• WORK AT COX FARMS
    See job openings below
  • PLAY AT COX FARMS
    A great family oriented fall festival experience!
  • WORK AT COX FARMS
    See job openings below

Cox Farms is searching for a new leader for our Department of People! (You know, like an HR Manager, except on a farm, so way cooler and not as scary.)

Contact owner Aaron Cox-Leow (aaron@coxfarms.com) to discuss this position.

Every fall, our team grows from a few dozen to more than 600 Cox Farmers. We work all year to prepare for our summer "hiring season,” and as you can imagine, this involves tremendous effort and coordination. Fortunately, we have a lot of great systems in place that make this enormous feat of seasonal staffing possible. We have a great payroll manager and a wonderful assistant who knows the ropes and handles lots of admin work. You will be leading our annual hiring efforts, which give way to onboarding and orienting and training, and ultimately, to supporting our huge seasonal team through the fall season, and beyond.

We are officially the Department of People, the Employee Support Team, and we exist to "Find them, Grow them, Support them.” We know that "HR” has historically been known for throwing up roadblocks in the name of compliance and enforcement, and ultimately it has served to protect the interests of the company over (and sometimes at the expense of) those of their employees. That’s certainly not a reflection of our business or our values. Did we mention that we’re committed to being the best job our employees ever have? (It’s written into the Cox Farms Mission, so it’s literally our job to make it awesome to work here.) We know that being the best workplace means fostering a team that is diverse, inclusive, welcoming, and always striving to learn more and do better.

From managing the hiring process to drafting our weekly employee email newsletter, supporting our leadership team to resolving employee concerns, your workday during our "all-hands-on-deck” peak season may also include a hearty dose of parking cars or wrapping hot dogs as needed, ensuring that our thousands of visitors enjoy their time at the farm. After all the chaos of fall simmers down, we wrap up and prepare to start again. During the off-season, we tackle big improvement projects like developing our Knowledge Base, updating and testing our employee site, developing online orientation and training components, boring admin work like compliance and benefits administration, and other stuff that will eventually make our jobs easier and our employees’ experiences better. (If you are obsessed with learning to drive a tractor so you can feel more authentic when you tell people you work on a farm, or if you're committed to mastering your kettle corn technique, we can take care of that in the off-season, too.)

We value diversity, in backgrounds, identity, and experiences. We’re less concerned about your degrees, certifications, and years of experience in HR, and more concerned about your skills, your drive, and your values. We can teach the right person, as long as you’re psyched to be here and excited to learn.

We’re looking for someone eager and ready to settle down.

Because of the seasonality of our business, it takes a year just to experience the full cycle. We anticipate a focus on learning the ropes and gaining confidence in the role the first year, and then gradually taking more ownership and championing changes once you settle in. Ideally, this would be for the long haul. We’re not talking about signing a multi-year contract, but we hope that if this is the right fit, you’ll stick around and make this role your own in the years to come.

Commitment:

This is an in-person, onsite job here at the farm, not a virtual position. It is a full-time, year-round position, although there is plenty of flexibility built in (just not July through November). You’ll average 35-40 hours per week, although you’ll have lots of discretion January through June. Typically, we work limited shifts within "normal” office hours during the off-season, and then start adding weekend shifts when the hiring season kicks off, ramping up to at least some OT August through October. Outside of fall, the hours are fairly flexible as long as it is agreed upon in advance. During the fall season, weekend shifts and 50+ hour weeks are typical.

Compensation:

  • $19-$21/hour
  • Up to $1200 in performance bonuses
  • Seasonal discretionary bonus (fall)
  • Phone Reimbursement $10/week
  • Health Insurance and Dental coverage- eligible to enroll at 90 days
  • Employee discounts, product allowances, admission passes, and more!
  • Employee-Directed Giving (our money, your choice of org/charity) and Support Requests
  • Short-term, interest-free loans
  • Limited PTO plan coming soon!

Responsibilities:

Work with Senior Management to continually improve our workplace and employee experience.

Directly manage one assistant year-round, and direct additional seasonal support staff during peak times.

Support our staff (ranging from fewer than 30 to more than 600 seasonal employees) to ensure this is the best job they ever have!

Coordinate and oversee the hiring process- recruiting, reviewing applications, moving applicants through stages, onboarding new hires (Applicant Stack, Paychex Flex).

Coordinate logistics for performance documentation, special staffing programs, bonus eligibility, and other staffing matters.

Coordinate orientations and training for seasonal staff (don’t worry, there’s always kettle corn involved).

Update employee site content, test site functionality, oversee/manage site improvements.

Update/maintain online training (Talent LMS), and develop Knowledge Base (Zoho Desk) and other employee resources.

Draft and send out weekly staff email newsletters (fall season) and periodic updates/inquiries to staff, develop surveys, and update content on employee website and staff break room dashboards.

Stay on top of a bunch of deadlines and compliance requirements (making sure the necessary notices go out to the right people at the right times).

Oversee benefits administration to make sure eligible employees have the information they need about the opportunities they are eligible for, and coordinate enrollment.

Give great service to our staff, respond to accommodation requests and coordinate staff accommodations with team leadership, and process staff feedback and concerns to ensure they are addressed.

Note: We don’t expect you to already know how to do this stuff… we have spent more than a decade developing our current systems, and we’ll show you the ropes!

Requirements:

  • Must be at least 18 years old and legally eligible to work in the United States
  • Must be fully vaccinated (including eligible boosters) against Covid-19 and willing to abide by Covid-related safety precautions
  • Must be fluent (reading, writing, speaking) in English (Proficiency in Spanish is a plus, ability to make corny jokes in both languages is ideal, laughing at said corny jokes is totally optional)
  • Must be committed to implementing DEIB initiatives and participating in antibias and antiracism training (Also, more generally, you need to be cool with reporting to a super gay genderqueer boss, working alongside religious minorities, supporting a staff that includes immigrants who don’t speak English, and working for a company that is unapologetically outspoken when it comes to speaking truth to traffic and doing the right thing.)
  • Must be organized with strong attention to detail
  • Must have solid time-management and prioritization skills to meet deadlines and keep departmental operations on track
  • Must be able to coordinate and implement complicated systems
  • Must possess strong communication skills- listening, speaking, reading, and writing
  • Must be committed to being open and honest, asking questions, and giving and receiving (respectful) feedback
  • Must be comfortable navigating Windows PCs, using MS Office, various app platforms including Applicant Stack (hiring), Paychex (employment/payroll), Talent LMS, Zoho Desk, and our in-house employee site. (Some experience with spreadsheets and word processing is required, but you do not need to have prior experience with all of these apps as long as you’re okay diving in and learning as you go!)
  • Prior business, admin, and/or HR experience could be great but is not required.
  • Professional and/or character references will be required.
  • A background check will be performed prior to an official employment offer.

Considerations:

This is a farm, and while much of this role will be indoors in a climate-controlled office, we do some physical work outside, including outdoor hiring events and orientations in the summer heat, supporting fall operations as needed, and helping sell Christmas trees on peak weekends in the winter.

This is not a glamorous job. We are not fancy. If you’re into prestige and brand names and top-of-the-line accessories, keep scrolling. If bottomless cherry tomatoes and occasional emergency field trips to admire newborn goats are more your style, we could be great together. We are a quirky place with quirky spaces and very quirky people. Neurodiversity abounds.

We’re committed to being an inclusive and empowering workplace. If antiracist signage or nametag pronouns make you uncomfortable, we will not be a good fit.

Note: Office location requires a flight of outdoor stairs. Current officemates include a friendly dog. If either of these is a deal-breaker for you, please talk to us about it.

Cox Farms is committed to providing access, equal opportunity, and reasonable accommodation for applicants and employees with disabilities. To request reasonable accommodation, contact accommodation@coxfarms.com.

About Us

Cox Farms is a family-owned working farm in Centreville, VA, best known for our family-friendly Fall Festival and scary nighttime Fields of Fear. During other seasons, we operate a farmstand featuring seasonal products: plants from our greenhouses in the Spring, homegrown fruits and veggies in the Summer, Christmas trees in the Winter, and lots of farm fun in every season. Please visit coxfarms.com to learn more about us.

Cox Farms is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and is committed to providing equal opportunity for all employees and applicants. We recruit, hire, train, promote, and compensate without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity and expression, national origin, mental or physical disability, ancestry, military or veteran status, citizenship status, or any other status protected by applicable law.