Manager, People OperationsNewUnited States of America (Brooklyn)

Manager, People Operations

GiveWell is a research organization that identifies and funds cost-effective giving opportunities, focusing on global health and well-being. Our work is funded by tens of thousands of donors who rely on our research to inform their giving. We've grown from raising $1.5 million annually in 2010 to raising ~$350 million in 2024.

We're hiring a Manager of People Operations to own our HRIS and employee data, bring our payroll administration in house, manage relationships with our benefits vendors, and support our team members through the entire employee lifecycle. You'll be a member of our People team, reporting to our Head of People and managing an Operations Specialist.

Why is GiveWell hiring for this position now? GiveWell's work aims to save and improve the lives of people around the world. We couldn't do that without a high-performing team, and we know that exceptional performance requires systems that eliminate rather than create cognitive load. We're creating this role to bring our HRIS, benefits management, and all people operations systems in house. We think it takes substantial talent to develop and maintain reliable, effective people ops systems, and we're hoping to find an experienced manager who loves their craft and wants to build something for the long-term.

You'll do the following types of activities in this role :

• Evaluate our current HRIS and recommend a path forward. Because we have relied on Employers of Record for some of our full-time employees, we don't currently have a centralized source of truth for our employee base. We're hoping you'll move us to a unified HRIS and clean up our employee data, giving us a single source of truth. Ideally, we'd like a HRIS that integrates with the rest of our People tech stack (including Lattice, Greenhouse, and Ethena).
• Ensure legal compliance in our current and future employment jurisdictions. We have small offices in Oakland, Brooklyn, and London, and remote staff spread across the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. We'd like to ensure that we remain legally compliant in all of our current jurisdictions and that we're able to bring on talent from other international jurisdictions in the future. Legal compliance will include completing employment tax filings, owning our visa sponsorship process for employees wishing to relocate to the United States, leading employee relations investigations, and owning all other People policies.
• Bring payroll in-house. We currently employ an HR vendor to manage our payroll, HRIS, and onboarding / offboarding logistics, in collaboration with our finance team. We want you to bring each of those tasks in house and fully manage our payroll process.
• Benefits administration. Oversee and administer our benefits offerings (including open enrollment) across all jurisdictions to ensure compliance and equity and ensure that we continue to maintain strong benefits that attract and retain top talent.
• Own end-to-end onboarding and offboarding processes. Own our employee onboarding and offboarding processes. Set up new hires (and their managers) for success by creating and executing a new hire journey that is compliant, frictionless, and thoughtful. Build onboarding processes that help people get up to speed quickly, knocks out all the necessary paperwork and logistics, and fosters connection to the team and culture. For departing employees, create smooth exit processes that maintain good relationships and capture valuable feedback.
• Audit and manage our external People vendors. We've used the same vendors since our team was much smaller. Some of them have adapted to our needs, but we're long overdue for a comprehensive audit of all vendors' fit for our growing needs. You'll own People vendor relationships and ensure that we're receiving excellent customer service.
• Support People team initiatives. As a member of the People leadership team, you'll support People-related initiatives, including things like employee rewards philosophy and execution, manager and employee training, reporting of People metrics and more. Over time, certain items may transition to your ownership, including, but not limited to, the performance review process.
• Carrying GiveWell's culture. You'll support a strong culture by modeling truth-seeking, transparency and candid feedback.

The strongest candidates will bring five or more years of experience with owning people operations, payroll and benefits, and HRIS management. We're also targeting hiring someone with prior people management experience. In addition to the right experience, we'll be looking for someone with the following characteristics :

We expect you might want to know the answers to the following questions before you apply.

What is GiveWell's culture like? GiveWell has a distinct and unique culture that's influenced by our values of maximizing global well-being, transparency, truth-seeking, and emphasizing considerateness. Here are a few examples of our values in action :

What's the career trajectory of this role? You'll be helping to shape our people operations, and with that comes an exciting opportunity for career growth. Strong performers at GiveWell identify problems, propose solutions, and own company-wide initiatives. Your growth will be tied directly to the impact you create, with significant exposure to executive leadership. We can't promise a traditional ladder, but excellent work gets noticed, resourced, and rewarded.

What is the current People team structure? Our Head of People currently manages a Manager of Talent Acquisition and several junior staff. We're planning to further develop our management structure by hiring this role. You can see more on current People team members here.

What are some reasons this role might not be a strong fit? This role requires someone who genuinely enjoys individual contributor workyou'll own the full cycle of payroll, benefits, and HRIS tasks personally. If you're at a point in your career where you want to focus primarily on management and strategy rather than hands-on execution, this role probably won't be the right fit.

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