Kayla Austin

I’m an HR business partner and HR project/process leader with 15+ years of experience driving large-scale, complex people initiatives across multi-site and regulated environments. I manage concurrent projects, lead cross-functional collaboration, and deliver data-driven HR solutions aligned to business strategy.

At Amazon, I lead HR strategy and execution across multi-site operations supporting 5,000+ associates, partnering with operations, legal, and compliance to deliver people strategies that stick. I leverage workforce analytics (attrition, headcount, productivity) to inform decisions and improve labor stability by 10–15%, reduce regrettable attrition by 12–18%, and improve new hire onboarding and retention by 15–20% through process enhancements and manager enablement.

I’m also known for risk mitigation and consistent execution under ambiguity—driving workforce-related risk identification, escalation, and resolution to protect organizational outcomes. I manage 70–100 employee relations cases annually while coaching 25–30 leaders on performance management, organizational effectiveness, and change leadership, and I’ve improved engagement scores by 8–10 points through associate experience initiatives.

Earlier, I led enterprise-wide HR compliance, training, and process improvement for a distributed workforce of 1,600+ employees, achieving 100% audit success across federal contracts. I reduced time-to-compliance for new contracts by 25–30%, delivered training with 95–98% completion rates, and improved HR operational efficiency by 54% through standardization and continuous improvement—always with an emphasis on workforce analytics and measurable results.