HR Operations Manager

As an HR Operations Manager, you will own the day-to-day relationships for a portfolio of high-growth startups, serving as each client’s primary point of contact and trusted HR partner. You will stay closely connected to client needs, anticipate priorities, and ensure they receive responsive, high-quality support.

Reporting to the HR Director, you will lead a team of HR Generalists and Philippines-based HR Specialists responsible for onboarding, employee changes, benefits administration, payroll support, recordkeeping, and other core HR operations. You will set priorities, delegate work, remove roadblocks, and provide the oversight needed to ensure the team’s work is accurate, timely, and consistent.

You'll be the voice on the client calls. When a founder wants to terminate someone in California next week, when a client hires their first employee in New York, when a harassment complaint lands with no precedent behind it — that's your call to lead to lead your team to the right decision.

If you have built or managed an HR function in a fast-growing organization, this role offers the opportunity to apply that experience across a portfolio of companies, with a team to lead and support.

What makes this role different

• Direct management responsibility. You’ll lead and develop a distributed HR team, set priorities, delegate work, provide feedback, and address performance concerns when needed.
• Ownership of client relationships. You’ll serve as the primary HR contact for founders and client leadership, providing practical guidance and taking responsibility for the quality and timeliness of the team’s work.
• Broad compliance exposure. You’ll support clients across multiple states, including California, New York, Washington, and Colorado, as well as international contractors and EOR arrangements.
• Clear boundaries around legal matters. You’ll be expected to recognize when an issue falls outside the scope of HR guidance and advise the client to consult qualified employment counsel.
• A collaborative way of working. Client communications, documents, and processes are shared across the team to support visibility, review, feedback, and continuous learning.

What you'll own

The team

• Lead a team of HR Generalists who oversee the day-to-day work of our Philippines-based HR Specialists.
• Assign client coverage, set priorities across the portfolio, and manage capacity.
• Review important work before it goes to a client, including agreements, filings, handbooks, and payroll output.
• Coach and develop the people under you, including performance conversations and hiring input.
• Build and improve the processes, templates, and playbooks the team uses.

The client relationship

• Serve as the main point of contact for founders and client leadership.
• Lead recurring client calls and stay informed about each client’s priorities and upcoming needs.
• Handle the escalations your team can't resolve, and know which ones should never reach them in the first place.
• Translate risk into decisions a founder can actually make.

Compliance and risk(you own the outcome; your team does much of the execution)

• Federal, state, and applicable international employment compliance across the client portfolio.
• Keep the team on top of contract renewals, policy deadlines, filing dates, and other compliance deadlines.
• Government reporting and registrations, including EEO-1, ACA, and state registrations.
• Set the standards for employment agreements, offer letters, separation agreements, and policy documents; provide final approval and personally draft more complex documents when needed.
• Oversee the implementation and ongoing maintenance of employee handbooks, state addenda, and required compliance notices.
• Workers’ compensation, EPLI, and other employment-related insurance programs.

Employee relations(this one stays with you)

• Conduct workplace investigations and prepare documentation that holds up under scrutiny
• Guide clients through performance management, accommodations, leave, and terminations
• Support client managers through difficult conversations without taking the conversation from them

What you'll bring

Required

• 6+ years in HR operations, compliance, or a senior generalist role, including at least 2 years directly managing or reviewing the work of other HR professionals
• Client-facing or multi-entity experience — consulting, outsourced HR, PEO, or a multi-entity corporate role. You'll be advising people who don't report to you and can overrule you.
• Demonstrated multi-state compliance ownership, including California
• Experience conducting workplace investigations and documenting them
• Hands-on background across the full stack your team runs — payroll, onboarding, benefits, PEO, HRIS. You won't do most of it day to day, but you'll review all of it, and you can't review what you've never done.
• The ability to run a client call alone and hold the room when the answer isn't good news
• SHRM-CP, SHRM-SCP, PHR, or SPHR
• Uses good judgment to make informed decisions and recognize when an issue should be escalated.
• Possesses strong professional judgment, makes informed decisions, and recognizes when matters should be escalated or delegated.

Strongly preferred

• Experience managing offshore or distributed teams
• PHR-CA or California-specific compliance depth
• Startup or VC-backed client experience
• International employment, EOR, or global contractor exposure
• Leave administration depth — FMLA, state leave programs, ADA interactive process
• Bachelor's degree in HR, business, or a related field

Compensation and benefits

$115,000 – $125,000, depending on experience, location, and qualifications.

• Health, dental, vision with employer contributions
• 401(k) with employer match
• Paid Time Off
• Fully remote role
• SHRM or HRCI recertification support and professional development budget

Originally posted on Himalayas