Senior People Operations Manager

Human Made is looking for a new Senior People Operations Manager who will play a key role in building the world-class remote culture that is such an important part of life at Human Made. We care about all of our employees and we want a new team member who is motivated by creating a culture that supports employees while building high-performing, outcome-oriented teams. As well as operating our people processes, you will partner with managers and run initiatives that promote employee engagement, DEI, L&D, performance, and wellbeing. This is an opportunity to join a genuinely people-first company, and contribute to evolving our culture as we grow as a business.

This is a remote position but you should be located +/- 3 hours UTC.

About Us

Human Made is a fully distributed web development agency, with an Enterprise Cloud Hosting platform, Altis. We have humans all over the world, including the UK, Singapore, the US, Nigeria, Malaysia, Bulgaria, and Brazil. We know the value of the people who work for us, and we support them with flexible working practices, professional development budgets, and other people initiatives.

Intrigued? Here are a few places you can learn more:

• Check out our Glassdoor reviews to see what some of our current and former employees have to say about working at Human Made.
• Read our staff handbook to learn about our policies, culture, and processes.
• Take a look through our Life at Human Made section on our blog for a glimpse into our culture.

Requirements

About You

You should be a full stack People Operations professional, and be experienced operating across the People Ops functions, including recruitment, employee engagement and experience, HR and compliance, performance management, L&D, and DEI. Human Made is a small organisation (currently around 60 people), and while we have growth plans across the next few years we need someone who is comfortable working across all areas of People Operations, in collaboration with our People Ops Manager.

Ideally, you will have experience in UK HR practices as this is where we have our highest number of employees. If you have broad HR knowledge and display an aptitude for learning this is not essential, though you will need to upskill in this area during your first year at the company. If you have experience with remote hiring and employment practices too that’s a bonus. You should have experience working in a fully remote organisation, be comfortable with a high level of transparency and openness, and be able to effectively balance transparency with privacy. You should be able to effectively operate all of your People Ops processes, be highly organised, and have a good eye for detail.

You should be an excellent communicator across all types of communication, including text-based asynchronous communication, text-based synchronous community, voice and video chat, and in person. You should understand when different modes of communication are appropriate and how to use them effectively.

As Human Made is an organisation who cares about its people, you should be empathetic and people-focused, and be driven by the desire to create a supportive working environment that is in line with business goals and needs. There are times when working across cultures, time zones, and legal entities can be complex and stressful, so you should be someone who can approach this in a measured and pragmatic way, always working towards the best outcomes for both our individual staff and the business as a whole.

This is a remote position but you should be located +/- 3 hours UTC.

We are looking for an experienced People Operations professional with experience working in organisations of 50-150 people. The role will not suit someone whose experience is mainly as part of a large HR department with many specialised roles. The ideal candidate will be seeking to grow in the role with a medium to long-term ambition of transitioning into a Head of People Operations.

Job Overview

As our Senior People Operations Manager you will play a key role in building the world-class remote culture that is such an important part of life at Human Made. We care about all of our employees and we want to bring on board someone motivated to create a culture that supports individuals while building high-performing teams. You will be responsible for operating all of the processes relating to the employee lifecycle, including hiring, professional development, performance management, compensation and benefits, and HR. You will lead the day to day running of the People Operations team, including line management of the People Operations Manager. The People Ops team should remain effective in its tasks, and run our processes in a way that contributes to a positive employee experience. You will be highly focused on engagement, and as your role evolves you will introduce structures, processes and initiatives that facilitate engagement and create high-performing teams.

In addition to running People Operations, we are looking for someone who has experience business-partnering with leaders and managers to make sure that our people strategy is aligned with our organisational strategy. You should be confident working with managers at all levels to build team capability and implement effective people strategies. You should be comfortable in a 1:1 setting and working with groups of managers and leaders to effect change.

Responsibilities

• Operate and iterate on Human Made’s People Ops processes, including recruitment, onboarding, performance management, compensation, and professional development.
• Business-partner with leaders and managers to address employee issues and help develop their skills.
• Run our regular engagement survey and work with managers to make working environment improvements for their teams.
• Work with the COO to identify policy gaps, introduce and update those policies.
• Ensure compliance of our policies and processes
• Refine our DEI practices, ensuring a welcoming environment for everyone and ensuring we have a diverse hiring pipeline.
• Work with the People Operations Manager on our processes, ensuring that our data and records are accurate and up-to-date, and to ensure our operational processes run smoothly.
• Work closely with the finance team to ensure smooth compensation, onboarding and offboarding processes.
• Maintain the integrity of our People Ops data, ensuring employee privacy and that we meet compliance standards.
• Create and lead people-related projects including mental health & wellbeing, diversity & inclusion, professional development, L&D, tools, and compensation and benefits
• Work with external HR consultants to ensure that our contracts, processes and policies are legally compliant in our countries of incorporation
• Develop a data-informed approach to people operations and use this to drive improvements across the business.
• Develop automated and self-service processes that can be run by leaders and managers.

Requirements

• 5+ years of experience in a People Operations/HR role
• 3+ years experience in a fully distributed company
• Line management experience
• Leadership experience (desirable, but not essential)
• You should have knowledge of UK HR legislation and practices (CIPD desirable but not required)
• You have worked with fully distributed teams across different time zones and regions, including an understanding of the complexities of remote working practices
• You are comfortable with Cloud-based tools including Bob, Slack, Zoom, Google Drive, and Culture Amp
• You’re familiar with asynchronous working practices and are as comfortable communicating through blog posts or issue tracker as you are on a Zoom call or in Slack
• You can define and embed scalable HR processes, and work to continuously improve those processes
• You have impeccable attention to detail and understand the importance of smooth HR processes to employee experience
• You have experience managing the full employee lifecycle, onboarding, offboarding, performance management, professional development, and rewards
• You love working with managers to help them solve the people issues they face.

Benefits

• Salary range: £45,000 - £55,000 or local equivalent
• Flexible working
• Enhanced parental leave
• 35 days holiday
• Sickness and carers leave
• Company retreat
• Ability to attend conferences
• Monthly remote working allowance
• Work wherever you want
• New mobile phone, computer and office equipment when you need it
• Be part of a company that cares about building a great culture.

We strongly encourage you to learn more about the hiring process in the Handbook before applying on the following links:

The Hiring Process: What to Expect

Pre-Application Checklist

Your Application: Outcome and Feedback

*Human Made is a remote and globally distributed organization. However, due to the remote nature of our team, we can’t provide any legal sponsorship to attain a work visa or permit in your country of residence, nor in any of the countries where we operate. We strongly advise you to seek legal counsel to ensure your residential status is fully legal before you apply.