Senior People Partner (CX)

 

About Gusto

Gusto is a modern, online people platform that helps small businesses take care of their teams. On top of full-service payroll, Gusto offers health insurance, 401(k)s, expert HR, and team management tools. Today, Gusto offices in Denver, San Francisco, and New York serve more than 400,000 businesses nationwide.

Our mission is to create a world where work empowers a better life, and it starts right here at Gusto. That’s why we’re committed to building a collaborative and inclusive workplace, both physically and virtually. Learn more about our Total Rewards philosophy. 

About the Role:

This role is ideal for a People Partner who thrives in dynamic environments and is energized by the opportunity to influence both strategic and tactical work. As Gusto continues to scale, we’re looking for a Senior People Partner to support one of our largest and most complex organizations—Customer Experience (CX). This includes high-volume, distributed, and non-exempt teams where the work is fast-paced and requires operational rigor. 

In this highly visible role, you'll operate at the intersection of business strategy and people execution, serving as a trusted advisor to senior leaders across CX. You'll lead initiatives in org design, change management, and talent strategy within a fast-paced, high-volume operational environment, while coaching across levels and functions. This role demands agility, systems thinking, and the ability to navigate empathy between strategic perspective, hands-on impact, and high-urgency moments.

As a strategic partner, you'll collaborate across People functions to design integrated solutions that align with business goals. You'll lead initiatives that elevate performance, scale leadership, and enhance the CX employee experience with minimal oversight.

This is a unique opportunity to shape core people strategies within one of Gusto’s most critical organizations driving growth, strengthening engagement, and scaling leadership across the company.

About the Team:

Gusto's People team is growing and scaling with the company! As our business scales and becomes more complex, and as we add hundreds of new Gusties each year, we need to ensure that our strategies for engagement with our employees are positive, engaging, values-driven and compliant.

Here’s what you’ll do day-to-day:

• Act as a strategic advisor and thought partner to business leaders, helping them navigate performance management, team effectiveness, and leadership development.
• Support organizational design and workforce planning initiatives by assessing capabilities, identifying talent gaps, and helping to implement people plans.
• Guide teams through change management efforts, helping them adapt to evolving structures, roles, or processes in a compliant and empathetic way.
• Champion an inclusive and equitable employee experience by advocating for representation, trust, and fairness, particularly across operational and dispersed teams.
• Partner with Invite, Talent Development, Compensation, Benefits, ER, and Legal to implement cohesive people strategies aligned to business goals.
• Use people data and insights to support decision-making, monitor progress, and iterate on existing practices.
• Navigate complex and sensitive people situations, applying sound judgment and collaboration to reach aligned outcomes.

Here’s what we're looking for:

• 7–10 years of progressive HR/People Partner experience, with at least 3–5 years in strategic HRBP roles. Experience supporting high-volume, operational, or customer-facing teams (e.g., contact centers, sales, or field ops) is strongly preferred.
• Strategic business partner mindset with the ability to align People strategies to business goals and translate complexity into clear, actionable plans.
• Strong organizational design and change leadership skills, with a proven track record of helping teams navigate growth, restructuring, or role clarity work in dynamic environments.
• Fluency in non-exempt labor laws, compliance requirements, and employee relations, particularly in distributed and hourly-heavy teams.
• Experience coaching and influencing senior leaders, providing grounded, practical guidance rooted in trust, business acumen, and empathy.
• Data-driven approach to workforce planning, performance, and engagement—comfortable using analytics to inform decisions and measure impact.
• Collaborative, systems thinker with experience partnering cross-functionally with Talent Development, Invite, Compensation, Benefits, DEIB, and ER to implement cohesive, scalable solutions.
• Cultural humili