vision and prescription drug benefits; flexible benefits (e.g., healthcare and/or dependent day care flexible spending accounts); life insurance and death benefits; certain time off and leave of absence benefits; and well-being benefits (e.g., employee assistance program, fitness benefits, and employee clubs and activities).Lilly reserves the right to amend, modify, or terminate its compensation and benefit programs in its sole discretion and Lilly’s compensation practices and guidelines will apply regarding the details of any promotion or transfer of Lilly employees.

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